Model Railroading

[VaPaL]

@Shpaget I liked that feature too, but I ended up using it almost never, and always had problems with it, it also made harder to make the trakcs fit nice with each other. I will think about this for more time and see if I came out with other ideas, but since you don't see any problems or things made wrong this ones seems ok for a beginner

[KamenRiderzero1]

I had an unfinished (track laid out, nothing more) G scale loop in my backyard some years ago, which my mother forced me to pull up when a Hurricane came through.

 

Since then, I've mostly gotten my fix of trains through Trainz Railway Simulator, because while I have other trains,* I don't really have the space.

 

(and applying for a job on the real thing, taking the test to be a New York City Subway conductor)

 

*Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit (BMT) "Q" series train set from MTH/Railking. The real ones were rebuild from much older wooden, gate ended, elevated trains to carry passengers to the 1939 Worlds Fair. At that time, the two private subway operators in New York, the BMT and the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT), shared two of the subway lines in Queens, the Astoria route (now part of the N and W lines) and the Flushing route (now used by the #7). The City has always owned most of the subway network, but the two operators basically had operational Carte Blanche, save for the codified 5 cent fare and the forced sharing of those two lines. 

Because the IRT was originally built with narrower tunnels, (a trait inherited from the Manhattan Els to stop mainline trains from using it, IRT trains to this day use narrower bodies. 8 feet, 6 inches wide to the BMT's (and the publicly operated from the start Independent Subway/IND's) 10 feet, which is 7 1/2 inches narrower on each side. For safety purposes, the joint Queens lines were built to fit the IRT trains, and the BMT passengers had to transfer at Queensboro Plaza from the 10 foot wide subway cars to surplus Elevated rolling stock built to the narrower standard.

The when the 1939 World's Fair was being prepared, the BMT took the El cars and rebuilt them with subway style bodies to increase capacity.

In 1949, the shared operation was ended. the BMT got the Astoria Line to itself, the IRT got the flushing line. The Q cars were moved to the IRT to run express trains on the Third avenue Elevated until that closed in 1955, and then ran on the Myrtle Avenue Elevated to 1969 (as the last wood bodied subway cars left in the US), when that line closed.

[cantab]

I've never really had the space for something "serious", but I have just ordered myself a Lego train set. (60051). That counts, right? Sorta?

[VaPaL]

So, I've had some time sunday to work on my layout. I removed the track, cleaned it, cleaned the table, layed the new layout it to see how it would look like. Next step now is test everything to see if it's working and pin the tracks.

This is how it is so far. This is the biggest train that fits in the yard lead, anything longer and it will need to use the main, but that's not much of a problem.

Spoiler

 

[lodger]

On 9.11.2016 at 0:58 AM, cantab said:

I've never really had the space for something "serious", but I have just ordered myself a Lego train set. (60051). That counts, right? Sorta?

I fondly remember my Lego train set I got for christmas 1983 (7740). I also used to play with that G scale LGB model railroad in our backyard during summertime. What a nice thread that brought back long forgotten memories.

[VaPaL]

@Cydonian Monk @adsii1970 @Shpaget

While progess is slow remaking my old layout, I'm spending some time on planning my future one. I studied a lot about Brazilian railroads and changed my mind about what I would like to do. I would like to be as prototypical as possible, but that would mean to have only unit trains (there are almost none manifest trains here, since there ins't many industries that are connected to railroads). So I decided to expand the use of railroads a bit, but keeping it realistic.

I decided to model part of FCA, MRS, ALL and EFVM railroads (this Imgur album has a map). There are 8 cities that I would like to model (all in the map). Their RL production that uses railroad are:
-Ribeirão Preto: sugar and ethanol going to Santos (seaport) (export)
-Uberaba: soybean and sugar going to Santos
-Santos: seaport (grains, ethanol, containers)
-Hortolândia: passengers cars for urban trains and metros, freight cars, other railroads products
-Volta Redonda: biggest metallurgic industry in Brazil (CSN)
-Belo Horizonte: a lot of iron ore mines in the region, ore going to Vitória (seaport) (export) and Volta Redonda/passengers to Vitória
-Divinópolis: main engine and car shop of FCA, all heavy maintenance take place there
-Vitória: seaport (iron ore, iron pellets)/Passenger to Belo Horizonte

This gives 2 sugar trains, 1 ethanol train, 1 soybean train, 2 ore trains, 1 passenger train and eventally one container train leaving Santos. I'm researching local industries in each city to expand the rail activity. I thinking between 3 to 5 industries per city, except for Santos and Vitória (the seaport would be big enough) and Volta Redonda (CSN is almost the whole city)

I know I won't be possible to have all 8 cities in my layout, I also know that there're some problems with this selection:
-Ribeirão Preto and Uberaba are very similar (int terms of productivity)
-Two seaports scenes (although different)
-Divinópolis and Hotolândia are kind of useless

So it can be shrinked down to 5 cities (still a lot). The problem is that only Belo Horizonte and Ribeirão will have industries to need manifest trains and I would like to have one more city for that.

So, what you guys have to say about it and some suggestions would be very much appreciated. (OBS: space is not a problem, I have a 10x4m space that can become 10x10m, maybe more)

 

EDIT: the untitled image is Santos Soybean and sugar seaport, Imgur is having problems saving it

Edited November 29, 2016 by VaPaL

[adsii1970]

I think you are definitely on the right track. Right now, I am redesigning my layout and will begin work on the bench work in a few weeks. I am going modular, with the idea that as I move, the set will have the ability to expand to fit its new surroundings.

You do not have to have the ENTIRE city and it can be handled through an abbreviated freight yard with sidings, intermodally using container trucks and cranes (which can open up more potential for rolling stock), or even industrial spurs off the mainline. Just because you have decided to do prototype railroading does not mean you have to be exact with your geography.

[VaPaL]

9 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

I am going modular, with the idea that as I move, the set will have the ability to expand to fit its new surroundings.

I always thought about that, but never find a really practical solution.

9 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

You do not have to have the ENTIRE city and it can be handled through an abbreviated freight yard with sidings, intermodally using container trucks and cranes (which can open up more potential for rolling stock), or even industrial spurs off the mainline.

I was reading about selective compression, how to make building or scenes that even scaled are to big fit in your model and still look realistic. But even then, 6 cities sounds like a lot, if I'm able to keep them would be great but that may not be the case

There're some other stuff that I would like to put in the rural areas, like a suger cane processing facility or a big fertilizer facility that Vale has between Ribeirão Preto and Uberaba. CSN may not even have a city around it since it is basically a whole city itself. Don't know, it still early planning, but as you said, I hope I'm going in the right way