Well, folks, I decided to go with a double track mainline for the Pocahontas Division of N&W. I heard a lot of great comments. [bow] The comment that helped me decide was the one that pointed out that the Pocahontas IS a double track mainline!!
So, I tore out the single track mainline going westbound out of the yard. I changed the bridge that I had ( a wooden truss) to a girder bridge. I am connecting up the outer loop of the mainline. I should be finished in the next day or two. I will have to add some more subroadbed for the second mainline. It might get tricky going around Flat Top Mountsin (which is double tracked with a minimum radius of 42 inches… It is the #8 curved turnout’s location that may be a bit of a problem.[:S]
But, another advantage is that by going double track out of the western yard makes the yard lead longer (which it really needed to be).
I purposely followed but did not reply to your other thread. That said, for me any attempt to model a “large” railroad in HO and get enough action to give the large railroad feel, requires double track in my view.
Glad to hear that you made the decision to go with a double main line.
I have a fairly large layout with a downtown passenger station, a large coach yard, an engine servicing facility with turntable and round house, a freight yard, a suburban passenger station off the mainline and several industry sidings. But, surrounding all of that is a double main line around the entire layout. It adds to the action, trains are continously moving around in both directions, and if I want, I can just sit back and take it all in.
Saw a double track layout that came to a river, and a single track bridge crossed, they had a switch at each end of the bridge and switched over to the single track bridge, great idea, I wonder if there was (is) such a thing in real life? It would save you another bridge.
I am not sure if the South Shore gauntlet bridge near Gary Indiana qualifies, but the two track mainline converges over a single track bridge at one point before returning to a two track mainline at the other end of the bridge.