The Mill Loop

[Tad_T]

Now that my living situation has changed, I have room for a workbench and some time to start to do some modeling again.



I haven't been able to have a layout for quite some time. I will eventually have a much larger available space but that is not going to be today. I now have room for an HCD layout, so I am going to have one. This will be a "For Now" layout. I am not sure how long "For Now" will be.

The Georgia Pacific mills in Crossett, Arkansas are the reason that the Ashley Drew & Northern ever was. At one time, this was the largest forest products complex in the United States.

This is a map from a 1981 Model Railroader article by Terry Holley.



I was looking around online for ideas and found this Kato Unitrack track plan for the Chicago Crossing RR on Steve's Trains.



https://www.steves-trains.com/post/n-scale-track-plans

More info on the Chicago Crossing RR can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/@ChicagoCrossingRR

I was looking at that track plan and thinking that I have quite a bit of Unitrack.

I came up with this:



I know that it is not exactly the same, but it is almost close. At least as close as I can come to figuring out how to model the Mill Loop on an HCD.

I am open to feedback, suggestions, discussion, constructive criticism, and whatever else.

I am throwing myself under the @$$hat bus.

But as Givens, it will be on a 36"x80" door, and I am using Kato Unitrack.  I have all of the pieces. I have some ideas to improve the looks. My plan is that this be a learning and improving layout.

And I wanna JFRTM. It has been way too long.

Tad

[nkalanaga]

Go for it!  If nothing else, when you do have room for a bigger layout, you'll already have the buildings.

[NorthWestGN]

It’s unitrack right? Try one of your plans, tape it down, build some cardboard structure mock-ups and run some trains…try to switch cars, you’ll soon know what will work and what won’t, then change it up, that’s the beauty of this stuff, right?

I’m envious, my changes involve a lot of sawdust, cork dust and slivers…

[Ed Kapuscinski]

May I humbly recommend simplifying significantly.

If that's your space, reaching switches in the back, and the coupling/uncoupling that will happen with them, is going to be a pain in the a$$.

You also don't REALLY need all that track to have fun.

[Tad_T]

May I humbly recommend simplifying significantly.

If that's your space, reaching switches in the back, and the coupling/uncoupling that will happen with them, is going to be a pain in the a$$.

You also don't REALLY need all that track to have fun.

I may wind up doing that, Ed.

The space that was shown is just my desk/workbench area.

Where the layout is going to be located I actually can have 360 degree access. I am trying to use this as a "proof of concept" for what it might be like to model the Mill Loop on the end of a peninsula. The mills would be the hub of the "big" layout if that gets to where it would be possible. Basically what is shown is a scaled down version of the industrial switching area portion of the proposed "big" layout.

I want to see how it works and whether I can model it and if it would be fun to operate. It may wind up sucking and I may modify it, or take it all apart, or maybe not.  That's why I would rather try it on a door with Unitrack before committing to building something based on it.

Thanks for the suggestions,

Tad

[Chris333]

Looks like a bunch of track, but so does the real thing.

[basementcalling]

Nice idea. I would explore what you can do with at least a couple major buildings ON a photo realistic backdrop if you can visit the actual location or get usable pictures somehow. Mill buildings in particular are massive and dominate the trains in a way hard to convey in such a limited space and still have room for tracks. You could also run a  row of low trees between a small yard and a building on the backdrop and switch the yard in spot order pretending another shift moves the cars to the actual locations in the mill and brings out empties.

Are you going to try to model a little of each area of the complex or pick one part to represent with the rest off the layout in some form of staging?

[wm3798]

Fixed it.


All the complex switching and 0-5-0 uncoupling is at the front edge
The yard tracks are stubbed so the switches are closer to you... add bumpers at the end.
The old run around track becomes a place to stage the next batch of cars coming from the fifth dimension,  so you'd have two turnouts to wire.
The new run around track is where you can get at it.

All the mill scenery, interesting buildings, etc. can clutter up the sidings and the middle.

You'll obviously have to geometry check this sketch, but you should be able squeeze that out pretty close. 

You won't be running the Big Boy and long passenger trains, but that doesn't appear to be part of your scope.

Now go build it.
Lee

[Chris333]

This brings up an important question. Who is making N scale merry go rounds these days? 

[wm3798]

This brings up an important question. Who is making N scale merry go rounds these days? 

I was going to suggest a ski slope, but I remembered that the locale might not be the right climate zone for such diversions.

How about adding a 30 degree crossing?


Doodles Weldon

[wazzou]

This brings up an important question. Who is making N scale merry go rounds these days? 

Kibri, Vollmer or Faller would be my guess?

[peteski]

This brings up an important question. Who is making N scale merry go rounds these days? 

The only realistic N scale merry-go-round or carousel (depending on which way it is rotating) with animated horses was made by IHC.  Long out of production, but they do occasionally show up on eBay. It would look great on a middle of a swamp!    The others mentioned have a European flavor.

[Tad_T]

Guys,

I typed up a big response last night. As I was reviewing it, we lost internet service.

Our service just came back up.

I have too much to do today to be able to recreate my post now.

Is there a way to save a draft in progress?

Thanks,

Tad

[reinhardtjh]

Is there a way to save a draft in progress?

Copy it to a text editor program - Notepad or Wordpad or Word (Windows), Textedit (Mac), vi (Linux) and save it there for later.  I sometimes start out in an editor if it's going to be a complicated post.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

When I start writing a long one I'll often do it in a text editor (I use those a lot) then just paste it in when I'm done for this very reason.