06-05-2009, 03:56 PM
tv_man Wrote:Thanks for all the helpful comments.
Russ: yes, the two industries would be awfully close to each other, but isn't that the case on all model railroads?
Not necessarily. It was probably true before the advent of staging yards and around the wall, walk around layout designs. You will actually have an advantage if your various modeled industries are not related to each other. You mentioned that you have a variety of rolling stock that you need to build industries for. If you use your yard as a visible small staging yard, you can use industries on the layout to either function as originators of loads for shipping or destinations for loads shipped into the modeled industries. As such the various industries can accomodate all of your various types of freight cars. If you have an industry that serves to originate a load that is unloaded on another industry on the same layout, you have reduced the variation in freight cars because the two industries will only use the one type of car. To illustrate the point, if you have 6 industries on the layout, you have potential for the use of 6 different types of freight cars, but 2 of those industries serving as source in one case and destination in the other, just reduced you car types to 5. 2 sets of paired industries reduces your car types to 4. 3 sets of paired industries reduces the car types to 3.