I believe I commented before

I believe I commented before about my having to wait for this article, and must say with out reservation that it has been worth the wait. Joe, you present some excellent criteria for evaluating a track plan and the model railroad itself. This I think will be a great design tool to aid in evaluation of competing designs.

I really appreciate the design of your model railroad more now than when I first read about it years ago in the print magazines, I think it was in MR, and thanks for including the track plan.

I now need to head to the railroad club, we are having an open house today, so I will be studying this in much greater detail than I just did. Thanks for putting together such a great magazine, it is greatly appreciated by me.

I find it amazing ...

... that Richard Johnston's "Illinois Rail" packs nearly the same operating potential into 150 sq. ft. as Joe Fugate's 800 sq. ft. "SP Siskiyou Line" ... and does it with only 17 turnouts (compared to 122)!

Both move 500 cars per session.  Both are running 16 trains.  Richard's trains at 16 cars are half the length of Joe's trains (30 cars).

And then we bump into this little metric ... Max Capacity on the "Illinois Rail" is only 82 cars; while the "Siskiyou Line" boasts 816 cars.  The latter seems to make a lot more sense when one considers 500 cars are being moved per op session.  Not really sure of what these numbers are really telling us.

edit ... ah, figured it out.  The summary has some typos, the "Illinois Rail" only moves 61 cars per session (and 8 trains) ... that sounds like a much more realistic number.  

"and then we bump into ths

Sounds like the smaller layout would need a lot of car fiddling( moving cars on and off the layout by hand)  during a session?  ....DaveB

Typos we need to fix ...

This article

screams for a spreadsheet downloadable in the extras for the month.

screams for a spreadsheet downloadable in the extras for the mon

YES IT DOES !!!!!!!   

I sent one to Joe

last night for this month's bonus downloads.

Spreadsheet?

Did Joe get the spreadsheet?  Do bonus downloads come later?  If not, could you post it here?

Patience ...

Spreadsheets

Joe wrote the article, then I wrote the spreadsheet AFTER I downloaded this month's issue.  I sent it to Joe because I could not load it directly to the website.  Joe is going to include it in the bonus downloads.  I "gifted" this one to Joe, so it is worth what you all paid for it  -- nothing!  Seriously, I just put together something serviceable, I didn't try to get fancy or flashy.

Probably the shortest turn around time of anything being published that I sent to Joe though.  (Previous record was 5 months, and I have a couple still counting!)

Include Ken's work in the downloads also?

Is the spreadsheet different than the program Ken Biles posted?

https://forum.mrhmag.com/magazine-feedback-was-ezines-891776

I installed Ken's Track Analyzer program and it works well.

AWESOME article.

AWESOME article.

Me thinks this is an old

Me thinks this is an old Layout Design Sig article, I can remember spending much time with my layout putting it through all the stat criteria.

It's a rewrite ...

It's a rewrite of ideas I've been writing about for many years now, including an LD SIG article done several years ago. The examples are completely new.

formulas

This article couldn't have come at a better time; empty train room with loads of plans sitting on my desk; which to select?  Thanks Joe for very helpful tools, especially update of formulas to reflect current realities and practices.  Much appreciated.
 

Rewrite, update or rehash of

Rewrite, update or rehash of an old concept, just like an old newspaper it is still news if you haven't read it. I like the way it presents ways to design a railroad or refine a design so as to accomplish ones goals. I would often mentally operate trains over a layout and find flaws that until one begins to look at operating scenarios are not important.

The fact that things can be checked easily in this manner is a bonus. This tool will not be the be all end all of design tools but will be very valuable none the less. For example it would be possible to have the proper capacities to meet all the goals but if tracks were not located in the proper orientation switching could be a nightmare and tie up the railroad horribly there by making a plan with great stats a very bad plan. On the other hand a plan with great operational layout, passing sidings where needed, proper orientation of spurs etc could still be a problem with out adequate staging or passing tracks or sufficient mainline length to allow operational goals to be met.

