John C.
You are getting good advice from Carl -- that a layout should echo "real world" railroad operations.
The double crossover looks ultra cool, but two single crossovers in opposite paths (one at the top of the track plan and another at the bottom) would be cheaper and perhaps less likely to invite collisions. Passing sidings are also useful locations for operating accessories so that freight cars can load -- and later unload -- products off the main line. My favorite is the pair of Lionel Culvert accessories: the Unloader and the Loader. The Coal Ramp and accompanying Coal loader (if mounted underneath the ramp) catches coal when dumped and then reloads it onto a waiting coal hopper, thus creating a repeatable cycle of coal movement.
The passenger analog to this is to place a suburban depot in the boondocks along a route leading to the Big City Station.
Another previous suggestion called for realistic beginning and ending points on your railroad, as:
* a coal mine and tipple producing hopper loads of coal for shipment to a coal-fired power plant
* a dairy farm producing milk to be shipped in milk cans to a milk unloading platform adjacent to a dairy processing plant
* an oil field with a derrick and a "horsehead" oil pump filling oil tank cars to be sent to an oil storage tank farm
* a Fire House in town that responds to a burning house in the neighborhood (both are MTH action accessories)
* a military base of quonset buildings served by a military train hauling tanks, trucks, a missile launcher, etc.
* a river running through the layout creates a need for a train bridge across it -- Hellgate, Lift Bridge, Drawbridge, etc.
It's a space-eating feature, but a roundhouse, turntable, and access tracks makes a spectacular beginning/ending point for steam trains. A diesel shed could be placed in that area.
Industrial and residential buildings call for O-scale figures. Artista makes a lot of realistic people to populate a layout. Send them a photo and they'll custom-make a figure of YOU.
Trouble is, one's imagination often outruns the available layout space! But carry on, regardless.
Mike Mottler
(ritrainguy)
