02-13-2009, 12:14 PM
I'm not sure I understand completely the elevations of your last plan. Are the yard to the left and the track going through the center of the layout at grade, with the rear track and industries elevated while the front track with the runaround going to the hidden staging is descending below grade? If the run around is not level, it won't be of any use because anything dropped there will want to roll away. You could use the locomotive escape track in the yard as a run around for working those industries in the rear of the layout, but I'm not sure how often the prototype would have put a locomotive in the center of a train to run from a yard to an industry in the late 40's to early 50's. You will be limited to very short trains, I think probably limited to about 4 40 foot cars on that upper section. If you can move those 2 industries on the right side of the upper or back section just a few inches to the right, you could possibly fit a run around in the section between the two sets of industries. It may even fit without relocating any industries. Put two turnouts back to back where the one is on the right side. Put the other end of the run around to a switch coming off of the wye switch servicing the industry on the left with the run around track connecting the 2 switches. The tight area will result in you having to plan switching moves carefully in order to keep enough clearance on both tails of the run around to allow you room to work, but I think it would be doable.