My new layout an around the walls type has 2 mainlines 22 and 24 radius with a service track off the 22
I am not into a lot of switching staging etc but like the roundy roundy
However I figured the service track would breakup the plainness of the ovals
Then I saw an engine house I thought would look sharp so I added it
Now I realize I have no way for the workers / equipment etc to get into the area but by train
Would this be somewhat this prototypical or do I have to add an access road over the rails in the top corner behind the engine house -I could add it in the lower corner but then it would be to the left of the service rail
You could have a road coming from the front edge of the layout. Then cross the track into the service area.It looks like there is a lot of room at the lower portion of your photo. Might be a good spot for the start of a town or industries. A road could come from there also.
Yes you have landlocked your service area. But by moving a few of the out buildings forward and to the left of the engine house “track” you divide the service area and expand the scene just a tad. You could all so put in another switch running away from the engine house as a service track.
The area just beyond the near turnout can be developed as a parking lot, with connection to the street that will run perpendicular to the tracks and cross them at grade about where the locomotive is now. If that’s a busy public street, the railroad would probably have a chain-link fence right next to the sidewalk, and a gate across the parking lot entrance.
Depending on how important that road is it could have a full suit of crossing gates and flashers, flashers only, just a crossbuck, or a fence and Dead End sign just beyond the parking lot entrance.
I presume that your workers who don’t drive their own cars either live in the area to the left of your layout and walk to work, or arrive by the bus that travels along the (virtual) street just off the edge of your benchwork. Or, if the grade crossing is important enough to rate the full suit, the bus stop could be adjacent to the parking lot entrance, with its twin just across the street. Then a lunchroom, a bar, possibly a ‘Mom and Pop’ grocery store…
After all, there’s a lot of acreage to develop in your photo’s foreground.
What I miss most is a track to supply coal to the tipple. A sand facility and ash dump would be handy too. You’ve got plenty of room to add them and work in access if you shift some of the structures.
Sculptamold, cardboard, plastic sheet, foam core board, whatever. The surface material and color is dependent upon the type of road desired. Why not get a book on scenery making such as Dave Frary’s?
Now you got me thinking. As I look at your photo, you could run a turnout off of the track coming back from the wye and that track could run to a turntable. That would alleviate the “naked” look by taking advantage of that space at the bottom of the photo. Place the ash dump on the track as it leads to the turntable. That’s where I placed mine.
You also have the opportunity to “play with your backdrop” with forced-perspective by increasing depth perception, for example, with heavy industry on that backdrop let alone constructing building flats between your yard and the backdrop. The yard then becomes a part of something larger than just the yard.
How much space do you have between the back corner of the engine house and the main line? Do you have enough to put a single lane dirt road coming in from behind? that would kind of simulate the road paralleling the track for a couple hundred yards originating at the edge of the layout and terminating at the area you are trying to get crew access to.
You could put a curved turnout at the point of your inner track at the bottom of the photo. Then, move down the water tower on the new access track toward the curved turnout, add a sanding tower and an ash pit, then the turntable and finally, the engine house, leaving it where it already sits.
