Hope all had a wonderful Thanksgiving that all are in good health.

A while back Keith Stillman suggested and then spent hours helping me set up the "Follow By Email" where one enters their email and when a new post is made an announcement is automatically sent out to the recipient.  Those of you who signed up, please let me know if you got the email for this post.

Just because its been three months since the last post it doesn't mean that nothing has been done.  Besides hitting another big "0" the day after Thanksgiving:

1. Doug Berry came over to help by challenging my plans, reviewing the space and sketching out my general plans on graph paper.  He also held his tongue upon seeing the amount of train stuff in the layout area.  A valuable lesson for me was use pencil and paper to capture ideas and the computer program "paint" to show others the track plan.  While "paint" is relatively simple to use and can provide better visibility of the plan than a pencil sketch, I found myself more focused on the mechanics of moving track segments than "designing" the plan.  He left me with the challenge of working out the details for the yard.

2.  Got some track spacing dimensions from Keith Stillman on his E&P and with additional input from others, set yard track spacing at 2 1/2 inches.  Worked on a yard design and shipped pencil sketches to Bob Warren who gave good feedback.  

3. Cynthia and I have been doing some clean-up in the storage room to make that space more accessible. 

4.  I have begun separating the layout era, 1950's, specific cars from the other [almost always 1970's and newer era] cars as a start on cleaning up the train room and closet.

5.  Reviewed the plan with my sons who asked about methods of attachment of the shelves to the walls.  Initial plans are the twin track uprights [such as Rubbermaid] that accommodate twin track brackets at 1 1/1 inch increments.


6.  Sketched up the overall plan [see below] and look to you to provide input.  PLEASE REVIEW THE SKETCH AND PROVIDE COMMENTS.

Key dimensions:

Lower level 48", upper level 58" resulting in a 2.7% grade between the two.  This assumes that about three feet at each end of the grade to transition between grade and level.

Lower level main room shelf depth: 2' east and west walls, 1 1/2 ' south wall

Upper level main room shelf depth: 1' south and east walls, 1 1/2' west wall

"Blob" 3' 9" to 5' X 7' 9" of "Mushroom" design.

There are three "Foreign Railroad" [two in the closet and one under the upper end of the "No-Lex"] which provide interchange and/or run-through possibilities and/or branch lines.

 A single 12" manual turntable serves the yard.  The yard has main line, passing siding and an A-D track and 5 classification tracks.  The drill track connects to the A-D track and the ladder for the five classification tracks.

One or two yard operators, depending on session, with 3-4 operators in the main room.  The closet is an "intermediate" staging area with scenery and an operating yard.  The main room operators stay out of the closet - only observing their train go through on the upper level or run between the yard and the blob/mushroom on the lower level.  One more person/dispatcher handles staging in the storage room. 

Only the upper level crosses the door to the main room.

                                                                LOWER  LEVEL

                                                                UPPER  LEVEL
                                                                  

Next is to receive some comments  FROM   YOU  and to post the design using "paint" to make the track arrangement and fascia edge clearer.  Also, will be working on the 3D model to look at spacing of the levels and shelf depth.





   

One item brought back from Atlanta was defining the route.

The Route of the 
Virginia & Tennessee Railway    











There is insufficient space for a division point yard with associated engine facilities so the desired yard will be in Kingsport, TN, and serve the industries in the area plus the line down to Johnson City, TN, and up to coal and logging country through Gate City and Appalachia, VA.  

"Druthers" to be modeled [not all may make the final cut]:

Yard with minimum service facilities
Chemical industry [wood products based - Tennessee Chemical]
Titanium processing [American Cyanamid]
Coal and lumber
Interchanges with other railroads 
Blocks of insulated box and refrigerated box cars
Clay products [brick, pipe]
Misc small shippers/receivers
Limited passenger service
A "Y" would be nice 


The plan last posted, July 12, 2013, had the advantage of having the yard along the long open wall and still having enough distance for a 2.5% grade going to the upper level, the yard at 42" height and the upper level at the door at about 54" height.  But the problem with that plan is there would probably be nearly as many trains crossing the door at 42" as exiting the other end of the yard.  The other end of the yard would have a lot of traffic with two lines, one the 42" level and another using the "Nolix" [around the room helix] to get to the Top Level.  That plan would constitute more crossing the door at the 42" level than I hoped.  This has led to doing an elevation drawing to better see what is going where [see below].  Included in the elevation drawing is a "vertical curve" of about two and a half feet [one car length for each percent of grade] at each end of the grade.


Elevation of July 12, 2013, plan.  Going from left to right is like entering at the door and following around clockwise.  The grade going up is the "Nolex".


















Next is to investigate moving the yard so the lower level crossing of the door would rarely occur.  Possibilities include putting the yard in the closet along one of the 12' walls [leaving 6" to 10" shelf on the opposite side] and possibly having the yard at an elevation between the upper and lower levels.  Maximum number of operators in the closet would be two, operators would run their train in to the yard from outside of the closet.

Mid July was the NMRA National convention in Atlanta which I attended for the first time.  Started the trip on Friday before the convention and returned Thursday before it ended with "training" both going down and returning.  Stops included:

The stuffed and mounted steam
engines in Saltville, VA, and the little
industrial 25 ton GE in Glade Spring.

