Thoughts From Some Clown
Hi Robin,
I've given your track plan some thought and I would like to point out a few things. Let's call it "food for thought." The first thing is by the area at the top of your plan where it says "double track," it also says "sawmill." I think this area is oversimplified. The narrow gauge tracks here should diverge and one line run around the log dump for the sawmill, whether that be into a pond or down a hill. The other narrow gauge track should go and run parallel to your main line, which is the black line in your drawing. I think the main line in this loading area should have a bypass track that runs parallel to the main line and this would be where the cars are stored while they're loaded with fresh lumber so they don't block the main line. Or, instead of a bypass track, it could be a spur that runs into the back of the sawmill at an oblique angle. Lots of stuff to be loaded in this area. You've got two sawmills and a mine, all serviced by this area and undoubtedly you're going to have cars waiting around to be loaded and unloaded.
Now the business track for the sawmills is what I want to talk about next. That's the lower red line to the right of the drawing. I don't think this track is long enough. When you think about it, you've got two sawmills working off of this area and I think you have a wonderful chance here to build a "catch as catch can," rickety old teetering railway line that snakes much further around the diorama and it could switch back two or three times more. You figure these guys have been cutting lumber for a while and the tracks have grown as they've had to go further to reach the logs. So you could have all sorts of rickety old trestle bridges, bridges made out of logs, cuts blasted through the sides of mountainous areas and large areas that have already been logged off and, of course, at the top would be where the fresh trees are. You've got quite a locomotive operation there with your turntable and locomotive service sheds and the camp, so these fellows need something to do. I think you should extend your track as far as possible.
I'm going to be adding a mine to my layout, too, but my mine will have its own loop of track and its own little train that runs around inside the mine and emerges from tunnels and skirts the terrain then dives back into another tunnel, only to emerge once again. This way, I can set the mine train going and it adds animation to the layout. I saw this done once with a point to point where the train came out of a tunnel and ended its run on a girder system over the mine where it supposedly dumped its ore. Then the little train would go back into the mine to pick up another load. But I prefer my train to go in a loop rather than a point to point system.
Aside from this I really like your plan. Nn3 is a real challenge. Perhaps one day I will accomplish it. But for now my mine train will be HOn30 and that's challenging enough for me.
TrainClown
