What do you think about this track plan? It’s supposed to represent SP running through the outskirts of a big city in southeast Texas in the 90:ies. The plan is for an N scale layout.
The black track is SP and the red track is an industrial railroad for the chemical plant. The interchange at the bottom of the plan is with a short line serving an industrial park. Minimum radius on the SP: 14 inch, minimum radius on the industrial railroad: 11 inch. There will only small cosmetic grades. The left entrance to staging will be screened by trees and the right entrance by a highway overpass.
I’m planning to store the layout in one place and have it set up for operation in another. It will come apart in two pieces, the scenic and staging, for easier moving and for me to easier be able to work on the layout. My initial plan is for the staging area to be in the corner of a room after setup, making it a bit difficult to reach during operation. I might rethink it and rotate the layout 900. The staging will be passive though so I think it could work having it in the corner.
I’m thinking of operating the layout as follows. There will be through trains on the SP, general freight and intermodal, running from staging to staging. A SP local, working as a turn, is going to run from staging (entering from upper left) to the siding switching the rock crusher, the warehouse and the interchange with the short line. SP is also going to have a hauler coming from a SIT yard (staging, entering from upper left) delivering empty cars to the chemical plant and picking up outbound loads (chemicals in tank cars, chemicals in covered hoppers and plastic pellets in covered hoppers) before heading back to the SIT yard. The chemical plant will have it’s own in house switcher spotting the empty cars and pulling the cars when they’ve been loaded. On the SP I’m going to run both 6 axle and 4 axle units. The chemical plant switcher will be a GP38-2 with truckmounted couplers.
/Mattias
The black track is SP and the red track is an industrial railroad for the chemical plant. The interchange at the bottom of the plan is with a short line serving an industrial park. Minimum radius on the SP: 14 inch, minimum radius on the industrial railroad: 11 inch. There will only small cosmetic grades. The left entrance to staging will be screened by trees and the right entrance by a highway overpass.
I’m planning to store the layout in one place and have it set up for operation in another. It will come apart in two pieces, the scenic and staging, for easier moving and for me to easier be able to work on the layout. My initial plan is for the staging area to be in the corner of a room after setup, making it a bit difficult to reach during operation. I might rethink it and rotate the layout 900. The staging will be passive though so I think it could work having it in the corner.
I’m thinking of operating the layout as follows. There will be through trains on the SP, general freight and intermodal, running from staging to staging. A SP local, working as a turn, is going to run from staging (entering from upper left) to the siding switching the rock crusher, the warehouse and the interchange with the short line. SP is also going to have a hauler coming from a SIT yard (staging, entering from upper left) delivering empty cars to the chemical plant and picking up outbound loads (chemicals in tank cars, chemicals in covered hoppers and plastic pellets in covered hoppers) before heading back to the SIT yard. The chemical plant will have it’s own in house switcher spotting the empty cars and pulling the cars when they’ve been loaded. On the SP I’m going to run both 6 axle and 4 axle units. The chemical plant switcher will be a GP38-2 with truckmounted couplers.
/Mattias