Givens and Druthers Dos

Operational givens and druthers

We talked previously about design givens and druthers I have been employing  on the YPG Lines. This week I want to discuss operational givens and druthers, or how I feel the railroad should run.  There are as many different views on what is required for operations as there are model railroaders (maybe more actually as some people seem to hold multiple opinions and waffle between them). So without further ado lets get to the topic at hand.

Long trains

One of the hallmarks of the Southern Pacific was long heavy trains with gigantic locomotive lash ups. Most people are familiar with these trains lumbering over Donner Pass or creeping around Tehachapi Loop at Walong. These trains were also present on the Sunset Route however, with the exception of a few locations, these trains sprinted across the desert. The ore train was 100 cars albeit 26 footers and the iconic beet trains were atleast that many cars long. Five or six locomotives on the point was not out of the norm especially when running four axle power.  I wanted to capture the flavor of this so I set my average train length to 25 cars although since the cars on the ore train are shorter it will most likely be 50 cars. Some trains will be longer and others shorter and most of the sidings will accept a 25 car train and associated motive power and caboose. For interest a 30 car train could be run requiring either the shorter train to take the siding or for a saw by to occur any time a meet was made.  This along with a couple sidings that would be on the short side would definately keep the dispatcher on their toes.  These trains should have ample length to convey the feeling of long trains while still being managable.  There will be some shorter trains especially when the era is flexed to post 1988 as Sprint Trains began to be utilized for some TOFC traffic. The 20 car Sprint trains will be between 7 and 10 cars long in model form.

Long mainling run

In order to show case these long trains I wanted a long mainline run with measurable distance between actual towns.  Switching is not really my cup of tea so I wanted to keep switching to a reasonable amount and prototypically based. There will be no "switching problems" as most prototypes tried to avoid complicated moves whenever possible, time spent on complicated moves is time not spent moving goods over the road.  While the sidings can be close together I tried to keep actual population centers a fair distance apart.

Convey the remoteness

One of the things that drew me to model this area was the desert scenery. I liked the remoteness of the area and trains sprinting across the desert not having to slow for towns. To convey this I omitted towns before I ommitted sidings from the track plan. Redundant sidings were however eliminated and only those with some form of scenic componant or operational quirk were kept. One thing I like about modeling the desert is there are many areas where you can see both ends of a train at the same time, this means that view blocks are not as important as they are on a traditional layouts. However it also means that the model will have more curvature than the prototype in order to fit in the layout space.

Mountain grade

I have always liked mountain railroading as it is what I grew up watching. it is amazing to see a massive train fighting gravity and clawing for every inch and I feel it is the essence of railroading.  Including a mountain grade has always been important to me. There is a slight grade between Yuma and Tucson amd some small "mountains" but not what I would consider a mountain railroad.  With the addition of Beaumont Hill to the layout I was able to include a mountain grade. Between West Colton and Tucson the railroad climbs to around 2605 feet above sea level at Apex then drops to around 200 feet below sea level at Ferrum before the gradual climb out to Tucson at 2389 feet above sea level. I feel this mix of terrain will greatly enhance the operational feel of the layout.

Helper operations

While I really wanted a mountain grade I felt it would be even cooler if helper operations could be included.  Helper operations on both sides is a bonus and thats what Beaumont Hill offers.  As stated earlier I prefer mainline operations to yard operations and I feel the addition and subtraction of helpers would definately substitute for any percieved lack of operations brought on by the minimal switching on the layout.

Realistic Operations

While this appears at the bottom of the list realistic operations is important to me.  That said I am not instituting TTO ops just for the sake of doing so.  I feel many in the operations community are dismisive and demeaning when talking about track warrant operations even to the point of referring to it as "mother may I?" I feel if you are a prototype modeler and what you are modeling used track warrants during the time frame you model, so should you. Either that or get off your high horse on some other topics.

The subdivisions modeled on the proposed YPG Lines layout used a variety of operating schemes depending on where one was.  I believe the Phoenix Sub used track warrants (along with semaphores), while the Yuma and Gila Subs primarily used CTC, although there were some sections of two main track that were directional running with ABS and a provision for running against the flow of traffic.

I think that by following these guidelines a very enioyable railroad can be constructed.  But most importantly it is a layout I will enjoy constructing and operating and isnt that the bottom line.

Revisiting givens and druthers

A few months ago about the time I started questioning pursuing the AP program I was looking at the layout and had the realization that the area of the layout devoted to Yuma was almost half the foot print of the layout. While I had a fairly faithful recreation of 1981 Yuma the layout was very heavy on switching which is not exactly my favorite part of the hobby. 

I like getting trains over the mainline, as well as watching the trains roll through realistic scenery.  At this point it dawned on me that while I want other people to enjoy my layout, I needed to remember who exactly I was planning this for.

At this point I decided to re-examine my givens and druthers or more importantly what was important to me.  There are really two types of givens and druthers, operational and design elements. Lets look at the design elements first.

1. Broad curves.

I felt setting a minimum radius of 40 inches for mainline and 30 inches in yards and on branchlines was appropriate.

For industrial trackage the radius is a bit more flexinle as I think some of then get down to 18 inches but I tried to stay around 24 inches.  Also the legs of wyes that are mostly cosmetic in nature are tighter than minimum radius.

