Southern Pacific Switching Layout

[Russ Bellinis]

I think what I would do is add a set of crossover switches to the spur just before your mainline turns to go across the top. That would give you a run around track with just enough space at the end for the locomotive to drop a cut and get around it to the other side and an additional industry spot in the top right corner of the layout.

Just to get a common reference frame, I'll introduce some labels.

First, I will arbitrarily declare up to be "north", down to be "south" and left to be "west".

The track that goes vertically north-south along the right side of Justin's last plan is "the main" - I have assumed that it continue north and south for quite a distance past the edge of the layout, and that somewhere off to the north or the south there will be yard from whence cars or trains will arrive - either with the loco pulling the cars (if they arrive from the north) or with the loco pushing the cars (if they arrive from the south).

The track that curves off leftwards from the main, either ending at the far left, between the team track and the warehouse track, or just being cut off at the edge of the layout at that location, I would label "the industry park spur". There may or may not be a locomotive stationed within the industry park.

I don't quite understand how that matches up with your suggestion above. Are you envisioning the main as being from the far left to the lower right, with a spur branching off the main going up into the top right corner, with trains arriving along the main from the west pulling cars, or from the south pushing cars?

Where would you add the crossovers?

Smile,
Stein

Stein, I was not considering that the "main" was anywhere on the model. I was viewing this layout as an industrial switching layout, if anything the "main" would have come in from the South, but it would have been a branch at best. The spurs in the upper left corner (NW) would have been the end of the line at that point, and the spur ending at the upper right corner (N) would have also been the end of the line, Nothing would come in or go out of the layout except from that South East corner. The crossover would be added at the North part of the right leg just before the branch goes into the 90 degree left curve in toward the West end of the line.

I guess I'm thinking in terms of Southern California. There are 4 or 5 routes used historically by the three (now two) major railroads that come into So Cal. The only line that would be considered a "through" route would be the S.P. route that comes into So Cal through the Imperial Valley at the Mexican border and goes North over Cajon Pass via Tehachapi, or North up the Coast or through Diablo Canyon. Every railroad line located West of the Los Angeles City Hall and South of the San Fernando Valley terminates somewhere in So Cal.