Dilemma HO layout plan

[Canadian Atlantic Railway]

I applaud the individual that designed the track plan for you. That's a lot of track/buildings/switching in a small amount of square footage. But I also feel that's way too busy and agree with Matt, it'll look like a Christmas village if it were complete. That layout may work well if stretched at every corner

I was/am facing the same choices you are making. I really wanted a yard to fiddle in. A place to break down trains, bring trains in from off layout and move engines around. My dilemma was getting the cars shuffled around and an engine in position to shove through the layout. And what I kept ending up with once I grabbed some cars from an interchange or sorted in my yard, was a train that I could have placed with my hands in order ready to be shoved. This was my keeping it simple that I just kept avoiding. I really wanted to have a yard and interchange, but couldn't make it work. I minimized as much as I wanted, leaving plenty of switching opportunities with 5-6 industries. At the moment nothing is crowded. This has been my journey <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://bigbluetrains.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=7761">viewtopic.php?f=46&t=7761</a><!-- l -->

I quick disclaimer, I'm not as well versed and have less than half the knowledge and skills as most of these guys (maybe some gals) on the forum. You will get and have already, exceptional advice from the members here.

Good luck and looking forward to us both working on a layout.

To be fair my friend designed what I originally asked for and he did deliver. After looking at the ISL's on the Big Blue I realized that it would not look very good and be a short lived layout. I am halfway through your thread <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://bigbluetrains.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=7761">viewtopic.php?f=46&t=7761</a><!-- l --> and appreciate all advice.

ote="LynnB"]Stephen after giving it some thought the way you want to simplify the plan, basicly you have an end to end plan there so what I would do is treat it more like a puzzle where you would need less industries to make it less cluttered but at the same time make it more difficult to pull a car(s) from a certain industry without moving cars out of the way. Not sure if your familiar with shunting puzzles I think there referred to. Hope this gives some ideas.[/quote]

That sounds like what I am after. A decent amount of industries without the Christmas village look and a bit of a challenge to operate.

uote="lajry"]Here's a revision of Railnet's plan to get rid of all the switchbacks top & bottom. Yes modelers love them because it adds more "interest" to the switching. But why is it more interesting to just do more work. My LAJ Ry does have two switch backs but no cars have to be moved because each industry has has it's own spur. Not modeling those anyway because only have room to model 7 out of 22 leads. Only have room to fit that in a 10' x 14' room & still have room for 3-4 operators to walk around.
And no this was not done on a cad program. It was done in Picasa using the Text" part of it.

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That looks better already.