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We bought 21½ acres of land about 20 miles away, and are building a new house in 2010, so the Virginian will have a new home in a couple of years.

We will build a round house (actually, it has 18 sides – an octadecagon) with a full walk-out basement. Here's the basement floor plan with the train room in blue.

As you can see from this drawing, there is plenty of space.

Everyone is welcome to suggest layout themes and track plans. Scroll down for a drawing of just the train room with a grid to aid in planning.

Here are my Givens and Druthers. These are likely to evolve over time.

Givens	Comments
HO scale.
Virginian Railway, circa 1954.	I want to use my extensive collection of Virginian locomotives and rolling stock, not buy new equipment.
Minimum radius, mainline: 30" with easements.	Broader curves preferred where space permits.
Minimum radius, staging: 30".
Minimum radius, yards and industrial: 26".
Minimum turnout: #6.
Maximum benchwork depth: 18" to 20".
Minimum aisle width: 30".
No duck-unders.
Point-to-point operation – no continuous running
Consistent direction of travel.	East is always to the right when facing a scene, and west is to the left.
"Sincere" track plan.	Trains run through each scene only once.
Two staging yards.	Staging yards can be visible or partially-hidden.
Staging yard size: Minimum 4 tracks per yard.
DCC, walkaround control with radio throttles.
Timetable and Tain Order (TT&TO) operation.
Duthers
Long runs between towns to maximize TT&TO potential
Single level.	Two levels are aceptable (with a helix) if such a design offers major benefits over one level.
Roughly 60%-70% emphasis on general-merchandise freight rather than coal.	Even though 80% of VGN traffic consisted of coal hauled out of West Virginia, I find general-merchandise traffic more interesting because it offers greater opportunity for local switching, classification yards, as well as a wider variety of "eye candy." However, one can't model the Virginian without including coal traffic, so coal should still be significant. I just don't want coal to be the main (or only) theme.
Staging yard design: Double-ended if possible, but stub-end acceptable.	A double-ended yard eliminates backing-out trains to restage between sessions, but raises other issues concerning entrances to the modeled portion of the railroad. For example, the far end might loop around to the near end to enter at the same point, but this increases the hidden running time, which makes crews nervous.It might be possible to put both yard throats near the single entry point, but this might consume significant space.
Mix of rural and city/town scenes.
Roanoke engine teminal should intefere as little as possible with the classification yard.	Although the yard crew and cews hostling engines will need to accommodate each other, the yard crew should not have to reach over parked engines to uncouple cars on classification tracks.
No short runs from staging to the destination.	I want to avoid situations where a crew's entire run is 10' to or from staging. On the former Virginian, the Gap shifter and the C&O Turn were examples of this, and these jobs weren't very satisfying.
Significant online industries to provide local switching.	This is a semi-freelance choice, because the Virginian hauled mostly unit trains of coal hoppers.
Locale: Preferably Virginia west of Roanoke.	Other choices could be Virginia east of Roanoke (with not-very-interesting scenery), West Virginia (with little opportunity for online industries), or Norfolk (the eastern terminus, where coal was loaded onto ships (also offers some city trackage and industries).

You can sketch your ideas on this planner or print a ¼" scale version (PDF, 95K). This document is legal-size (8½"x14") but most PDF readers can shrink it to fit a smaller page.

Here Is what I've come up with so far (June 15, 2010). I managed to include four towns with passing sidings, with 8-10 feet of mainline separating them. This will greatly enhance TT&TO operation – the former layout had only two passing sidings, and distances between towns were short. Here is a 3rdPlanIt file of this plan (385K).

The Roanoke yard is stub-end, so there is no way for eastward trains to originate in Roanoke. Eastbound freight classified in Roanoke yard will be added to through-trains running from Princeton staging to East Roanoke staging. Likewise, westward trains originating in East Roanoke staging will stop to pick up freight destined for Princeton. This will add operational interest for general freight, but completely abandons operational coal classification in Roanoke, which was a major function of the yard. Instead, pre-staged coal trains will run from Princeton to East Roanoke, and pre-staged empty hopper tains will run back.

This plan shows a "station operator" near Pembroke. I envision this as a raised platform where one person sits at a small desk and performs the role of operator at every station. This person communicates with the dispatcher to OS trains as they pass the model stations. From this vantage point, the operator could see most of the towns, and crews could walk to the platform to talk to the operator if necessary.

This central position introduces several operational considerations. On the former Virginian, the dispatcher used a custom computer program to write train orders and clearances, and send them to a laser printer beneath each station, where train crews would pick them up. In addition, occupancy detectors signalled the dispatcher when a train entered a town; it was up to the disatcher to know or infer which train it was. Finally, the dispatcher controlled the train order signal at each station using the computer software. But now:

• How are orders written?
  To be prototypically faithful, the dispatcher should dictate train orders to the opeator, who copies them onto Form 19s. However, this involves considerable verbal communication over a telephone, typically using a loudspeaker instead of a handset – which would add to the noise in the train room. Worse, train room noise could make it hard for the operator to hear the dispatcher.

  To minimize this noise, the dispatcher could continue using the computer to compose the orders, and send them to printers in the train room. Or a telephone or radio with a headset could be used to make it easier for the operator to hear the dispatcher.

• How many printers?
  Should the dispatcher send orders and clearances to a local printer at each station, or to one printer at the station operator's position? With local printers, crews pick would pick up their orders right at the station. Otherwise, they would have to walk to the station operator to get them.

  The latter approach offers the benefit of personal interaction between crews and the operator, plus it gives the operator the opportunity to pass along informal operational information, such as, "No. 76 is running 30 minutes late, so you should have plenty of time to work Klotz before meeting 76 at Celco."

• Who controls the signals?
  On the prototype, the station operator sets the train order signal, and the central operator position would eplicate this practice. If the operator receives orders and clearances from the dispatcher and hands them to crews, it makes sense for the operator to also set the train order signals.

  But this is related to the two previous points. If the dispatcher sends orders to the operator's printer, the operator needs to know which station's order board to set, preferably without relying on a new order feeding out of the printer to deduce this.

  Perhaps the dispatcher could recite just the preamble (e.g., "Celco 19 west copy one"), then send the order to the printer after the operator sets the signal and responds ("SD west Celco").

• Dispatcher in the train room
  This design allows the dispatcher and operator roles to be combined during sessions where both positions can't be filled. The dispatcher would sit at the elevated desk, and write orders and set train order signals.

• Simplified technology
  A central operator deinitely reduces the amount of technology needed to keep track of trains. First, occupancy detectors could be eliminated entirely. This would also eliminate the "ding" at the dispatcher's panel, and the need for the dispather to infer (or guess) which train triggered the detector. Even if the dispatcher still uses a computer to compose orders and send them to a printer, the software would become a simple order-writing application. Everything related to occupancy detection and order boards would go away.

  True, the operator's desk would need technology to control the order boards, but this could be a simple group of toggle switches, or better, a miniature lever for each signal, modeling the levers installed on prototype station floors. No computer would be needed at the operator's position.

Please send your comments and opinions to .