This will be a great way to examine a plan and catch short comings before building the thing and having to relay track and redo wiring. Toss in the cost of signaling and the work involved and the benefits of this type of analytical is huge, thanks for sharing.

Of particular note is the variation from expected results of Alan's plan and his explanation of why it was done the way it was. Confirmation of the value of the original and of the need for more than just a spread sheet to be used to make a decision about practicality of a design. Figures can tell you a lot but not everything.

Nothing wrong with a re-write

Nothing wrong with a re-write or a re-print, the reason I remember the article in the layout Design sig was that I read it about 5 times, and worked the math with my layout a number of times.  My comment wasn't damning praise but more a comment that I had seen it before.

If I would say anything now about the formulas is that there is a very slight hint that complex is better, which was true when you looked at RR plans even as early as 10 years ago or so.  Now there is a bit more emphasis on "less can be more" track planning, ala: Mendheim, Barrows and Koester to name a few.

My layout scored high for effective use of room space and complexity, but I have been slowly simplifying some of my track work.  In fact now I'd give a "- 3" to a double slip. And if the layout has "grabber blocks" with DC (not mentioned in the article) I'd consider jailing the owner..... lol.  Its a lot of fun when some one grabs your train without telling you, and you spend significant time trying to figure out why you don't have control of it.

Helix

Joe,

Am so glad this article came out when it did. I'm in the process of tearing down an old layout and designing a new one to take it's place. But I have some questions. The track plan for my new layout has 4 helixes (spelling?) Two of them connect the staging deck with the main deck, and two of them connect the main deck with the upper deck. If I understand your article correctly, the two helixes that connect to the staging deck would be considered "staging" track when it comes to computing mainline length. What about the other two helixes that I have? Are those considered "mainline", or something else like "connecting track", since they are "off stage" and you don't see them? Just a suggestion, but maybe a separate category for helixes is needed in the formulas to take into account modern design trends, just as you added a separate category for staging tracks. 

Thanks for all the work you do in helping others learn. My layouts have definitely benefited from your expertise!

A happy and very satisfied reader!

Analysing Micros

Dear MRHers,

I'd be interested to plug-in the values* for some classic switching puzzles, some cannonical micro-layouts, and some of the state-of-the-art small-layouts which feature high-level deployments of sectorplates and traversers,
(particularly those which use nominated traverser tracks to stage specific offstage locations), and see how appropriate the system's assessment is VS real-life...

I'd also like to see if this analysis translates to NG layouts and "operational ethos"...
(particularly as related to the prototype, remember "Freezer's Lament"!)

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

* NB that the action of sectorplates and traversers may mask/emulate multiple turnouts. Thus One gets the "complexity" switching benefit of a "high turnout count" layout, without actually having to build lots of turnouts, or waste significant linear trackage capacity in "connecting track". Furthur, while the article suggests "all but one of the tracks in a staging yard are classified "storage", a drop-leaf or multi-track traverser/sectorplate may legitimately function as "Industry spur", "Staging", and "Storage" simultaneously!
IE maximum linear usable capacity for minimum "wasted layout linear capacity or area".

Double track mainline

I vaguely remember your previous article about this, and welcome this update. One point I don't see addressed in this article is how to account for a double tracked mainline. Modeling a German prototype, a part of the layout is a high traffic, double tracked main. I currently only have phase 1 (of a planned 4 phases) of the track completed and am very interested in applying the formula to the parts left to complete. 

Double track mainline and Layout Design formulas

Q: WHAT ABOUT A DESIGN WITH A DOUBLE TRACK MAINLINE?

The question of how to analyze a double track main layout design comes up a lot. Treat one main as mainline, and the other as alternating between connecting track and passing sidings, as you prefer.

The end result will be a double tracked layout can move a lot of cars -- which is just what you would expect.

