Am I on to something?

[KCS]

Here is a switching operations track plan I have been working with in MS Paint sense I couldn't get anything to work in RTS but however it is to scale because the yard was a design from another builder and it fit in an 11 foot space. So what do you guy's think? I need more switching on the right side of the layout but i'm stumped as what to put there and maybe a couple more on the left side. I post more details about it tomorrow when I have more time. Please let me know of any idea's you might have. Thanks in advance.

[jetrock]

It looks like you have an industrial area on the left and a yard in the middle. One thing you might consider is reversing their location: have the yard on the end and the industry in the middle. This will make operation easier: your spurs on the left are all facing-point spurs, which means that trains coming out of the yard will have to make a runaround move to spot cars on those spurs. Which may be part of your plan, I suppose. Making them trailing point spurs wouldn't make much sense either, since you would run short of places to spot the train.

If you do keep the yard in the middle, consider making it a double-ended yard with ladders on both ends to make it easier to work in both directions. It would then make sense to put more industries on the right-hand side, or maybe something like an interchange, to suggest traffic on and off the layout--maybe even cassettes to load trains on and off of the right-hand side. Operation would thus be about receiving incoming cars from the interchange and "offstage," making trains in the yard, and then spotting cars in the industrial area.

[KCS]

Here is the revised plan. Sorry for the poor quality of th over all picture as trying to resize it to the 68.4k standard fuzzed it up a bit. I moved the yard down on the side as Jetrock suggested. I didn't think it would work but it does for once. I then moved the industry siding's up to the middle, turned one around and added another. The area's with "?'s" in dark blue are places I need some idea's for. The siding up in the top left hand corner in blue is undecided as to what type of industry but the light brown is a gravel plant for gondola's, dark brown for grain, yellow for classifaction and switching lead, red/yellow stripes for RIP track, dark red for locomotive tracks, pink for RIP and locomtive access, red for A/D track, gray for mainline and so on. The blue track in the yard is also undecided on it's use but I'm thing for parking MOW equipment and may a decommissioned locomotive. As for the size of the yard I do need some other switching area's on the layout. As for the right side of the layout I'm thinking about a small bridge or two so I can build a live steam club park in Z scale around that area. Maybe a siding for the club for those who travel from far away who just have their live steam trains shipped by special box car? Whatcha think?

[ocalicreek]

Honestly, when I first read the heading for this post I thought you had written, "Am I ON Something?". LOL. But then I opened the thread and saw all the bright colors on the black background and thought I should tell you to change the header so it really does read "Am I ON Something?".

Seriously, it looks like the projected schematics from the CSX dispatching center in Jacksonville. I don't have any real constructive ideas on the plan itself, but good luck with it, however you decide to go.

Galen

[engineshop]

Although you have a lot of room, all the tracks seems pretty short. Maybe I don't have the right scale. How long is the shortes and the longest track of the yellow yard?

[Russ Bellinis]

I wouldn't worry about trying to fit more tracks in the areas where the blue is. Most industries that are big enough to handle shipping/receiving by train take up a lot of real estate, so you have room to model some realistic industries to serve. What area of the country are you modeling? That might give you a clue as to what industries would be common to the area.

[KCS]

Engineshop, I think the longest track is able to hold 7-8 cars and I'm not sure about the shorest track.

Galen, I know it looks that way lol. I had to change it to something a little easier on the eyes because after staring at white for a few hours your eyes start to hurt.

Russ, this portion of the layout will be based here in the mid south starting from Shreveport but once I can get a building to expand the layout to a continuous run around about 15x24 ft then I will build the other half of the layout based in the western region of the US so the idea was to fade the scenery into each other but promptly sense it's 15x24 feet rather than 2,500 miles.

[Russ Bellinis]

Originally Posted by KCS

Russ, this portion of the layout will be based here in the mid south starting from Shreveport but once I can get a building to expand the layout to a continuous run around about 15x24 ft then I will build the other half of the layout based in the western region of the US so the idea was to fade the scenery into each other but promptly sense it's 15x24 feet rather than 2,500 miles.

I don't think I would attempt to "fade" from one scene to another trying to cover 1500 miles in 15 x 24 feet. I seem to remember a model railroad featured in Model Railroader where the owner thre separate parts of the Santa Fe that were thousands of miles apart. I think he did some sort of view block where you were in Chicago, then on Raton Pass, then in L.A. or something like that without attempting to transition from one place to another. Also when you were in the Chicago section, that was all you could see, and the same for each of the other sections. Essentially when you move from one scene to another, it is almost like the train is coming around the corner from someplace else into whatevr scene you have before you.