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Jarrell, Layout planning seems like hard work Eh??? The reason is because there is never enough space to do what you want. This is the single governing factor in most design issues (well duh). If it seems difficult, that's because it is..... You are correct in that the idea of the double main is just to get the tracks as close as you can to eat up as little table space as possible. It doesn't matter what you want to call them. I think that they will look better than two tracks runnng through the scene 8" apart. If we digress a bit back to basic layout concepts: The main issue is that you need to have a track coming and another going through the middle of your dogbone in order to have a continous loop. The prototype wouldn't have two tracks within scale 160' of each other running to and from the same place. So, ideally if you want to protoypical you need to ditch one of the tracks. How you do that is the question. You could, for example hide the return track in a tunnel running the length of the back of your layout (I did exactly that on my last layout). There are several drawbacks to that approach: Hidden running for half of the time and acess problems to name a few. Another approach would be to use a single track through the scene that has loops at both ends. Solves the problem nicely except that now you have to throw switches to run continously. Not my definition of continous running. This brings up the double main (or siding ) idea. This way you still have both tracks running through but they act like one unit. You can hide the area where the tracks split up to form the loops at each end in a variety of ways. I do think that you want gentle curves on your logging climb. They add visual interest. Don't worry about the "s" curve problem unless you make the curves really tight. With no disrespect intended to other posters, I would advise that you forget about switchbacks. They will take up a lot of space (more than you have), are a headache to build so they run correctly (reversing direction of the grade on each leg is trickier than it looks) and they are operationally a pain. I have a buddy who put one in and ended up tearing it out because he got tired of the operation issues after spending lots of time tweaking it to get it to run right. As for what to do with hills: Try to imagine what the topography would look like without the trains. Obviously you have started with the track and will have to use a reverse engineering process to get there. Sort of like how some people do their taxes, figure out what you want to pay, then build a scenario to justify it (most of these guys are in jail or were employees of Enron). In your case, you have tracks now imagine hills. A couple of classics to avoid: Long stretches of track running say 4" apart at different levels. A devil to scenic and something you see quite often on Model Railroads. Ever wonder why there are so many model companies offering retaining walls out there??? Another is the hill that ends at the track. This is seen when we have track that is on a hill (like your logging branch) and the hill rises to meet the track and then stops. Imagine that the mountain will continue rising behind the tracks and plan space and scenery accordingly. BTW: Do you really have to cheat to beat the dog at poker??? I liked the pics.
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