2 Wide aisles

Like many model railroaders I am not a small person.  So I figured that there needed to be room for someone larger than me in the aisles.  I set a minimum aisle width of 30 inches as that is the width of a standard residential door.  For the most part I think I have been able to stick to this with most aisles being atleast 36 inches (3 feet) wide with several areas being even wider. I tried to make wide spots in the aisle where multiple operators may need to pass one another.  I also have tried to make any access hatches or holes a minimum of 30 inches by 30 inches as well.

3. Layout height

For the most part the layout will have all sceniced portions atleast 50 inches from the floor.  The staging yards will be set at whatever height works best.  There will also be some portions where the layout is higher than 50 inches, but this will only be in mainline segments that do not require switching. I have not decided as of yet but the Yuma area might be lower as well as the yard configuration requires some long reaches.

4. Reach distance and shelf depth

The maximum reach length in the layout should be no more than 30 inches. Any areas that have a longer reach will require additional access. It is for this reason Yuma was designed to be operational from both sides. Most yards will be around 24 inches deep, single track mainline sections will be around 12 inches deep.  Sidings and double track will be around 18 inches deep.

5. Limit duck unders

At 6 foot 3 inches I really dislike duck unders as I have a propensity to ding my dome. There are only a couple locations that would require crossing to the other side of the layout however I have tried to address this in a couple ways. Where possible a raised floor will be utilized under the layout to provide a pit for extra head clearance.

On lesser used portions swing bridges could be utilized.  Although through past experience the more you use a lift out or swing out section the less reliably it stays in alignment. Therefore where this method is utilized, the normal position will need to be open thus dictating use in lower traffic areas such as branch lines and staging.

6 where possible round corners of benchwork

Ok I lied, this last criteria isnt about my wants and needs, probably why its at the bottom.  Rather this is in here to keep Lionel Strang happy and avoid becoming a target of one of his rants (ketchup on the hotdog rant was bad enough, which is funny because I really only eat my hotdogs that way to piss off "purists", so I guess it had its desired effect).

I have always been a proponent of function over fashion or as we dubbed it in college FOF (long story). I do however understand the idea of making something aesthetically pleasing but realize that this criteria is subjective to the viewer. So where feasible I will round the corners of the benchwork, however if a few places have an angle instead of a curve I am not going to lose sleep over it.

Well I have gone on long enough for today on this topic. I will continue this journey with a discussion of operational givens and druthers in a future post. 

Recently I have been trying to organize my hobby workspace and all my trains in the hope that I can get back to some tangible model railroading. I have also been trying to make it to atleast one work session a week on the club layout, so if the posts stay shorter just know it is in hope of getting to use hobby time for actual modeling. But hey its just another side trip on this journey.

Lessons learned from Phase 2

One might think that after learning all those lessons on phase 1 that there would be very few lessons that could be learned in subsequent phases.  This might be true if the phases were identical in form and function, but phase 1 was a branchline and switching theme and phase 2 is a mainline running theme. Phase 2 and three are very similar so there will hopefully not be as many lessons learned.
 

That said I am a firm believer in the idea that if you aren't learning something you are doing it wrong.  I have often said the day I think I know everything about my job and there is nothing to learn is the day I need to retire. The same is true for the hobby as when there is nothing to learn the challenge is gone and the challenge is half the fun.  So lets not look at these lessons as mistakes but rather teachable moments. When I am tasked with training a new coworker one of the first things I tell them is do not be afraid to make a mistake, it is only a f@#* up if you fail to learn from it. So lets get to the lessons I learned on this phase of planning.

1. Start at the end/beginning

For this track plan I started on phase 1 which is effectively the middle of the track plan. This meant that decisions were made early on that negatively effected both phase 2 and phase 3. For example a turnback curve being placed that made an area of phase 2 almost impossible without wasting a ton of space. I somewhat remedied this in the second iteration of this track plan which was created when I transferred the drawings to the CAD program as I started at the west end and worked east. On one of the alternative plans that is in the future I think I am going to lay out the staging yards at both ends then work from one end to connect them.

2. Know your staging requirements

When I started this I did not know how big the staging yards would need to be. While I had a rough idea, when I started actually looking I realized that I needed twice as many tracks on the west end than I originally thought. This left me trying shoehorn the tracks in while still maintaining standards. I got around this with a split level staging yard using the top level for departures and the bottom for recieving. Of course this means that there must be an operator to move trains from one level to the other during an op session but thats a small sacrifice.

3. Think vertically

This applies to the staging but also to one turnback curve. If you utilize grades properly you can tuck things under another level. This is especially true if the lower area will be unsceniced. This thought also applies to the use of a mezzanine for phase 3 as this allowed for more freedom and space for the design of phase three. However this also means one needs to think of vertical clearances but that is more of a concern for phase 3. A longer mainline run and more staging was achieved by thinking vertically and looking where levels could overlap.

4. Watch your aisle width

I think this is rather self explanatory and no matter how many times you tell yourself to stick to a standard width, the temptation to cheat will always be there. But also double check your aisles at multiple points especially between turnback curves.  I had to re-layout some curves when I went to draw the fascia or backdrop due to clearances being tighter than planned.

Hopefully the list of lessons learned in phase 3 will be smaller but having already started the planning I somehow doubt that will be the case. Till the next stop enjoy the journey.