Progress is being made on my layout. In spite of what I thought was a ton of planning, as I build I am discovering things I don't like and making some changes on the fly. Unfortunately while some changes are not difficult, others that I see are a bigger challenge. As an example, my layout is more or less a double track oval - outside track primarily for passenger and inside for freight. In retrospect, I'm not sure it would not have been more flexible to keep the tracks further away from the backdrop all around as I do not have room for sidings off the outside. That means most sidings are running off the inside track. I ended up ripping out three sidings because they ended up being kind of useless due to lack of space. I added a couple of sidings to park passenger trains and moved one siding to be able to service an Auto Parts Plant. I am going to use the Lakeville Warehouse Kit which is 12" x 19" so I needed the space for it. I also added a siding to service a Cement Plant.
Here is my duck-under/drop in. Although it is removable, I did not cut the tracks and do not plan to normally remove it.
Here is the detail of the connections:
I bought a single-track plate girder bridge and cut off the sides to make a double track bridge over my yard. I had to make it as the tracks are on a bit of a curve.
Carving foam is messy and a pain, but it is starting to take shape.
This is my new siding to service the cement plant in the Town of Southlake.
The new sidings for parking GO Trains will be much more useful than the siding I ripped out!
View of Southlake with new siding. You can see I tested weathering the tracks a bit :)
Ground level views are kind of cool:
This mess is going to be a 'Y' junction, where Main Street divides to go under the tracks to the left and up towards the camera.
Some detail of the river bank in progress:
The yard track inclines up as it leaves the yard, coming through a cut as a road crosses the tracks.
Not sure why the tracks look all warped here - they are not :)
Overall I am happy with the progress. I'm still undecided about the tracks crossing the river. Originally I was going to build a wooden trestle, and now am thinking of building a small coffer or flood-control dam.
I am finding that with the long GO train cars, that the space available is a bit restrictive in terms of being able to be creative with the layout. As it is the curves are tighter than they should be, but can't really be any wider in the space I have. I can see why people use 'N' gauge, although I can't see well enough to use things that small. I have a feeling I may start leaning more to a 1950's - 1960's freight operation, but we'll see....