This is my latest track plan. It's an expansion on a track plan posted by steinjr.
Johnnny_reb Once a word is spoken it can not be unspoken!
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So you have a rock quarry under your engine house?
Have you considered a little more variety on your industries. So far everything is pretty much aggregates, little tiny rocks in short hoppers.
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Yard and quarry version 2
Better.
What kind of switch controls are you using? Since you will have minimal separation between levels and your lower tracks run right under your yard leads, you will not be able to have anything extending below the roadbed in the way of a linkage or wiring because it will foul the hidden tracks below.
By configuring your quarry tracks with a switchback to spot the cars you are basically forcing all the other tracks to remain clear. So you have a large amount of trackage to only spot 3 cars. If you have cars spotted on the runaround or tail track and come down with a full spot of empties it will be hell pulling and spotting the cars. Make more spots on facing point spurs to gain more loading tracks and generate more business.
The sand pit is a similar situation, you have an entire side of the layout devoted to an industry with only 3 or 4 spots.
You might also look at your yard plan, you have no runaround in the yard.
the grade on the bottom half of the layout looks like it will be in the neighborhood of 3-4% at least. With the yard against the back of the layout, the bottom track won't be able to start rising until just before it gets to the point where the track color changes. If you want to start the grade in the lower left hand corner then you will need to move the yard out so its 4-6 inches from the wall/edge of the layout. That will allow you enough room to scenically cover the rising track without hitting the roadbed below the yard tracks.
Lower level right side at 0", upper level is at 3". Grade to lower level left side is 2%. Grade from left to right on the lower level is 1.3%. The warehouses on the upper left are at 4.25", the yard is at 4.25" with an engine escape that can be used as a run-around when needed. The tables at the top and bottom of the drawing can be expanded to 24" wide if more space is needed.
But as with all plans as they are built one must change them as the need arises. The warehouses in the upper left corner, the back-row will move to the edge of the layout with (just building fronts) a row of trees to the right to hide the tunnel entrance. As for turnout controls I will be using ground throws.
As for the layout itself I plan to use 1/4 or 3/8 plywood as the top along with foam board for scenery and use cookie cutter method for some if not all of the grades.
One last note: ALL PLANS will change as they are built. This is a given. The plan I expanded on was posted by someone else. I thought it was neat but had only the upper level with setouts. It simply used the duckunder on the left as a way to have contentious running. And as there are five quarries (two sand and three rock) within fifty miles of me I thought it would be neat to model one or two of them.