Hello
Most of you know about the spaghetti bowl syndrome right? I did that without knowing what it was on my first layout. I wanted to use as many available space on a 4x8 HO layout and found out I had no fun running trains since they would just circle around two different loops. Tried to do everything: a village, a yard some scenic spots all in one small space.
I have started a new layout now, built for operations with a hidden yard under the table and wow, it’s much more fun running trains, simulating trains are gone for a while and etc. And the to get inspired I look up for the Montreal CN yard and here is what I found:
A real, prototypical huge (organized) spaghetti bowl, right there in Montreal.
Modelling that would take dozens of years.
Heh
Antoine
Ya but that spaghetti bowel is about 200’ long in HO. How big is your house.[(-D]
My current layout goes 17x4, island style.
It features only a 3 lane switching yard, very simple, but the hidden yard under makes it nice to create departures and arrivals from both sides.
Antoine
They say “there is a prototype for everything”.
There have been other postings of “loop style 1:1 RRs”, say a loop around a factory conglomerate, or around a supplier of something, or a dumping station of train loaded products or supplies for the customer, where the 1:1 trains make a full loop around the customer to on or offload goods.
The question is: did the city grow up around the RR, or did the RR grow up inside the city? Or did they grow up together?
What you have found is a very thorough 1:1 spaghetti bowl.
One COULD have a lot of fun with it.
I like loop-y-loops as I can watch the train go round ‘n round for about an hour, but I have a small yard and an engine storage/servicing facility to play with to offer some variety in a very very small 3.5’ x 5.1’ layout.
Now if only I could have a 17’ long layout…oh what fun I could have…
[8-|]
Yes,real railroads can afford a large dump bowl of spaghetti called a yard and that’s one dump spaghetti bowl they would eliminate wasn’t for the necessity of such dump spaghetti bowls.