lundi 19 février 2018

Some thoughts around a track plan

Most of the readers of this blog may think I'am primarily a rolling stock modeller as most of the posts recently showed this kind of stuff. And the dreamed layout is just a dream or words... In fact no!
I've drawn the basic track plan for this project around 2013/2014 and polished it ever since. It's not that easy to fit even such a small station into a 12 ' X 12 ' room adjacent to my office/workshop. At first, all the layout occupy only this room. But in 2015, modifying the track plan to include the San Jacinto wye and a staging yard led me to change my plan and the initial drawing. The track to the staging area and one tail of the wye then passed through the wall into my office/workshop. It was one of the wisest decision I've made for years (apart staying in S scale along all of these years!). It made things flowing...or something like that. I know that most of my north american readers may be horryfied by the small size of the room but at first it was planned for a 1/35 scale 2 feet logging layout. In an another life, I was very involved in narrow guage circles till the early 2000 even if I've gathered 1/64 models since 1995 and built some exhibition modules in this scale (see my earliest posts). I could have had larger when I've had my house built but now it's over. I've to cope with what I have and it's 12' x 12'!
At  a second glance, I'am quite happy having not a too big surface to occupy. I don't have that much time to spend in my own modelling and it forces me to be inventive.
Back at the track plan now, I've worked on it with some ATSF station plat obtained from the Santa Fe Historical & Modelling Society (Western Archives) from which I'am a member, one from the 1920's, the other from the late 50's. Add to this an insurance map, photos, books, etc...And here's my layout track plan!
The 1948-1952 track plan have some differences from the one below. The main is that the turnout at the end of the house track was removed probably during the 1948 station remodeling and a new curved storage track was added. Two things I've tried to mimic. The main compromise made was to have a curved turnout at the station entrance. Clearly, I'am not satisfied with this feature but I could no do without.
Another compromise made was to reverse the wye to fit in the available space.
Still too small my tiny station!? Not so, the 1942 Los Angeles Division System Employee Timetable listed only sixteen 40' cars capacity for the sidings at the San Jacinto station. I'am in...
As you could see in the photos below, the staging yard is alive. I've still to permanently lay the track and turnouts, wire the whole but I wish to clean my shelve of old projects and built a small fleet for two consist before. This is my first task at present.. But the benchwork in the layout room, the lighting, the fascia or part of it, etc....are done and just wait for the tracks. We'll talked later in some other posts about all of this...
See ya'

Station plat from 1916 (copy from Hanson and Jennings book, The San Jacinto Valley Railway-All right reserved)

The present trackplan with the third staging track omitted. D, the San Jacinto Packing Co is not drawn, I still have to determine the size of the warehouse.
The staging yard is located just above my workbench.

The storage space of my workshop where part of my paints, tools, waiting projects are located.

Storage space everywhere! The projects queue is partially here (I've since made some progress till then...).

A LED strip give light to the staging tracks.

Jump the cat, the track lifter!

1 commentaire:

  1. Great use of space. I currently have a large layout and I would be happy if it were smaller so I could spend more time building kits and enjoying the other aspects of the hobby. Thanks for sharing your blogs. Ken

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