The Western Maryland in Free-moN Modules

[chessie system fan]

What's the trackplan for Hagarstown? If you do want to do it right, I'm curious how close your engine terminal track plan is to the prototype and, more importantly, whether your plan is oriented correctly in relation to the yard or if you mirrored-imaged it.

[PiperguyUMD]

Don't know if I've seen an actually track chart, but I can get the general sense from google maps and photos. In the photo below you can see the lay of the land in Hagerstown. The Shops are gone, but I've drawn in where the roundhouse and turntable were. Trains would have come in from the West (off pic, top left) and proceeded East - off to the top right. In this case I'm less concerned with following the prototype, and more concerned with a yard that helps my modules function. In other words, it doesn't bother me if someone looks at it and doesn't recognize it as Hagerstown. What I would like to do is be able to capture the feel of Hagerstown with a few staged photo angles. Does that make sense?

[chessie system fan]

I get that. Here's a yard I designed a few years ago for U18b. It remains to be seen if we'll build it. The criteria were: a roundhouse to showcase locomotives, a functional yard with inbound (the straight tracks) and outbound tracks, reachability, large turnouts (I think we used #8s), no strong parallel lines, and it had to fit our wall space plus have no duckunders.

[PiperguyUMD]

The Belle of the road showed up today! Still a few odds and ends, but WOW I'm happy with this one!

[wm3798]

So here's the original installation.






I faced a similar situation.  I found that by placing the roundhouse in the corner at the, let's call it the East end of the yard, I was able to bend the main line around behind it, with a double track main plus a controlled siding.  Then I ran all the yard leads in FRONT of the roundhouse.  This gave me a reasonably long switch lead, and a narrower shelf for the yard itself, even with large number of bowl tracks.  In my case, it was the aisle and a peninsula that was the pinch point.  I'd suggest you push the roundhouse to the right, reduce the amount of business going on behind it, and then stick to an 18" to 24" shelf for the yard.  This puts a narrower layout right where you need it to egress the Oldsmobile.

Next time you're north of the border, we can go over to see Adam's adaptation of the yard that was already collectively designed by the Railwire Brain Trust.

I wouldn't do it this week, though.  In early July, folks around Gettysburg get a little edgy when folks from South Carolina start showing up in any kind of numbers...

Lee

[wm3798]

Another major advantage of this arrangement was the easy reach to the operable tracks in the yard.  In your sketch plan, you'll be reaching over the details of the roundhouse to bump cars.  You're a skinny guy now, but that could change!  Also, with your high table height, this will magnify the problem.  Mine topped out at a relatively low 40 inches or so.  Keep that in mind.

[wm3798]

On my set up, the prototypical similarities included the sand and fuel racks east of the roundhouse, and the backshops building to the west.  The main passes behind the complex, albeit without the distinctive YD office building or Burhans Blvd. underpass.  I did squeeze in a caboose track near the Wye, (but didn't have room for the wye itself!)
I wanted a thru yard, since it was the beating heart of a division point moving traffic in four directions (Connellsville and Elkins to the west, and Lurgan and Highfield to the east)
The Terminal was designed to be functional, as well as a showcase for my decidedly pedestrian modeling efforts.  The fuel rack/ready tracks were laid out to send engines to the east or westbound ready tracks, and there were three A/D tracks that allowed for a steady flow of in and out bound trains in either direction.  You probably won't need an ops scheme that elaborate, but you'll want to be able to build a variety of trains to represent the major markets of the WM.





Like you, I couldn't replicate the actual track plan due to space limitations, but with the level of scenic treatment you are churning out, no one will have any problem figuring out what they're looking at.  It's all about the camera angles and compositions of the scenes to overcome the model railroady compromises you'll be forced to make.

Have fun with it!
Lee

[PiperguyUMD]

@chessie system fan - I hadn't considered any loop tracks, but the teardrop shape might be an excellent solution! I hope to have a decent fleet of larger steam locomotives, so larger turnouts would be nice! Do you have an idea what the width of the yard is at the widest point over the roundhouse?

@wm3798 - good points. I had been thinking about photo angles and not switching trains. Would probably also be a good idea to get the roundhouse and subsequent armada of scratch built steam as far away for the happenings in the garage as possible! I'm going to play with a couple of thoughts and check back in. Do you happen to remember roughly the distance between the back right corner and the front edge of this pic? Those look to be nice broad curves, plus building that into shelf means I don't have to use a corner module to get out of the yard!

[Caddy58]

If you're ears were burning this afternoon around 4pm eastern or so, it was because we were discussing your Sabillasville bridge module with a customer from Germany that stopped by Mainline Hobby Supply.

Everything looks great !

That was me 
And indeed the pictures look great!

Cheers
Dirk

[wm3798]

This is the staging yard that was under the roundhouse.


As I recall, there was 36" from the door frame to the corner, allowing for the ceiling slope, I'd say the ET was probably 30" from the door frame over.  To allow access to the closet, I built a drop leaf shelf that could be lowered out of the way.  That was another two feet to where it attached to the North Junction diorama/shelf bit.


This is the final track plan, but it more or less covers the ground and gives you some dimensions to play with.


That's the drop leaf.

Lee

[PiperguyUMD]

Take 2.

Likes
1) Very compact. Much more than I thought possible.
2) Roundhouse is tucked safely in the corner, as would be any servicing facilities models.
3) Operations have a nice flow - at least in my head.

Dislike
1) The spaghetti bowl of track. Probably ok, but there will be lots of big steam passing through

[mu26aeh]

I can get a rough/accurate idea of the depth there.   I performed some surgery on that end of yard but have all the pieces

[chessie system fan]

Lee's yard is the gift that keeps on giving.  My design is actually inspired by it.  @u18b would have the exact width dimensions. We designed it full scale with Fast Tracks templates and long, flexible rulers on a Christmas wrapping paper roll. The wall is actually 17 feet, so above the turntable loop there is two feet to reach the back corner.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Lee's yard is the gift that keeps on giving.  My design is actually inspired by it.  @u18b would have the exact width dimensions. We designed it full scale with Fast Tracks templates and long, flexible rulers on a Christmas wrapping paper roll. The wall is actually 17 feet, so above the turntable loop there is two feet to reach the back corner.

Lol seriously!

I'm honored to have made it part of my home for a while.

[wm3798]

I'm grateful I kept an exhaustive photographic record of it!  There's an old layout thread somewhere where we collectively designed it, but sadly most of the photo links in it are broken, so you can't see the entire evolution.

Lee