More Track Plan Ideas

Bruce and I got together this afternoon and discussed some of the ideas we've been mulling lately. His latest plan ... nothing short of amazing ... tucks both an east and west yard in the room, keeps the Herminie mine and has a narrow duckunder/lift out. There is plenty of switching opportunity but I expressed some concern about the elevations in this small an area. We did a couple of quick calculations and we might have 3-3.5% grades. Ouch! This is a great plan for running tracks point to point, and Bruce kept an option for continuous run, but I was not sure I would be happy once we started operating.

Point-to-point with option for continuous run

I have been thinking that I was trying to do too much in the small space I have. What if I eliminate the staging yards and have the train traverse the mainline 2 or 3 loops to get from point A to point B? For that matter, what about a terminating yard where all the traffic coming in was destined for local industries and all the outbound freight went in a single direction to the division yard for sorting? Basically, I was beginning to focus on an industrial yard servicing a small city ... say, East McKeesport. As an example, I showed Bruce the Big Island Railroad plan from the Model Railroading layout database which is very close to the size room we have to work with.

Model Railroader's Big Island Rail track plan

Now a peninsula in this plan does create two rather narrow aisle but we could put 2 or 3 spurs here, even the Herminie coal mine. There is a small workable yard online and several spurs off the mainline as it makes the loop. We even discussed making an outside track or two where the duckunder would be and have a "mole" make up and break down the trains that move on and off the layout - sort of a manual staging yard.

Possibilities....