Building the Potomac Line

[lajry]

I do plan on starting construction fairly soon. I would like to use some sort of modular construction so to allow for a move in around 10 years to a new home. I am going to start with an industrial portion of the layout that I found online and just fell in love with. The original is called the Third Street Industrial and can be found here. http://www.westportterminal.de/thirdstreet.html

I have modified it somewhat.


The rest of the layout has yet to be designed. I recently acquired a turntable, I need to get the dimensions for that. One I do, I can begin designing the terminal. I guess you could say I'm have planner's block, don't know where to start.

Dave

Overall your plan is a very good one. But you'll soon get VERY tired of working the switchbacks REAL fast!

[Puddlejumper]

Overall your plan is a very good one. But you'll soon get VERY tired of working the switchbacks REAL fast!

I agree about the switchbacks. That is why the plan has been modified somewhat.



I added a turnout to the spur in the middle of the plan, and repurposed it from an industry to a "storage" track. You can see it labeled "bank track" in the above photos and the turnout ends up right by the tower. I have not finished configuring the street trackage yet, except for the farm, feed, and tack store on the very far left.

[steinjr]

I do plan on starting construction fairly soon. I would like to use some sort of modular construction so to allow for a move in around 10 years to a new home. I am going to start with an industrial portion of the layout that I found online and just fell in love with. The original is called the Third Street Industrial and can be found here. http://www.westportterminal.de/thirdstreet.html

I have modified it somewhat.


The rest of the layout has yet to be designed. I recently acquired a turntable, I need to get the dimensions for that. One I do, I can begin designing the terminal. I guess you could say I'm have planner's block, don't know where to start.

Dave

Overall your plan is a very good one. But you'll soon get VERY tired of working the switchbacks REAL fast!

Depends on how he works this area.

The third street districts switchbacks in Bill Baumann's original plan are not too bad if you work some when the train passes through the district left to right and some when the train is passing through the district right to left.

There are adequate switching leads for all spurs on the original plan. Except possibly for the right side of the inner main - there you might want to have a cassette to extend the length a little if using this as a standalone layout.

I agree that changing the turnout for the coal dealer track (over the bridge) is an unwise move - it changes what used to be an adequate switching lead for the coal dealer into an orphaned switchback spur, where you have to remove cars at the coal dealer to get into that spur.

And dropping the crossover in the middle of the long siding along the front will make it significantly harder to switch - you now cannot use half sidings as temporary storage while switching/running around.

Smile,
Stein

[Puddlejumper]

Thanks for the insights on the track plan. I hadn't thought about the crossover being used as a run around, seemed too short, but I guess running around 1 or 2 cars that would be useful. As for the coal dealer track, I felt the lead was redundant, it didn't serve any industry (those are row houses and back yards behind the lead) so I reversed the turnout and made the lead a storage track. I also deleted a spur from the street branch so i could have more space for buildings and scenery.

biL, I decided to go with modeling the main as a single-tracked double track. In other words, all of the right of way, bridges, fills, cuts, etc. will be modeled as if for double main line, but with one main torn up. This particular area is going to be on elevated fill like the main line through downtown Washington, D.C. The tower remains from when this was an active interlocking on the double main line.

[Puddlejumper]

First section of benchwork is finally up! A friend of mine gave me 4 corner modules that came from a club that never got it's feet off the ground. He needed them gone, so gave them to me to start my benchwork. Underneath will be storage for train stuff, holiday decorations, etc. Sorry I have no more updates today. More in a couple of days.