SSW Shelf Layout - You comments

[FCIN]

This is the plan I'd go with and fine tune it some. Very nice and interesting track plan and not overly complicated like the other plan. A lot of switches and spurs doesn't necessarily equate to more interesting operation. Jack Hill's New Castle Industrial Railroad, being a darn good example of what I mean.

My main concern with the plan as drawn would be do you have enough room to work the food processing plant? My thinking being that if for some reason you had 4 - 50ft cars spotted at the food processor and your crew had 4 to spot in their place, you'd need about 6ft (1.83m?) to clear the switch if you had hold of all 8 cars at one time, which at some point you would. Doesn't look like you'd have room to put either the inbound or outbound cars in the runaround track and be able to clear the switch on the right side of the runaround, unless you made a lot of extra moves to set over a couple of cars at a time. That would get very old very fast and I sure wouldn't want to have work that spur! Hope you understand what I'm saying

Although many folks think that putting a runaround track on the layout adds interest, and would almost be required when you have spurs in both directions, it really isn't necessary and very rare on short industrial spurs (think of the layout in terms of its scale length). It is interesting to have the one industry spur in the opposite direction and I like the crossing that is required on the food processor and warehouse tracks. Have seen many locations on prototype railroads where that is done, but I'd give a lot of thought to whether or not you have enough room to work that spur. You might want to take some rolling stock and that good looking GP-40 and see how much length you'd need to work that spur.

If worse comes to worse, you might have to loose the industry in the upper right corner and arrange the two larger industries to switch from the same direction. You could possibly move the small industry that is currently in the upper right corner over to the upper left corner where you currently have a non rail served industry. That would still give you a reason to have the runaround track (which could also be used for car storage), but give you ample room to work all the industry tracks.

Another thought I have would be to place a small industry in the area labeled "Optional Space" with the track angled in to it (no curve or very broad curve), but that would require moving your team track to say the left end of the runaround track, still switched from the same direction. In other words, the team track could be placed where the non rail served building is now.

As for a location for your SSW industrial spur, it could be located in any number of places: Memphis, TN, West Memphis, Little Rock, Pine Bluff, AR, Dallas, Fort Worth, TX, to name a few SSW locations. An industrial spur like this could be found in any mid-size to large city area. Good industry choices for a good variety of freight cars too.

Just my thoughts.