Expanding the footprint again?

While Not as big as the Everett plant, Boeings Renton plant is still impressive.  Boeing photo 

So when I started this endeavor I had no set space in mind for the layout and I was going to let this grow organically.  I soon realized that this was a bad idea as I was not trying to compress anything including buildings. So I then decided to pick a arbitrary dimensions and assume that I could get an unobstructed layout space in those dimensions. Did I mention I am not an architect or structural engineer?

So my arbitrary demensions may just be wishfull thinking, however after coming to the realization that where I am currently living and where I am planning on living in the future basements are not that common so it meant thinking outside the box. The box of course being the confines of the house, this lead to the consideration of an outbuilding. Now once again I am not an architect however I do have some experience working in steel buildings and know that a large unobstructed open layout space is possible. Now we are back in business!

So my initial plan was a buliding housing a 50 foot by 40 foot layout space.  After mocking up the Yuma area I realized even with compression I wasnt going to get much more than Yuma into that space. So the layout expanded to 40x70 but this too seemed too small to fit much more than the Yuma to Wellton section and the Somerton Branch into that space. So it was decided that I needed to expand again to include some if not all of the Yuma Sub.

So it was decided that I would confine my design to a 40x100 foot space. Now one would think since I was designing this in phases I would divide that space in half and devote equal space to each phase. Now why would I do something intelligent like that? So I cheated a bit and borrowed space for phase 1 from phase 2,  it was only 18 feet whose going to notice? We will get back to that.

So as I was finishing phase 1 I realized that the 40 foot dimension would not give me enough room for stacked and staggered turn back curves and that only doing one curve would be a huge waste of space. So the layout space got expanded again by 10 feet to accomodate the turn back curve and a crew lounge. So now we are at 50x100 feet.

At this point I had moved on to planning phase 2 and I quickly realized that the 18 feet I had borrowed for phase 1 really hurt. Phase 2 is a long mainline portion of the layout and the space for it was smaller than that alloted for the Yuma area. Infact there was not enough room for any passing sidings of proper length after the first turnback curve. So I expanded the footprint one more time and got that 18 feet plus two more back. So now the footprint is 50x120 feet, still smaller than the 747 assembly building but still a very large building none the less.

So I went forward with the track plan and managed to fit a fair representation of the line into the given space. That is until I realized that a reverse loop and staging would eat up a huge chunk of real estate. After toying around with some track arrangements I realized that I did not have the necessary room to build the size staging yard I needed and still maintain easy accessiblity and minimum curve radius.

At this point what do I do?

 I had already expanded the footprint of the layout so much that I have nicknamed it the million dollar layout, so I wasnt sure I wanted to expand it any more.  This turned into a roadblock for a good week or so and I was contemplating throwing in the towel and starting over.

Now the beauty of my job is many times I have many nights where I am left alone to my thoughts while I am working. I also have a 20 minute commute home and since I work the opposite shift of most people, my commute home is fairly routine so I can think over things on the way home, and thats when the idea hit me. I had already borrowed space from phase 2 for phase 1 why not return the favor. Also I was planning on going up for phase 3 why not go down for phase 1.

Phase 1 has a reverse loop and a provision for a helix to stage three. This is a lot of space that is taken up and unusable for sceniced portions of the layout.   My idea was what if I use the vertical space under the helix for a turn back curve into staging?  I had already planned to build phase 1 on a raised floor to eliminate a duck under in Yuma by way of stairs and a passageway underneath the bench work at the bridge over the Colordo River (this also gives me an excuse to model that bridge closer to actual size).

So I did some rough calculations and determined that the height of the raised floor to allow for passage under the layout without ducking would be about the height of my benchwork for phase 2 with the phase 1 benchwork roughly 50 inches above that.  This is plenty of room for an unsceniced turnback curve. This also allowed me to extend my mainline run substantially.

So now the planned staging is up against the wall but this brings up the issue of reach distances. The prototype saw an average of 40 trains a day so I needed ample staging or have an active fiddle yard. Personally I am not a fan of regularly 0-5-0ing cars off the layout as this increases the risk for damage. It also requires a dedicated operator to perform the duties of the mole. Part of the goal of this layout was to be able to operate with a skeleton crew and not be torpedoed by switching or staging for smooth operations.  So what does one do?

My answer was to turn to the prototype for guidance and I will get into how I arrived at my staging solution in another post. But the gist of it is, even if the yard is only represented by staging, staging should represent the prototype yard. For example if the prototype has 10 departure tracks you probably need 10 departure tracks.

 So I realized that my yard needed arrival tracks as well, but where to put them. Once again by thinking vertically I was able to find a spot for these tracks and a reverse loop not only to turn the trains but to allow for continous running at open houses.

So after sketching a quick proof of concept I now realized that I had such a convoluted track plan of overlapping levels that attempting to continue with pencil and paper was not only going to be cumbersome but would probably drive me insane.

Enter CAD, and while I am still learning the ins and outs of the program I chose I definately see the potential. Who knows maybe I can finally add a track plan to the page. Will I expand the layout again? I dont think so, if anything in future iterations I will be looking for ways to shrink it without loosing anything. As I have been saying this is a journey, so lets see where it takes us.