Jonathan,
While the track plan you come up Looks cool. I do not think you have what I call “Access.”
It is my personal planning rule that no operating trackage is outside a 30" “reach zone” for maintenance and general ease of switching. Also I avoid Duck unders at all costs. I have worked on friends layouts and duck unders are a serious pane. On one friends I worked on for two weeks the one duck under I always was climbing into I got sick and tired of really fast. On the plan I am working on now, There is one section where there doesn’t seem to be any access from the out side that I can arrange. And I am seriously considering a Bridge of sorts so one can “Climb Over” the whole affair and work in and on in that area. The isolation of this area however makes it a good spot to have a dispatcher.
As there is only a quiet industrial switching district opposite the isle of where I plan the dispatch desk.
Just my thoughs.
James
how long of trains do you expect to run?
will they go into the double end yard or terminate in the stubs?
Okay, I understand. Now I’ll think outside the box…and don’t laugh!!!
Take the table edge from the middle of that lower left curve. Make a lift-out (WAIT!!!) to the table edge going in, as wide and as far as you need for the access you desire. This may make you cringe, but you could then do as I suggested in the last post.
Selector, might not be what you’re thinking of but the skinny section on the bottom loop is going to be liftout.
Okay, that is what I am contemplating…you seem to need access inside that big loop on the left? …and you have planned for it, if I understand you. If so, then you can have all that area to use for the yard because you can scenic it with the yard tracks and glued down “earth”, etc. a few structures, and just disconnect electrically, and lift it out in one piece.
In other words, you can use that whole area if you don’t mind a substantial lift-out of maybe 2.5 ft sq for the hopefully increasingly fewer times you need access as you tune the tracks. Then, as I was mentioning earlier, bend that right mini-yard toward the right, and you have even more room opened up.
Not sure if this is at all helpful at this stage, but…?
-Crandell
I would add a yard drill track in addition to the two double ended tracks. That way it would be possible to work the yard without blocking the main and two passing tracks.