Motley
irst of all thank you Dougles I appreciate all the help with the new plan. Damn I thought I had it.
Ok the turntable. Shouldn't it be close to the edge proximity for operating it. Not sure why you are suggesting put in a corner 32" away?
The reason why I left space open near the turntable and deisel house is so I can have a place to lean over to uncouple cars. When I lay the yard tracks I will get the straight with 2.5" center spacing.
Mainline crossover before and after the yard, I will add these, Im using free version of anyrail and I run out of track peices.
I want to keep Coors with 3 tracks, because I want to use the Coors switcher and real Coors has a yard with many tracks. Not sure I want it close to yard tracks is in Golden with surrounding mountains on all sides. The inside Coors track will also serve as staging track.
For the coal mine and flood loader. The upper left corner I want to build some rock cliffs and trees there.
The reason why I moved the Depot to the outside edge is reaching over the large building to the yard tracks will be difficult.
Ok I was able to move the turntable a bit and added another yard track. Added the spur for Aggregate Sand Transfer facilty.
If you want to draw your plan out for me I would like to see what you come up with.
Yes, you have lots of big pieces who's prototypical setting places them in the middle of wide open Western USA spaces, even the Depot, IIRC. That's difficult to do all of that in 15 x 12, but your vision and druthers is what matters, not mine.
But you misunderstood about the TT. The TT would be in the SE corner, close to the front edge, even right on the edge if you wanted. The rest of the trackage would curve around its backside, between the TT and the backdrop. The mainline trackage would be 32" from the edge....if that....not the TT, but some of those curves might have to be 32" radius. (You could use Walthers #8 or even #7.5 curved turnouts to start buling the yard). The 32 inch radius really shouldn't be a problem for any of your equipment. You'd have to relocate the Depot to make a little room for the mainlines, but you would have the space for the Depot where the TT is now.
Then angle the mainline and yard tracks from the SE corner, which would now be close to the backdrop, towards the front edge of the benchwork as you travel towards the duckunder. Or, you could leave them as is which would create some space between them and the new location of the Depot, if reaching over it is a big concern. (BTW, most uncoupling in yards is done at the ends, with the locomotives, not right in the middle where the Depot might be in the way)
I'm not trying to redraw your plan. As is noted, we don't really know your priorities and vision, so specific comments can become moot.
I'm merely looking at the big picture of space utilization and seeing places where it could be improved.
If you look at a lot of track plans, oftentimes the TT is located inside of a curve, not in the middle of a straight section, because placing it inside of a curve uses the benchwork space better. But if that conflicts with your vision and priorities, I guess that wouldn't be an option.
If I were to redraw your plan from a clean slate, I would start by placing a perfectly-to-scale 38 inch radius curve in the SE corner as close to the backdrop as I could, and then a 36 inch radius curve immediately inside of that to give me my double mainline, then start building the yard off of those, angling all tracks away from the backdrop and towards the front edge as I moved towards the duckunder, keeping them as straight as possible and as close together as I could handle.
If the 38/36 radius curves did not fit, I would try 36/34.
Then the rest of the layout would flow off of that critical SE corner nest in both directions.
If the flood loader were in the NE, I don't think that would stop you from putting rock cliffs in the NW or NE corner somehow.
Again, if your vision is set, then its hard to do this.
But often times as time passes, and you play with designs, your vision changes as you realize how each druther is competing for space.
BTW: as far as the brewery, if it was placed along the backdrop where is says "bathroom door", the yard trackage in front would give the appearence of the brewery plant tracks in Golden. It could still be scenicked as wide open. You might have to compromise and only have space for one or two spurs to actually park brewery railcars on them, but the entire rows of tracks would still look like the brewery complex if you took an isolated photo of just that scene. All JMO.
Also, the prototype Depot likely has a few straight tracks, not curved tracks, either in front of it or behind it, or both. Relocating the model to where the TT is now conveys that scene better than having it in the corner, where you have it now. Again, JMO.