Although this thread long ago outlived its usefulness, I thought I'd post my current track plan and operating scheme, just to let you know that I'm still messing around with the layout when time permits. Now that the project that has occupied all my time for the past few months is about finished; I'm hoping that I can actually start doing something with the model railroad very soon. I sure need the relaxation!
Before anyone feels the need to mention it - yes, the current plan is a much longer version of Lance Mindheim's simple but elegant Palmetto Spur track plan, but without the everybody has one team/transload track. As before, layout size is 18in deep by 20ft in length. The switch on the left side of the plan is non-operating and just a scenic element to show that the spur connects to the outside world.
After trying plan after plan and never being quite satisfied with any of them; based on actual experience and observations it occurred to me that an industrial spur that is only about 1,600 feet in length would be very unlikely to have more than two or three industries located on it, at least not ones that would support several car spots. After carefully picking and choosing the industries that I liked and ones that would support most all of my equipment types, this seems quite plausible and operating this plan is working out just fine, with a typical one man session taking about an hour to complete - longer when two of us operate it. I certainly can't say right now that this will be the final plan for my switching layout, but so far, I'm pleased with the simple design and the amount of switching involved. It's also something that I feel I could get to a reasonable state of completion in a short amount of time.
The industries are:
Sherwood Foods - a food products distributor that receives general service tank cars of cooking oils, box cars of canned goods, sugar, coffee, rice, beans, and refrigerator cars of frozen meats. 4 car spots.
Blommer Chocolates - Name says it all - they receive covered hoppers and occasional box cars of cocoa beans, Airslide hoppers of sugar and Corn Syrup tanks of corn sugar. 2 car spots (more on that in a minute)
Midwest Distribution Warehouse: Receives box cars of various products. 4 car spots.
I should also mention that an idea suggested on some other posts about occasionally changing out the industries is also being contemplated. I'll have to see if I feel any real need to do that, but it's certainly something to consider and a good excuse to build different structures.
In regard to Blommer Chocolates: I was going to base this one on the Blommer facility in Union City, CA, which can spot up to 4 cars of different types at a time, but then after experimenting a little, I decided that basing it on their Chicago, IL, facility actually provides more operation. At the Chicago plant they can only spot two cars at a time on their street level track (they actually have two spurs on different levels and sides of the plant) so the types of cars vary from session to session and can be a mixture of different cars and commodities. Blommer must be switched each session and there are usually cars waiting to be spotted on the lead to the plant, which require spotting as instructed by the facility. Sometimes you'll spot two covered hoppers of cocoa beans, then the next time a tank car and Airslide or two of each or other combinations. All depends on what is received and how the plant orders them to be spotted. I'll change the name of this facility to something else, so it won't pin me down to a certain location as this is purely a free-lance layout.
The one thing that makes operations of a simple plan such as this more interesting and typical of what a train crew would encounter on such a spur is even though cars are blocked out in industry order when the train enters the spur, it doesn't mean that cars in the train spot in the order they are lined up in the train. Each industry has its own spotting instructions, which the crew doesn't receive until they arrive at the facility. So you often have to swap cars around and even leave some constructively placed for the next trip on the spur. Combine that with some cars that must be re-spotted and things can get interesting.
Well that's it for now. Didn't mean to get so windy and a lot of these ideas have been covered before so sorry if I bored you. I know a plan like this won't appeal to the vast majority of model railroaders, but it's certainly prototypical and gives you the feel of actually working rail served sized industries. I'll see how this works out after operating it for a while. I'm just completely out of ideas and sick of the constant planning and re-planning! When you get right down to it, the track arrangement is not the most important factor of a switching layout, but rather the industries and their size.
Of course I could wake up in the middle of the night and come up with something a bit different (Oh No!!) - so we'll see. At some point, when I actually (finally?) start building the layout, I'll start a new thread and bore you some more.