12-19-2008, 04:21 PM
Russ Bellinis Wrote:Stein, it looks really good. Switching is my favorite part of model operations, so I really like your layout. As I looked at your track plan,and your plans for cassettes to move trains on and off the layout, it occurred to me that the barge dock just begs for a car float loading dock at the end of that barge dock track. That way you load a train on a cassette, put the cassette on a cart that is at the correct height to have the track line up. You then roll the cart into the end of the dock, and run the train onto the layout or remove another train the same way. If there is a switch on the end of the cassette, you could use two tracks to move one train on and one off or two on or two off the layout.
Hi Russ --
I did consider a car float in an earlier version of the plan. I like car floats. And if I had done a layout based in e.g. NYC or by the great lakes or a few other places, I definitely would have tried for a car float.
But a car float doesn't make sense for Minneapolis - the river was good for bulk transport that was not time-critical, but you would not save time floating cars across the Mississippi when there were a ton of bridges spanning the river and you would not save time floating cars downstream when there were railroad tracks running down along the river.
The cassette where it is now represents both "points east" (when entering the cassette counterclockwise) or "points west" (when entering the cassette clockwise). I can also prestage two transfer jobs "on the layout" (ie not on the cassette) - one on the "mainline" to the left of the door (second track from the wall) and one on the curved mainline to the right of the door. Or just let a train circle round and round the layout and use the cassette as bridge.
As it is now, it is not very scenic - so I might just take it down while running the layout in a point to point fashion. Will have to experiment a little to see how it works out. But I would like to get more of my buildings and scenery in place before doing more on the cassette.
Smile,
Stein