However, be aware much of the fun of dispatching is arranging meets and figuring out how to get one train past another. A double track mainline will be less of a challenge to dispatch since few trains will need to pass each other unless there are a lot of locals blocking the main.

Such a layout will move lots of trains, so you'd better have lots of staging on each end to supply the double track with trains -- and you'd better have operators who love just rolling off the miles on the main. Many find single track railroads are more interesting operationally -- just something to be aware of.

Programs and Spreadsheets

Alan: Yes my Track Analyzer program will be included in this month's Bonus Downloads. It only works on PC's, unless the Mac can run PC software. I downloaded the latest issue of MRH Monday, and spent yesterday creating a spreadsheet version that will work on any computer that will run Excel. I just sent it to Joe. Looks like I'm not the only one who had that idea.

There are some things that Joe does, that I found really hard to emulate in a spreadsheet formula. For example, he says in the article that Average Train length is the lesser of either the Average Passing Siding length, or the Average Storage Track length. What wasn't said, is that if there is no storage track, he just uses the passing siding, even though the storage track, being zero, is the lesser length. In the spreadsheet version I created yesterday, I tried to get it to determine that if either of those tracks was zero, to use the other. That ended up in a very long calculation that I never got to work, So instead, I just had it check the storage track for zero length, in which case it uses the passing siding for average train length. I'd be curious if any of the other spreadsheet designers solved that problem. My VB program checks both, since it's relatively easy to do in Basic.

The one problem with how I did this in the spreadsheet, is that if you have no passing tracks, it will break the spreadsheet, because I couldn't get it to check for zero length on both. Fortunately, I don't think that will be a big problem, since passing sidings are a major part of Operations.

The great thing about programs and spreadsheets, is that as long as the calculations are correct, you don't have to worry about "Did I get my math right?" It also takes much less time to work through several different options on track design. My dad always said, work smarter, not harder.

Spreadsheets

I solved the choice problem by always presenting both options down below.  And if one of above is zero, it will show "div by zero" and you just ignore that output.  Otherwise you use the lower number ad off you go.

Helixes, and on-stage vs back-stage

Great article, Joe!  This analysis provides interesting insight into the operational design (and cost/benefit of changes, too!)

I'd like to echo Paul Krentz's question about classifying helixes (helices?), including differentiating a helix between scenic ("on stage") decks and a helix between scenic and staging decks.

Paul's question (and my situation) makes me wonder about adding another metric. Would like to know your thoughts on this, too.

On the one hand the helix (usually) forms part of the main line track, just as the track to/from/through staging that is explicitly called "mainline" in your article, so that seems clear.   For example in the "Max to Mainline" calculation, a train that is in the helix is a number of cars that are not on other mainline track, nor are they using up space in any of the storage or staging spaces.  So that seems fair.

But it seems like maybe there should be an additional metric calculated, something that shows the ratio of visible, scenic, operational mainline to overall mainline or something.  This number would give an idea of how much time a mainline train being operated is actually "on stage" vs. "behind the scenes".  A dispatcher can arrange a "meet" in staging (or even inside a double-track helix, if he's brave), but I think that event has a different level of interest/enjoyment from a meet that is "on stage" where the participants can actually see it happen... and so when evaluating a layout this might be of use.

For example, in the layout I'm designing, I'm evaluating the tradeoffs between helix placements that will lead to (for a given, fixed "on-scene" mainline run) either a relatively short, efficient back-stage time or a relatively long, inefficient back-stage time.  There are, of course, other considerations/constraints which are "pros" for the less efficient design or this choice would be easy.  The equations as-is don't seem to provide a metric for measuring this trade-off.  Having something of a "% of mainline on-scene" calculation would seem to help with this.

This new calculation would be similar to the layout space vs. total space calculation in giving a measure of the overall "scenic efficiency" of the layout, rather than being more of a "train operations efficiency" metric.

What do you (all) think?

- Mark (TD)