Southern Pacific Switching Layout

[Green_Elite_Cab]

I was just reading about a small shortline that resembles your existing track plan known as the Rahway Valley Railroad. It would fit nicely into your space with reasonable compression.

The Rahway Valley has a lot of history, starting off as a bridgeline between the Delaware Lackawanna & Western in the North and the Lehigh Valley and Central Railroad of New Jersey in the South. This was incredibly profitable, and in the early 50s, the railroad retired its steam and replaced it with two GE 70 ton switchers (just like the Spectrum models), which were operated until 1989. Eventually, all the railroad lines on both ends were merged into Conrail, negating the need for a bridgeline, and causing the railroad to abandon the northern third of it's line. The Rahway Valley would operate as withering spur line until bought by the New York, Susquehenna & Western in 1986. Eventually, the 70 ton switchers were reassigned and replaced with NYS&W SW9s until the line was abandoned in 1992. Parts of it are operated today by the Morristown & Erie railroad.

In a post 1976 (Conrail Era) Rahway Valley, your track plan very much represents the section of the Rahway Valley between Roselle Park (LV connection)/Aldene (CNJ), and the town of Kenilworth, where the Engine House was located. Though the line continued north from Kenilworth, so little traffic existed that you could realistically "ignore" the rest of the line.

In fact, while on the topic of traffic, the Rahway valley switched cars as needed, so on many days it only moved a boxcar or two around in a day, though this could swell close to 20 cars on a busy day.

The Southern "interchange" track would be with conrail through its former CNJ connection, which curves in exactly like it does in your track plan. The "Transload" facility mimics the former Lehigh Valley interchange, which was not abandoned, but "Embargoed" during the Conrail years.

Your other industries could pretty much stay as they are, and many of the same sorts of industries were present on the prototype in the same area. Plenty of industries had already gone away at this point, completely justifying that "abandoned spur" in your track plans.

The only other thing worth considering is the Enginehouse. it resembled a three car garage that was only BARELY large enough to fit the two locomotives in (one in each stall), and a small collection of MoW pieces in the third, smaller stall. Modeling the full engine house wouldn't be necessary, just a flat with a set of tracks leading to the "doors" would be just fine. you could leave the 70 ton switcher "parked" there at the Northern end of the line, where it could go south to interchange with conrail and switch as needed.

nearby the engine house along the tracks was a small cinderblock pump house and above ground diesel fuel tank, and the combined footprint of the Pump house/diesel fuel rack would be something like 2" by 6", if not smaller. Even if you model your own Shortline, this sort of set up has a prototype, so it might be neat to include.

Definitely check the Rahway Valley out, it sounds like an unusually good match for your operational desires (not to mention the track plan matches roughly the same shape of the real thing).