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12,290 Posts
A couple of comments. First of all, you only need to build your modules to a standard if you're going to interface with modules built by someone else. If it's your own layout, you can use whatever layout you want, since you will control where the tracks join on all of your modules.
In the upper layout, you could build the yard as two modules (2x2 and 2x3), a short bridge with the feed track to the yard, and the rest as a 4x4 (you might have to shorten the side to side dimension slightly).
My advice would be to forget about grades in a space that small. In order to make the elevation change significant enough to be noticeable, you would have to incorporate a slope of i,possible steepness. Evan at 3%, which is steep enough to be problematic for HO models, in a foot of horizontal distance, you can change the elevation by 0.36", or under 3/8 of an inch. That's hardly worth the headaches a grade could cause.
I will say, though, that both of those plans have issues. The bottom one has a kinked curve in block 5 (by your numbering system), and looks like it's done using 15" curves, which are trouble for all but the shortest locos and rolling stock.
The top one appears to use Anyrail, so I'm familiar with the conventions. He has an overly sharp kink leaving the turnout at the bottom of the loop (see the short red line in the center of the track?), and 3 joints aren't actually connected (see the joints that have arrows instead of circles?), which means there may be more kinks than the software shows.
I also need to remember that you and I have different definitions when it comes to "operating potential". You use the term to refer to trains in motion. For me, it refers to trains behaving more or less like the real thing: going places and either picking up or dropping off cargos and empties.
In the upper layout, you could build the yard as two modules (2x2 and 2x3), a short bridge with the feed track to the yard, and the rest as a 4x4 (you might have to shorten the side to side dimension slightly).
My advice would be to forget about grades in a space that small. In order to make the elevation change significant enough to be noticeable, you would have to incorporate a slope of i,possible steepness. Evan at 3%, which is steep enough to be problematic for HO models, in a foot of horizontal distance, you can change the elevation by 0.36", or under 3/8 of an inch. That's hardly worth the headaches a grade could cause.
I will say, though, that both of those plans have issues. The bottom one has a kinked curve in block 5 (by your numbering system), and looks like it's done using 15" curves, which are trouble for all but the shortest locos and rolling stock.
The top one appears to use Anyrail, so I'm familiar with the conventions. He has an overly sharp kink leaving the turnout at the bottom of the loop (see the short red line in the center of the track?), and 3 joints aren't actually connected (see the joints that have arrows instead of circles?), which means there may be more kinks than the software shows.
I also need to remember that you and I have different definitions when it comes to "operating potential". You use the term to refer to trains in motion. For me, it refers to trains behaving more or less like the real thing: going places and either picking up or dropping off cargos and empties.
