Well, yes. That.
As in, the whole layout is down and removed from the room. Tragic? Nah. Getting new windows installed throughout the house and the layout was in the way of two new windows. Sad? A little. Much more looking forward to a new - and better - layout rising in its place. And, no, the first post was not a tease knowing this was about to happen. Just the way it is.
And just today, this morning, I stumbled onto a concept very different to the one I've been 'wedded' to for some time now. I have a fondness for an oval with a tail and reverse loop inside the oval so arranged that you have to travel the entire oval before reversing direction and returning to the tail. This has always been a good plan for me but always had the challenge of turning trains at the end of the tail - thus that was always the prime location for a yard with a turntable. It also had the difficultly of knowing where to locate a staging yard at the loop - and that always resulted in having to do some sort of backing operation to turn trains around between sessions, at least in my space.
Well, I haven't eliminated that last need, turning trains, but I have been able to include something else I've always wanted to include in a plan but have just never been able to make it work to my satisfaction. And what is this desired feature? A wye. And with careful placement of the wye in the available space I can make one tail of the wye do double duty as a staging yard and a seaport while each of the other legs connect to an oval that allows 'display' running. That also means I can send out two trains in opposite directions so that they have to meet each other somewhere - a carefully placed passing siding (or two or three?). By the way, that port/staging tail will split in two so that one rises and one drops to give some vertical separation to the two 'ends' of the layout, the port will be the western end and the staging yard, and interchange track, will be the eastern end of the layout. Yes, the two ends will be one low and one high, one in front of the other. It works.
Oh, my layout is based on the "legendary" Klamath Lake Western Railroad, the one that connects with Great Northern's southern Oregon route at the town of the same name and then bridges over to the Northwestern Pacific above Eureka.
Now I have to solve another problem which is also an opportunity that has been elusive because of that oval-tail concept above. Where can I fit in a yard and make it a double ended (mostly) division point yard? And do that and still have room for a lumbering operation from cutting timber to finished lumber, a mining operation, a representation of farming and its links to railroads, and a city with both commercial district and residential neighborhood? And all this in a 'spare' bedroom that has to fulfill other duties! Only in N scale.
That's all for now - as if such drastic news isn't enough. From adversity, opportunity.