                                                                                                                 

On Saturday the state park and NS had
trains stopped for people to walk through
Natural Tunnel and photograph NS
heritage and Operation Lifesaver units.

and late that afternoon visited some
old stomping grounds, the SRy and
L&N stations in Knoxville, TN.

Sunday at the TVRM got to ride SRy 630 for the first time in over 30 years.  Didn't that bring back some memories!!  Back then worked it B-ham to Alexandria and Front Royal and return.  Not only did we use it for the public trips but took it on one political campaign and even to Warrenton to a coming out for two debutantes that was called the "Great Train Party".
 

 In Atlanta focused on layout design and operation special interest groups.  

On the Layout Design Tour we were able to get to four layouts which demonstrated various construction and layout techniques including an in progress N scale layout with a helix of over two dozen turns.  The Layout Design Boot-camp provided some new thoughts and the consulting sessions helped me to realize that I needed to clarify my concepts.  There were dozens of clinics available but attended only a few, among them were eastern logging cars, the NF&G railroad and associated logging lines and a fascinating presentation on SRy annual reports.  Failed to win anything in the silent auction, a good thing as have enough already, and saw a fascinating Gn15 layout in the contest room that takes up all of 2' X 4'.  While this little layout was a inspiration to build something, it will not serve as a diversion from building the V&T.  Also saw George Gaige's b&w model photos.  He won 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.  Congratulations George!   

Also got to operate on a great N scale layout and a wonderful N&W HO layout [photo].   On both nights got to operate with a long lost old friend from Oak Ridge who related that he had ridden the Shay powered Brimstone when he was 12 and they did a flying switch with a load of people.  Thanks to the work and hospitality of many, this was a great convention for me.


 

On the way back home stopped at the Southeastern Railway Museum with its many displays including this easy to fire Savannah and Atlanta #750 pacific

and finally finding the power for the Piedmont & Northern which is using the right-of-way originally used by the original P&N electric line.

All in all, it was a great balance between prototype and modeling railroads beautifully complimenting each other.


Reflecting on lessons learned from the "boot-camp" and LDSig consultations was to refresh myself on some of the material I already have, also more specifically define my line [such things as division yards, industries, interchanges, marshaling yards, etc], then list the signature elements to be modeled and see which ones I can reasonably fit in the space.  Methods of obtaining the grade between the two levels was discussed, horizontal and vertical easements, as well as "maximize long-term challenge, not puzzle complexity".  Where there are small spaces remember "overlapping" functions making sure there is runaround, switching leads and industry track alongside one another. 

With recovery from the trip, correcting lots of computer issues generated while trying to download some software for Proto Rail and getting this report posted behind me, it is time to start acting on the LD lessons learned.

There are additional GIVENS in the GIVENS & DRUTHERS for consideration in designing a layout:
There are three types of horizontal space in a layout room:

1]   layout including right-of-way, scenery, buildings.
2]   people space – the “average” adult is an oval 21” wide [width with hands as side] by 14” deep [this is the dimension of greatest variability depending on weight and gender].  These are minimum dimensions as operators passing each other may want/need a greater space [hopefully it is just “cheek-to-cheek” vs “belly-to-belly” or “elephant style”]. 

3]   “administrative” space along the edge of the layout which includes waybill boxes, throttle cradles, electronic push buttons and “amazing” colored knobs, shelf for beverages, paperwork, etc.


For consideration in ongoing planning, below is an update of the Bottom Level with the people [colored ovals] and administrative space [3" wide "ruler"] added.  With this additional information, the aisle in the closet and between the north wall and the blob in the main room need to be well over 3 feet wide, at least 3 1/2 or 4 feet in some areas.  It also shows that the shelf for the main yard on the west wall can be up to 2 feet wide.  The green boxes are the areas where significant amount of track such as yards, industry groupings, interchanges which have more than one turnout, etc.  These areas can be against every wall except the long walls of the closet.  There will be no area where one switching area is above another switching area, hopefully.  It appears that with two operators at the main yard [west wall], three additional operators in the main room, and one in the closet, the layout can reasonably comfortably accommodate up to six operators running at the same time.

Also to aid in planning, a 1”=12” model has been made using foam core walls with mat board for the layout surface/shelves.  Straight pins are pushed through the foam core wall into the edge of mat board shelf.  Interchanging different width shelves and relocating the pins provides flexibly to visualize the changing layout design as changes are made to the shelf width and location/elevation and impact of the operator and administrative spaces.  In the model of the room there is one long wall and three wall pairs at 90 degrees to each other [one wall pair has just a 6 inch wall at the door].  In the photo below, two adjacent wall pairs have been moved to show the "blob" in the main room.  If you look closely, you might see the straight pins going in from the outside of the walls.

At this stage of planning, the yard against the west wall will be between the highest and lowest point in the around the room/closet helix.  There will be a single track above the yard [about the 60" level] and another single track below [about the 42" level].  This is to accommodate a 58" duck-under and a 42" swing/drop bridge at the door entrance while maintaining less than no grade greater than 3% grade.  For a 2.5% grade, it takes 40 inches of run to change elevation of one inch, not counting the transition in and out of level.