All right time to get back on track and discuss layout design. For those of you that enjoyed the discussion brought on by the last couple posts fear not there are probably plenty more topics I can stir the pot on. The point of the last post was to start a discussion and I feel that the discussion went well. So many times in life we have one view point jammed down our throats and this is true of our hobby as well. Opposing views are something ee shouldnt shy away from or censor but rather hear out. Even if the other person is completely wrong we can usually find something positive in their viewpoint, even if it is more evidence that we are correct in our view.
So getting back to the YPG Lines, as stated previously I have finished the track plan for the million dollar layout and am now working on cleaning it up so it can be posted. This however takes time and as we know hobby time is precious. The last month has seen the start of the school year and as the spouse of a teacher it means there are many nights where I have to just git er done in terms of the household. Multitasking is not really my thing so getting our kindergartner to do her homework (yes you read that right), dinner on the table, everything prepped for the next day and the kid to bed is exhausting to say the least. Add to that my 50+ hour a week schedule which is working overnight, sometimes on my days off I just dont want to do anything and that includes hobbies.
I have also been trying to organize the spare bedroom which houses my hobby work area as well as a lot of my gear for work. It also seems to be the defacto storage room when the wife decides to have company, so needless to say there was/is a lot of junk in there.
Last month was also my 10th wedding anniversary and so what little hobby time I had got devoted to that. No I did not give my wife a train for our anniversary however I did put the woodworking skills I have learned through this hobby to good use.
Finally writting this blog takes time, I am not complaining but rather offering insight into why it is taking me so long to publish the track plan.
So what lessons did I learn this time around, other than getting clubbed over the head by a few lessons from previous phases that hadn't sunk in.
So with out further ado here, in no particular order, are the lessons learned in the planning of phase 3:
It always looks better in your head
Track plans always look better in your head before they are bogged down by such irritating constraints such as maximum footprint, minimum radius, aisle width etc... we can come up with some elaborate ideas in our head but until we put them on paper we dont see where they dont work.
Sometimes putting them on paper isnt enough either, when I was doing track plans with pencil and paper it was easy to cheat and make it fit. Using CAD has definately helped lower the number of times something was made to fit but does not eliminate it.
I had a very nice idea for how I would utilize the wasted space inside a turnback curve, however when put on paper it took more space than it actually saved. The phase 3 that made the final million dollar plan is much reduced from what I had envisioned, and that has given rise to the 1.5 Million and 2 Million dollar track plans. Stay tuned.
Triple check your clearances especially in aisle
I think last time I said double check your clearances, well I learned that perhaps we need to triple or even quadruple check them. Despite my best efforts I still found areas where my aisle pinchpoints were way too narrow.
Have a good idea of operations before you start
For the most part I just followed the track arrangement Southern Pacific had in place however when planning the few urban areas it would have been nice to have more information on the local operations and industries. I managed to find a 1981 SPINS book for the Phoenix Sub in the collection at the California State Railroad Museum and this yielded a plethora of information that I did not know.
It also left me with a ton more questions, such as what type of cars service a Nuclear Power Plant and what do they haul? I am still attempting to locate a SPINS book for the Gila Sub however there is more anecdotal evidence available on this subdivision than the Phoenix Subdivision. Unfortunately the information for Roll AZ and Wellton AZ appear to have been ommited from the Phoenix Sub SPINS book despite all or part of that location being on the Phoenix Sub.
Color code early and often
Finally color code your track plan early and often, most of the clean up work I have to do involves color coding as right now the plan is a bunch of black lines of the same width making it hard for someone unfamiliar with the plan to decifer it. I am working on making all the lines representing backdrop blue. And using the layout edge tool to mark the edge of the layout instead of the lines I used to mark the aisles for reference while planning.
The one downside is I have not figured out how to round corners with this tool, so claritys sake for now the corners will be angular with the understanding that they could be rounded during construction.
So those were the lessons learned this time, I am sure there will continue to be new lessons on each step of the journey, but hey that is what makes this fun.
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