Hi guys, Here are some pics of my little switching layout I have been working. The era is 86-present and the theme is an industrial park of sorts. The layout is L shaped, 9' long by 7' long and 24" wide. A ton of work still needs to be done. I've been roughing in some structures lately. The plan is to see what works and what doesn't. You'll have to excuse the appearance of them as they are rough. Hopefully when I paint and detail them, they'll turn out somewhat better. So starting from left to right, here we go: Logistics warehouse. The spur next to the the receiving track is for transloading. Here is a brick company receiving...bricks of course. Other products can be received or shipped out here. The track closest to the edge is the interchange/storage track. Next door is another warehouse (still have to build a roof for it) I believe this company will make cardboard boxes and packing materials. The local shortline just dropped off a WC boxcar. Next up is a small transload spur. The filtration company that leases the track receives a load of Anthracite every other week or so. Looks like they have two loads waiting to be offloaded which is unusual. (yucky picture too)
continued Here we have a rather large facility. These folks make all sorts of glass products and receive two bay covered hoppers of sand, dolomite, feldspar and so on. Finished product is shipped out via truck on the other side of the facility (not modeled of course) I've also thought of maybe changing them to a food plant and tying them into the next industry. These folks make and distribute juice. They receive different grades of corn syrup via tank car and additives via boxcar. Finished product is shipped out via truck and every once in awhile by boxcar. They use a lot of corn syrup but only have one unloading spot. The crew is very busy here moving cars around. There is still a ton of work left to do. I also need to connect the boxcar track at the juice distributor. Once that is down I can run a session or two and see how things work out. I'll keep you guys posted. Thanks!
Looks good from the pictures! Do you have an overall photo or a trackplan you could post? Did you design this from scratch or use/adapt an existing switching track plan? I model primarily in HO, but I'm working on a switching layout plan for my S scale equipment -- all one locomotive, six freight cars, and bay window caboose!
Looks good. Do you have a track plan? What's about staging or a fiddle yard or an interchange track? Wolfgang
Thanks! Hi guys, Thanks for the kind words. I'll be posting more pics as progress is made. Track plan wise, I had one in photobucket but it inadvertently got deleted. I have it on a thumb drive somewhere, just did to go and look for it. The plan is original. It was drawn up for me my a fellow up in Canada. He had designed a cement plant for his HO clubs layout and I thought it would be cool to have one as a switching layout. After I got the track installed and wired up (EasyDCC) I started to think about more variety and that led me to industrial parks. So all I did was change out structures; the track plan stayed the same. As far as staging/fiddle yard's go; There is nothing hidden. The 7' shelf ends at a doorway. I am building (or rather will be) a drop down extension. This will serve as a needed switching lead. Without it, Ops would probably cease. The track closest to the edge of the layout in the first two photos will be used as fiddle/staging/storage. This way I can easily pull cars on off the layout and put them somewhere when switching the industries. How Ops are envisioned are like this (though not etched in stone). A local shortline arrives in the park and following a switchlist sets about it's business. Some of the industries may have special requirements involving drilling. Take the juice distributor for example; They receive two grades of corn syrup yet only have one spot for unloading Their spur holds 4 maybe 5 cars. There could also be other cars waiting on the storage track. The company would dictate which grade syrup they want unloaded. What also comes into play here is the date on which the car(s) were received. Older cars need to be unloaded first or else they cost the company $$$ fees. Take into account the needs for the certain grade of syrup and that is a ton a switching at just the one industry. To maybe make more sense here is an example (from a prototype provided by friend who works a local shortline) "Spot #1 (closest to the building)- empty to go, move #4 to #1, #2 stays, #3 stays, move #5 to #4 and he gave us three car numbers from our yard to go to #'s 5, 6 and 7 in any order. Sometimes he has 3 cars empty and we are drilling around a whole bunch." The same would work for the other industries on the layout too. I'll see if I can find the plan and get it posted. Thanks!
