Project Segway – A Revised Olympia in the Office Plan

(Occasionally, other events do occur and so I will from time to time go off-topic to discuss another railroad related project or event that is going on currently – we will get back to our regularly scheduled programming…)

Based on the results of the gradetesting project, I reworked the Olympia in the Office plan that I originally developed. The new plan has grades of no more than 3% and a minimum radius of 170mm (6.7”). I kept the basic structure of the layout, with three decks and a similar footprint. Even most of the towns were conceptually retained. Nonetheless, the incorporation of the car floats meant that there were changes in the layout to accommodate the car floats.

Deck 1 - Gladhaven and Cave Port.

The first deck is actually two separate parts. The first one is a staging area in the form of a town of Cave Port. This is a fiddle/staging yard, analogous to the town of Cave Point on the MR version of Olympia. It uses a simple manual turntable at the left end to allow engines to escape. I am thinking that I will try to make this turntable work similarly to the MR sector plate, and I can even make it removable to manually turn the engines (or allow it to pivot around to do the same). Cave Port is actually reached from the second deck connecting to Olympia Timber. I envision Cave Port as a land connection to the outside world.

Cave Port Fiddle/Staging Yard.

At the right end of the lower deck (albeit at a lower height) is the port town of Gladhaven. Gladhaven receives both coastal ships and a transfer point for cargo to be loaded onto barges for the trip to Olympia Timber on Deck 2. Thus, Gladhaven is primarily a switching location, built around harbor traffic and the Hyde Pulp Mill offered by Republic Locomotive Works in N-scale. The new plan gives me a lot more room for the harbor, but does place the yard back behind the Pulp Mill.

The Port of Gladhaven.

The ferry barge at Gladhaven provides a connection to the sawmill at Olympia Timber and the main line that runs between Cave Port and Camp Union on Deck 2. I ultimately envision the barges functioning much like they do on Mark Dance's Columbia and Western. There is a nifty video about the barges on Slocan Lake, BC that is linked to below.

The second deck connects the fiddle/staging yard of Cave Port to the ferry from Gladhaven with the Sawmill at Olympia Timber and the main logging camp established at Camp Union. Camp Union has a second ferry slip that connects Camp Union to the settlement of Sand Creek. I have isolated these two ferry locations with a mountainous canyon crossing similar to the Georgetown loop. Not only does this climb add a lot of mainline to the run. While Olympia Timber and Camp Union are physically about 4 feet from each other, a train needs to run almost 20 feet and climb 6 inches to travel between them.

Deck 2 - Olympia Timber and the Sawmill to Camp Union.

Camp Union is connected to the settlement of Sand Creek via a second set of ferries. While I have planned on all of these sharing a common footprint and interface, I do not intend for the ferries departing from Gladhaven to arrive at Sand Creek, or for ferries departing from Camp Union to end up at Olympia Timber. These would make the mainline redundant.

Deck 3 - Sand Creek to Eureka Camp 8 and the other camps.

The third deck works much the same way as it did originally. The biggest change is that Forx was relocated and scaled back. The main line no longer splits at Forx to reach Sand Creek and Eureka's Camp 8. So, Forx is a much less significant place. Sand Creek, however, gains some new industries and real estate.

It is interesting to note that the new plan has more turnouts than the prior plan. This is largely driven by the increase in car ferry locations. These locations added 6 turnouts out of the 11 added to the plan.

An additional significant outcome is that each deck of the layout effectively becomes its own layout. Gladhaven can operate as its own switching layout, with the car ferry serving as a connection to staging. Deck 2 can operate on its own as well with Cave Port and the ferry to Gladhaven operating as staging (without even actually connecting to Gladhaven in reality). Deck 3 also functions independently, with Sand Creek to Eureka working as its own layout with the Sand Creek Ferry serving as a staging connection. This means that the layout can be built in clear phases, and need not even be built completely. I could easily decide that two decks are enough, and not build the third. And if I needed to relocate it someday from my office to home, that could be done too. Indeed, the size of the components, estimated at 21.5" by 60" maximum (exact height to be determined) also makes the layout very transportable, allowing it to even be taken to shows. With that in mind, at a show, it need not necessarily be set up as a two or three deck layout, but could instead take on a number of shapes and orientations as needed.

So, after a false start with a helix, I am pretty happy with the revised plan. Happy enough that I am going to continue detailing the plan. I have assembled three of the 8 bookcases for the layout in my office, and I am working on the other five. So, we may well discuss Olympia iN the Office again.

Cameron Turner