Thank you for a thoughtful reply. Both of the yards (Waterbury and WRJ) were actually taken from actual railroad maps - Waterbury almost exact, and WRJ with some space and size modifications. My operational experience is very limited, and while I'm still looking at Track Planning for Realistic Operation every other day, I am still very foggy on some of the concepts Armstrong puts forth. Don't worry, I seem to "get" a bit of it each time I pick the book back up.
I presumed that nothing could be more realistic for operation than the actual "real" track plan, but now I wonder if this too is better as an approximation than a duplicate.
Waterbury is a larger focus in this design than in real life as I want to include the pre-depression Mount mansfield electric railway that interchanged here. There were some industries served by the CV there including a creamery, and a lumber yard. I should have labeled them; from the upper left in a clockwise direction there is the freight depot (where the MMER connects), lumber yard, coal dealer, creamery, and finally the main station. I can see dropping the run arounds for modeling purposes in Waterbury, but I think they had the sidings there for meets and for local switching work. From an operational standpoint, what do I gain by removing them? Would you have any other suggestions?
My design goal was to do a point and loop for the CV, and a point to point for the MMER. Most of the CV trains that went through Waterbury seemed to be through freights or passenger runs, so this design seemed to fit prototype practice. In the case of passenger trains, they were sorted and joined with B&M cars from Boston, and than sent north through Waterbury to St. Albans and Montreal, returning to repeat the process (Boston bound cars sorted back out).
The WRJ yard I'd love some more help with. There were two actual yards here, one for the B&M and one for the CV (they shared the mainline south for a bit) and as I've noted they interchanged heavily. Elements I'd like to show include the roundhouse, turntable, and coaling station, the CV yard, the B&M interchange, and the visual deviation of the CV across the White River. If I can talk the Sig Other into letting me expand along the wall, I'd like to add a B&M yard at a later date (maybe even a cassette).
Do you have suggestions on how I can include these design elements into a better designed yard? I'm not asking you to draw it, but some direction would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks again
Cheers