Block wiring

[Pitchwife]

N scale Block wiring

OK, I've got the layout looking like I wanted it to, or as close as I could humanly come. The next step is the wiring blocks. I am anticipating as many as five or six engines/trains running at the same time, in the hope of attracting an operating crew. :thumb:
Upper level

Lower level

The Main yard at the bottom of the upper level is an interchange between two major lines as well as two spurs. Right now I'm looking at the UP an BNSF as the major players and the spurs being subsidies of the primary line, whichever one it turns out to be. It is also a service and storage hub for the primary line. The upper yard is an industrial park with light industry and manufacturing, possibly a freight transfer point. Right now I have a freight transfer station. I'm not ruling out an inter modal point instead though, it just depends on available space. The passenger station is situated so that it has access to both mainlines as I plan on having local commuter service serving the industrial park as well as local and express service on the other mainline.
There would be a switch engine shuttling loaded and empty cars between the the industrial park and the main yard via the siding that runs through town as well as repositioning cars for the different industries. This alone offers a lot of switching potential. In addition there would be another full time switcher operating the main yard, sorting rolling stock for the local market as well as classifying and setting out cars going to and coming from both directions of both mainlines and spurs. Add to that building up and tearing down trains on the lower level yard with its own switcher as well as operating up to three trains on the mainlines and it should keep people busy for an operating section.
I am thinking about covering the back two lines partially with removable tunnels and forest blinds to give the impression that they actually go to different places. I know that it isn't wise to put a tunnel in an inaccessible spot, but it would cover mainly the straight stretches and emerge within the "access zone." That would give me more scenery and help eliminate the "train going in a circle" effect.
Now that you have the background, back to my original question. Are their any comments on the block wiring? If I ever get rich enough or enthusiastic enough about it I will switch over to DCC, but for now it's going to have to be the old fashioned DC way. The different colors indicate different blocks. I know some of them are a little hard to make out, I just don't have enough imagination for a a lot of varied colors. ops:

 

[Tad]

Where your passing sidings or runarounds are ABove the word "industrial" and below the word "yards," I would split them into seperate blocks from the mainline sections. That way it wouldn't tie up the whole red mainline for a engine to do a runaround move. Just split it off on either side of the turnouts on the red line like you did the blue. I think it would give you a lot more flexibility.

It looks like the Yards have different shades of green so that each yard is a seperate block and the top and bottom yards could both be switched at the same time. Is that correct? If so, I think that would be good.

In the Yard area I would look at seperating the tracks on either side of the fueling station that run from the roundhouse to the repair shop ech into their own individual blocks. I would also consider making the short leads between the yard and the roundhouse either into their own block or able to be killed with a switch. I would probably also fix it so that the repair shop tracks could be isolated.

The reason I would do that is so that you could add a hostler position to operating sessions in case that you had enough operators. If you had it so that trains that terminated in the yards had to have their engines serviced, it would give you an additional fun job for someone to do. If you didn't have the people, the yard master could do it in his slack time.

Those are a couple of ideas that I had. I think it looks pretty good.

 

[Pitchwife]

Thanks for the input Tad, you made some very good points. You're correct about the Yard being seperated into two different sections so that each half could be operated independantly. I updated the picture with some different colors that show the seperation better.
I also hadn't thought about isolating the shop and the roundhouse tracks. It could have lead to some embarassing accidents if an engine came rolling out of the shop while another one was being positioned for fueling. ops: Or even worse, trying to crash through the back wall. ops: ops: ops: Good point and easy fixes (note the X's)
I also took your advice about isolating the section of the red mainline. I even extended the block on the blue mainline for more versitility.
It should keep a bunch of people busy, I just hope the room is big enough to hold everybody.

 

[Tad]

You're welcome, Clark.

It looks like it would be a fun layout to operate on.