08-12-2009, 10:42 AM
Josh, reading Andrew's post above reminded me that your customer is building this layout down at a low enough level to allow his children to see it. Having it that low allows him to lean over and reach in 4 feet without too much difficulty. Is he planning to let his kids run it or just look at it? If he is planning to let his kids operate it, I would recommend going with a "dog bone" mainline to eliminate the reversing section. You can put in automatic reversers, but he would still need to remember to throw the switches as soon as the train clears them to keep from derailing when they come out. If his children are operating it, they may not remember to switch those switches once the train clears and thus have a lot of derailments. With those issues in mind, I think your original plan is probably better, more kid friendly. You did not mention what era or motive power he was going to run. I'm not sure that modern "super power" will work reliably on 22 inch radius. I understand that the sectional track manufacturers have recently come out with 24 inch radius sectional track to allow for operation of the big modern stuff. If he was to use Gp power instead of the big Sd's and he could use Gp38-2's to Gp60's for modern operations, then it would work even with an 18 inch radius (unless he wants to run 89 foot freight cars). If it would work with an 18 inch radius, run around tracks could be provided at each end to the inside of the balloon tracks.