Status Update

Not much activity lately other than Wordless Wednesdays and other non-layout related posts.

Main reason for this was because the wife and I were doing some re-negotiation over layout space in the basement. As is usually the case, it was my own fault. I started to go beyond the original boundary figuring it would be OK, but it wasn't. Long story short, after the re-negotiation I'm still in the same part of the basement and I'm still in my original dimension which is 13' x 27'. I know, stop complaining - there are lots of model railroaders that wish they had that much space.

Also, I have to say that we still do not own this house yet. Our other house still has not sold due to 3 different buyers failing to get approved for financing. We are in our 4th contract presently, which is actually looking good for finalized sale here in April. Fingers crossed. Once I actually own the house, I will feel better about drilling anchor holes in concrete block for benchwork.

A quick recap on my layout planning activities to date. Passenger ops, passenger ops.

Originally I wanted to model Cleveland Union Terminal, or some facsimile of it. Research pointed to the fact that CUT wasn't well liked by the tenant railroads, and I started to share their pain trying to come up with a functional track plan in HO scale for it.

I started searching for alternatives and found Cincinnati Union Terminal (also called CUT). Perfect layout as far as facilities, which is actually not good for modeling because end-to-end CUT with coach yard and facilities is over a mile and a half long which is about 85' in HO scale. Operationally though, Cincinnati is a dream.

Some more research led me to Toledo Central Union Terminal (also called CUT...). I found an article and track plan for it in the Feb 2003 issue of Model Railroader.

The MR plan is for 20' x 27', of which the long dimension fits perfectly in my own space. The terminal layout is on a curve at one end, which is great for modeling because all layouts have corners. The thing I don't like about the MR plan though is that there are no freight operations. I still want to have passenger AND freight operations. And I want to do it in smaller space.

Here is my first go-round at a rendition of Toledo Central Union Terminal. This actually fits in my space with room to spare.

In the MR plan, for the curved end of the terminal they use 28" radius curves and #6 turnouts on both throats and #8 for crossovers. In my plan, each pair of platform tracks is 36" on the inside and 38" on the outside. This will allow the long passenger cars to not hang over platforms as much as they would with 28" curves. I use #6 turnouts at the curved end, #7 at the other end, and #9 for the crossovers. I also added mail and express to the right of the terminal ala Cincinnati style, and I fit it all into just over 20'. The shortest platform track is just under 11' long which will allow me to have 9 & 10 car passenger trains. There is still plenty of room left in the layout space to fit in a coach yard, engine servicing, and some freight operations.

After a couple hundred hours and several dozen unsuccessful CAD designs trying to do Cleveland and Cincinnati, I think I may have just stumbled onto something here in Toledo. Stay tuned.