Just an update...with Dad at home for the quarantine in KY, and me working from home in Florida, we've been on Skype a few hours a week working on the preparing the layout area. Dad's made progress and cleaned up the basement and now the area is about ready to start buildout.
He's also upped the budget a bit and we now have permission from the High Authority of the Household to bust through a divider wall into the "living" area of the basement for a yard / train storage. Kind of necessary with all the rolling stock I've accumulated through various methods over the past few months.
So here's an updated LO, with the outer passing spur extending all the way around half of the main line. And the main line (yellow / cyan / pink) loop has been given a 4% grade to pass over a turnout from the inner loop across a bridge. This layout allows running 3 independent trains (with a separate KW not shown yet) on the GREEN inner loop, the Blue/Gray figure 8 and the yellow main loop. We can reverse direction from any loop, transition from outer to inner, and have direct yard access from both outer and inner loops. If we just run 2 trains, we can configure the inner loop to run across the red spur line and will indefinitely run by itself whit no outside input and will run around the figure 8 the opposite way each time (due to the non-derail setup).
I'm pretty happy with the options of this configuration!
Also figured out how to use a 3P3T switch to rearrange the power districts more easily for when we want to access the orange yard from either the outer or inner loop. Center position is "Run" and a separate LW transformer has full control of the yard. If we want to switch from outer loop to yard, the switch is thrown to the upper position which kills the LW and feeds the yard from the A handle of the KW. If we access yard from the inner loop (run from the B handle), then it kills power the other way and takes over the orange yard.
Since the feeder line to the Yard passes through a wall, I'm wiring a bell to the ground loop of the last 40" section of track to warn switchers working with the LW of impending doom if they don't stop.
The electrical stuff you see is not the switches, it's separate drops to individual insulated parts of the layout. For the most part, all the SPST switches from the A or B mains on the KW will remain in the closed position, but we do anticipate some times where we need to isolate individual sections.
Switches and accessories are all on a dedicated separate transformer (probably another KW).
Half the fun of the layouts is planning, isn't it?
