Layout Design - an old school of thought

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

A somewhat famous “in-yard” reverse loop is on the west end of the now BNSF Barstow Yard. Right out there in the open. They don’t even TRY to to hide it. Sure, they connected a few tracks here and there, but they’re not fooling anybody - we know it’s there. It just ain’t prototypical. They don’t be no purists, that’s for sure.

A great, almost model size reverse loop is located at the intersection of 135th and Mozart streets in Chicago. While not in a yard, this loop encircles an industry - a good way to hide part of it. There is even a small stub-end sorting yard inside the loop. And it is nearby Blue Island Railroad Crossing, a very cool place. Slow trains & and some not so slow. Foggy, rainy, snowy, sunny, nighty. Ninety trains a day with engines wearing coats of many colors. Seven large bridges, one disused, crossing the Little Calumet River. Tracks coming from everywhere along with Broadway Street crossing at grade eight tracks AND tracks on an overpass - a real spaghetti bowl feel.

Check out this NMRA Layout Design 'Special Interest Group.

NOTE: This is not a hot link. Copy-n-Paste in the Google to get there!

https://ldsig.net/o/ldsig/wiki/index_title_Spaghetti_Bowl_Layouts.html

While I’m not a space cadet, the Jupiter Symphonyis jazz to me ears.

2

I don’t think a reverse loop within a single scene (your examples of Barstow, Chicago, or really any bulk product industry that accepts unit trains) is the same as a “spaghetti bowl” layout.

Looking at Barstow yard or an industry with a loop track, the majority of the track is linear.

It’s really a simple concept - does the layout track plan have a bunch of seemingly endless overlapping loops? In other words, does it look like a bowl of spaghetti?