A friend of mine just got a new layout room with a house above it. He told me that the area was 15 feet by 18 feet. I then saw a thread started by Chris Gilbert in RM Web back on April 26, 2012 called "Help Needed." as well as Roundhouse's Ft. Myers thread and decided to empty my layouts folder again and share some ideas. I figure that I would operate the layout as a switcher stationed on the layout while transfer runs come in from staging.

15 feet x 18 inches:



Each staging track holds 4 cars and a loco.




18 feet by 18 inches:



Each staging track holds 6 cars and a loco.

I also have the same 18x1.5 foot layout with a yard track for a capacity of 12 cars.

And here's the one for 12x1.5 feet:

Mike
You can get rid of the switchback for the cement & salvage spots by having the "back" switch on same track as first switch & have the "back" spur cross the other spur at grade. BTW a cement place is usually much busier than a salvage place. The cement could get 4-6 cars w/ 1st car on unloading spot. Each car is unloaded by rolling over the spot one at a time using gravity & hand brakes.

BTW a cement place is usually much busier than a salvage place. The cement could get 4-6 cars w/ 1st car on unloading spot. Each car is unloaded by rolling over the spot one at a time using gravity & hand brakes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They could use a mechanical car puller as well since its safer.

I agree..I too would eliminate the switchback since a scrap yard would be large enough for scrap storage and large enough to require rail service..Smaller scrap yards would truck their scrap to the mill(s) and not bother with a rail siding..Also the cement company would need room to move their cars over the unloading grate.

I broke up that long spur. The Cement distributor will handle 3 car cuts and I moved the LPG distributor over to where the salvage company was. With only one car on the spur, the cement distributor can use it as a switch back. I know that people aren't fond of switch backs, but I'm trying to give the impression of a yard that an industrial switcher would be assigned to full time.

I figure that the switcher would handle a maximum of 3 or 4 cars at a time.

Now that's a great designed ISL that fills the switching operation needs of most ISL builders-according to the last ISL seminar I attended.

I would call that a grown up timesaver worthy of building.

The only thing I would change would be to eliminate the switch back with a crossing if it interfered with the LPG distributor.

BTW..That manufacturing company would be a great distention for coil cars since the tracks enter the building..

Brakie Wrote:Now that's a great designed ISL that fills the switching operation needs of most ISL builders-according to the last ISL seminar I attended.

I would call that a grown up timesaver worthy of building.

The only thing I would change would be to eliminate the switch back with a crossing if it interfered with the LPG distributor.

BTW..That manufacturing company would be a great distention for coil cars since the tracks enter the building..

It could also be done like that. Instead of staging tracks, just have them enter the building. I would just do it with one track though.

The LPG dealer doesn't interfere with the cement distributor since there would also be only one car there once or twice a week and there is still enough track to drill the cement dealer. I may also just make that the IHC ready mix plant.