Input on a "Temporary" Shelf Track Plan

[Fluesheet]

Scenically, I am fond of to trying to put partial buildings or overpasses on the front sides, help hide the "end-of-world" effect a little.

I actually was thinking about that last night after I had posted that most recent plan - I liked the idea, but neglected to incorporate it in some way. Some ideas I'd experimented with, and may go back to is to:
- Making the left end a car shop where the interior of the shop is exposed (i.e. a cutaway building). This would work as a view block, plus make an interesting scenic element
- Similarly, putting a small engine house in the same location.

I'd also thought about staddling a coal dock over the "main" line - this would be a similar transition to a overpass - but rejected it for two reasons: I don't have the vertical space (and depth is iffy), and it would be overkill for the flavor of the remaining part of the layout; it's not a mainline, afterall!

Btw - I just saw your post on the model-railroad-hobbyist forum - I hadn't fully grasped that the layout mainly was intended as test track for cars that needed to be fixed (or was just fixed). If you want the entire thing to be a RIP facility, you can. There is a nice plan of a little larger RIP facility on the Carl Arendt micro layouts site (http://www.carendt.com), just search for RIP there.

But for more of a repair facility, a little more depth (at least a foot) would have been nice, allowing you to have tracks branch out some more and to have tracks go into workshops etc.

But if 7" is the depth you can have, it is the depth you can have. Anyways - good luck with your temporary layout!

Stein

I was lucky enough to have listened to a Modelrail Radio podcast in which the person being interviewed (Chris ?) spoke about small and micro layouts, which got me to thinking about making this a more operational setup. My original inspiration is actually my Dad's "layout" on the back edge of his bench. It consists of about 15' of flextrack, with a turnout and parallel spur springing off about halfway along the run. The track is on some spare 1x4 lumber which is supported by bricks at strategic locations. Nothing fancy, but it provides a spot to put some of his fantastic models on rails. As an aside, there is an ugly vertical transition between two boards that happen to provide a good test of tracking and coupler reliability.

The workbench line idea struck me as very functional, the small switching layout sounds intriguing. Tearing down the old layout, the re-location of the bench and the aquisition of a turnout jig is what set it all in motion. Working in my test case trackage is still an ongoing thought process.

Matt