What do you do with the space inside a reverse loop?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

1809 square inches is a lot of wasted space for a 24" reverse loop. Yet I have yet to see anyone actually use the space inside their loop.

Ideas guys?

~Don

2

Add a turnout and a spur or two for an industry.

3

Most people like to hide their reverse loops. Actually they are a good place for an industry or two with a couple of spurs inside. A raised urban scene which covers part of the loop works very nicely.

4

Don
That’s what I did put my coal unloading yard there.

Ken.

5

I put a helix in mine!!

6

I can’t imagine not using it. IF you hide it in a tunnel you can put an industry, town, mine, etc. on top of the elevation.

7

Two options I’ve used is as follows:

The lake makes for a nice scene. on the low side will be a small Marina and alcove. and as far as what I will do with the “plateau” to the right I will put a small mine there.

The freight yard and turnatable are big space users but give you staging and a focal point.

Fergie

8

Here are two: One upper and one lower under scenery.

[:p]

9
  1. Access hole
  2. Yard
    3 Industrial park
10

Scenery only. Too many layouts don’t leave ANY room for nature and desolation, and the inside of a reverse loop is the perfect place for a deep “no civilization” scene.

11

I have two reversing loops on the SLO&W. One is hidden under a mountain (with the access hole refered to above) and the other is actually part of an entire section of the layout that contains my logging operations. Only one portion (longer than any passenger train will be) is actually wired as the reversing loop so the logging road and some other TBA industries will not be wired inside or run on the AR1 reversing unit (which shouldn’t really cause any problems anyway). As others have basically said you can put anything you want inside the reversing loop (particularly if you are using DCC).

12

Fergie and Jim’s idea’s are the best. definatly want to maximize the usage of the space. I like Fergie’s use of upper and lower area, you can do it either way, take the loop up, or take the center up (like around a mountain platue). this give you an area to place a small town with maybe a single spur or two. The roundhouse and turntable idea actually utilizes a reversing loop more prototypical, especially for passenger stations where you want to turn the train around fast.

You really don’t want to neglect this area, if you don’t build it up as a hill, mountain, town or service area, it’ll look to fake. You want the viewers (IE you and whoever) to feel as if the track is not a loop at all (exept in the case of a service loop around a roundhouse, even then it will not be totally noticeable). The idea is to pull the attention from the track to something else, just planting trees will make the track the focus.

13

I would do like my friend mike Thomas did last year and put a staging/storage yard in the middle.

14

I put a shower in mine. Combined it with a 10 revolution helix. The duckunder entry can be awkward at times but a hot shower seems to relax me after applying the Z-scale grab irons.