GEC's Layout Progress

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Hi

@Green_Elite_Cab

please take enough time to plan your layout, snapshot ideas mostly leeds to an dead end. Only in taking time and thinking about leeds to an good reasonable result.
After planing use plenty of time in trackwork, i will affirm, that you can built an layout with no derailments (it works-believe me, no derailments on our layout, able to push 4 comet I..)

Trust me, this isn't a snapshot idea, i've been studying ways to increase space on this layout for a long time. Part of the problem is that the layout was meant for 40' cars behind GP18s and SW1s. I was 14 when i bought the book i got the plan from and didn't know that larger equipment (GP40-2s, 50' boxcars) wouldn't fit in right. Whats more, only one oval can handle passenger trains, and so it limits the operations of my MU cars.


For a long time, i considered totally removing the yard and making an addition that had a whole larger yard on it. However, that would still have problems getting back into the "ovals" correctly, and would leave me with a weird hole in my layout.

Rather than go this route, i've decided to just break open the oval. most of my passenger equipment is push-pull or double ended, so shuttling from one "end" to the other is no big deal. this will let my elongate the existing yard and add passing tracks and a yard lead, so that yard operations don't fowl the main line. This would also allow me to eliminate the tight curves on the inner oval, and shift to either 22" and 24"s, instead of 18" and 22", opening my mainlines to any sort of freight and passenger equipment.

The only problems i can see is that for passenger trains, is that the longest trains i could get would be 4 MU cars, or three car Locomotive hauled trains. These wouldn't be unrealistic for the sort of line I'm representing on my model railroad, but they would be a tight squeeze.

In addition, the crossovers and interlockings take up space and i'm not sure i can fit these things in rationally. I'll have to play with it.