Industries in Maine

[steinjr]

Our new friend has already picked a track plan from one of Lance Mindheim's books - the "docksider" plan.

It is atypical for a Mindheim plan - central runaround, two spurs off the one end - one off the main, one off the runaround, and a crossed pair of spurs off the center and other end of the runaround. Looks roughly like this, if memory serves me right - or maybe the runaround is on the other side of the main and the three top spurs come off the runaround - something like that.



Personally I would perhaps have looked for a fork plan for a layout as short as 6' 6", instead of a runaround with short leads. Say something simple like this:

or




But one big question is whether the 6' 6" is all the place available, or whether that is the space for a permanent layout, and there is room for a removable lead or a removable section on one or both sides. If there is room for a removable lead, that leaves a lot more space for a long industry spur with one or more industries on.

Then he could e.g. have a look at Mike Confalone's magnificent 6x3 foot scene "St Regis Paper Mill" from his Allagash layout - with the first part presented in Model Railroad Hobbyist no 4 / 2012 (http://issuu.com/mr-hobbyist/docs/mrh12-...mode=embed)

There are many possible ways to go here. It might be worthwhile to explore the modeling goal and givens before deciding on a track plan and trying to put industry names to the spurs in Lance's docksider plan.

Smile,
Stein

Edit: fixed a couple of typos, added a rough sketch or the Mindheim plan from memory, and removed a claim that the spurs in the Mindheim plan were so short.