New track plan # 2

[Russ Bellinis]

I didn't see Stein's idea yesterday. Checking the time it looks like his went through a few minutes before my last post. I like his idea, and the back drop is not needed. If you combine his plan with your original plan, you get a very workable solution. You are needing an interchange from a mainline to a branch line rather than hidden staging at each end as you would if you were modeling a class 1 "bridge line." Your staging can thus be in plain sight. What if you start with the original plan in the first post on this thread, and bring your track from the main in above the yard in the upper right corner. Eliminate some of the yard tracks and put in an industry behind the turntable. You would want it to be a low relief, but long say 6-8 feet to hide the end of the interchange track. The front 1/2 of the upper right leg would then be a turntable and an industry (or industries sharing a siding). The back 1/2 of the table would be the interchange track or track coming into the branch off the mainline. At about the 5 foot to 8 foot marks on the top leg there is a pair of sidings with a small ladder. Remove the outside ladder track. In the corner you have a spur coming off the left leg of the layout going through a crossover and ending. Curve that spur around to join the track coming off your unmodeled mainline. Put a long passing siding on that track coming off the main for a locomotive escape. Between sessions you could leave a cut of cars on the track coming in or the passing siding which would simulate the railroad bringing a cut of cars for the industries you model and leaving them on that track, and picking up the cut you left to go off the railroad from the previous night. You send you locomotive out to pick up the cut of cars, and switch out your industries. The empties that were unloaded locally and loads that were loaded by local industries are then assembled into a cut and left on that "interchange track" to be picked up the next night by the regular turn which will take those cars off the layout and leave another set of cars for your busy railroad to sort to the various industries at the next operating session.