General Discussion (Model Railroader)

Joe,
I have read the article at your site and I have four questions:

Q1: When adding up the trackage footage (like the mainline), do you count the amount through the switches? My guess is yes.

Q2: On my layout (still 75% in planning) I plan on having switchbacks, I tossed the switchback ends into the connecting pile, correct?

Q3: Also, I have an interchange mainline, am I correct in including that as staging? However, I was thinking I should just treat it the entire length as two sets of staging track of a given length ( max train length) instead of the actual lenght?

Q4: As my branch terminates with two resorts, should I put the trackage after the last turnout into the storage+connecting calculations?

See my website: http://modelrr.adbyrne.us/room.htm for the layout plan. Note that i have not finished adding passing or industries yet.

Thanks,
Allen


BTW; here are some approx numbers:
Room area: 315 sqft
Layout area: 130 sqft
Total track: 496 cars
Branchline: 230 cars
The rest depends on unfinished storage and passing track numbers,
however here are some ballpark numbers;
Max cars: 60-80
Cars moved: 50-70
Train length: 7-11

On the WP,what I did to check things out was I purchased "Dispacther" and the design program for it.. Since CTC operations are the WP , it was important that the overall sceme worked. I transffered my track plan into the program. Even used a scale to make all track the correct length.
Then I entered all my trains and the proposed schedule. Then I could run trains over the railroad and catch any problems !
It was fun and helped.

QUOTE: Originally posted by adbyrne Allen asked: Q1: When adding up the trackage footage (like the mainline), do you count the amount through the switches? My guess is yes.

Allen, you are correct ... any trackage through switches cannot have things sitting on them for a long period of time, so it's all connecting track.

QUOTE: Q2: On my layout (still 75% in planning) I plan on having switchbacks, I tossed the switchback ends into the connecting pile, correct?

If the switchbacks are part of the mainline then they are mainline. If they are not mainline but must be traversed to connect from the mainline to another location then yes, they are connecting track. From the looks of your plan, the switchback looks to be part of how you get from one end of the layout to the other, so they would be mainline in that case.

QUOTE: Q3: Also, I have an interchange mainline, am I correct in including that as staging? However, I was thinking I should just treat it the entire length as two sets of staging track of a given length ( max train length) instead of the actual length?

Depends on how you use a piece of track. As you imply with your question, you can sometime opt to make a section of track a different type depending on how you intend to use it in operations. If the track will rarely have cars sittting on it then it's connecting track, for example. If the track is used to store and feed complete trains to/from the layout, then it's staging. If the track is used to store blocks of cars that need switched to become part of a train then it's storage. And so on.

QUOTE: Q4: As my branch terminates with two resorts, should I put the trackage after the last turnout into the storage+connecting calculations?

See the above answer. It depends on how you plan to use the track when you operate.

I looked at your track plan Allen and it seems like a fun point-to-point design. Using the formulas you can determine if you need more industries and passing sidings, which is one real advantage I see from the formulas. It's nice to find this out before you build the layout!

Joe, I worry a little bit about the 40' car rule. It is a nice round number, and for most modelers it should work just fine.

I have a couple of things working against me, modern equipment, means very few 40' cars. My average car length, is over 50'. Add to that, that I am working in O, and it does add up. That knocks at least a car off most calculations.

15' sidings sound long to HO guys, but I am looking at 10 car trains to be safe.

Big Boy:

I model the 1980s and have the same problem as you ... most cars are no longer 40 foot.

I go ahead and compute things using 40 foot cars since it's such an easy number to use. Once I'm all done I convert the numbers to 50 foot cars. Just multiply by 0.8 to get 50 equivalents ... or whatever factor works based on your average car length.

.8 sounds good Joe, that's what I was thinking. Maybe even down to .75. I have lots of large grain hoppers.[8D]

Joe,
Thanks for taking the time to look at the plan!
As I couldn't decide on the how to classify the switchback ends, I will go with your decision to add it into the mainline.

As far as the interchange trackage, I will need to rethink it due to problems in the yard and service area. The ends will be staging with most of the track between being connecting as you thought. However, I am redesigning the yard and service area trying to incorporate the ideas from the John Armstrong planning and Operation book. Because the form factor is a given I may have to use part of the interchange mainline as A/D trackage.

After looking at the generated numbers, I have been reworking parts of the plan for an extra passing siding (including redesigning one as a lap siding) and moving trackage around for more storage tracks.

The formulas really help in thinking things out. Somewhat on topic, I have to make tradeoffs on scenery elements against the operation needs.

Thanks,
Allen

QUOTE: Originally posted by adbyrne After looking at the generated numbers, I have been reworking parts of the plan for an extra passing siding (including redesigning one as a lap siding) and moving trackage around for more storage tracks. The formulas really help in thinking things out. Thanks, Allen

Allen:

Exactly!

The formulas force you to think about how you would operate the layout and if you don't like the numbers you know exactly where to start making corrections to make the numbers look better!

I have spent many years using these formulas in my track planning and often would make changes based on their results. My current HO Siskiyou Line benefited from using the formulas ... the Coos Bay branch would not support the desired traffic so I spent a lot of time trying to find ways to add more storage tracks to the branch so all the cars I wanted to run down the line would have a place to go!

I think these formulas are one of the great secrets to designing for satisfying operations. If you learn how to use them, you will know well what your design will do operationally before you ever build it.,

Topic this post: Operational satisfaction analysis, part 2

Once you have all your track classified into track types and how many cars of capacity in each track type, now what?

First take a closer look at your passing sidings to determine some train length stats.

Determine three values -- longest/average/shortest. Longest is the length of your longest passing siding in cars. Average is the length of an average passing siding in cars, computed as: passing track / number of passing sidings. Shortest is the length of your shortest passing siding in cars.

Next, do a similar thing with your staging.

Determine the longest, average, and shortest track lengths. Longest is the length of your longest staging track in cars. Average is the length of an average staging track in cars, computed as: staging track / number of staging tracks. Shortest is the length of your shortest staging track in cars.

Once you have these values, there's some valuable insight you can gain about your design.

Ideally, staging train lengths should more or less equal the corresponding passing train lengths. Significantly smaller staging train lengths mean extra switching will be involved in getting a "full length" train into or out of staging. Larger staging train lengths mean full length opposing trains from staging will clog the main.

The longer of passing or staging train length should rule in determining typical long train length. The shorter of passing or staging train lengths should rule in determining typical average and short train lengths.

You may notice that staging tracks and passing tracks appear somewhat interchangeable in these formulas.

This either/or use of staging and passing sidings reflects an operating session reality (one that was actually exploited by Tony Koester on his AM, by the way) where the layout's staging can be viewed as "virtual passing sidings".

For example, the dispatcher could set up a "meet" between opposing trains to occur offstage. To do such a "meet", one train exits the layout into staging, after which a different train enters the layout -- as if a meet had just taken place in an offstage passing siding.

If some of the passing sidings on the layout are rather short, this can be a useful technique for arranging meets between longer trains.

For more insights using this sort of plan analysis, see:
http://siskiyou.railfan.net/model/layoutDesign/layout.html

Next topic: Operational satisfaction analysis, part 3

Many thanks for all the great info Joe.

it looks to me like you have a bit of software for calculating the layout operational stats analysis?

Cheers
Rob