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.