TPBO

[FCIN]

Ed, I really like your plans but they don't "Flow". I would rearrange the industries so they aren't too close together, I would also give some of the spurs an angle so it doesn't look as straight.

Justin;

Not sure what you mean by "Flow". I just finished laying out all the track as it appears on the plan and it looks pretty spaced out to me - more so than it would appear on the plan. I don't want anything to be closer to the left side of the plan then about least 8 feet to the first turnout to allow plenty of room to work the first industry. Being a former railroader, I always tend to look at track lengths in scale lengths and how much clearance you have.

As for angling some of the spurs so that things don't look so straight, I'm modeling something like this:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.11...8&t=k&z=18
By the way, I was considering modeling this spur, but when I studied the trackage, realized very quickly that in many cases, you'd have to pull all your outbound cars and put them on the main line in order to work it. Something I could not do.

If I angle anything at all, it would pretty much have to be the Coca-Cola spur and it needs to be long enough to allow them to move cars as they are unloaded. Same for the feed mill. If the track can spot two covered hoppers for unloading, then the length of the spur must be a minimum of four car lengths to the clearance point.

I'm looking at possibly making the "main track" form a very broad "S" curve through the length of the run, but will have to see how that would effect the industries. That may or may not work out, but I'll see. There is nothing at all wrong with an industrial spur being straight with the industry spurs parallel to the "main" - pretty commonplace.

I would like to have at least one structure on the layout that has an angled wall to fit the track. Might throw in the storage track I mentioned previously and have it room next to an abandoned or no longer rail served structure.