@AmFlyer posted:Some comments based on operating my layout over the last 4 years. One main line or two is your personal preference. If you end up with one make sure you have two places trains can meet and pass each other. The final plan is a one way railroad, based on clockwise operation. I know I would want the ability to leave the yard in either direction, if you do not, that is fine. I think there needs to be a third track the length of the right hand wall. It would function as a yard lead and a staging track for inbound/outbound trains from the yard and not interfere with trains running on the two loops. I have a long yard staging lead and use it all the time. Actually I have two, one for the North half of the yard and one for the South half, which is similar to the two halves of your freight and engine service area.
Good info Tom. I appreciate your insight.
I'm leaning towards single track main to keep with prototype. There was a single main and two sidings through Bowersock Mill / Lawrence Paper - one on either side of the main.
On the long wall, I could move the main to the outside and build a tree off the inner bowersock / paper siding to feed the penninsula ice house and other facilities. I think a full train turnaround would be tough. Based off 1918 Sanborn maps, trains were set-up and torn down in a small multi-track yard with no turnaround. The roundhouse had a turntable at one point - but whether either was in use by 1940 is unknown to me. So I think I need to design a way to flip a train by moving reefers onto the penninsula, then moving them into a staging track and flipping the direction by flipping the locomotive. Course, that doesn't solve flipping a passenger train - but that was done somewhere more substantial than a middle of the way stop.
