Willamette River Railway - Mainline Debugging

I was able to find 10 things that I didn't like about the mainline, so I set out to fix them tonight.

 First, I put out all my number posts for marking layout issues...

 Then we mark ten problem areas and go fix them.

 #1 is the lower level curved turnouts need to pass under the upper level main at a very sharp angle.  This looks very bad on a layout, so we need to fix it.  I tried to move it around, but the curve radius shrunk, so the best thing I could do was to completely cover it with scenery and make it an upper level.  The layout needs more scenery and this will be accessible from the front panel, so covering it is ok.  Still, I may change it later, but its better than it was.  The tunnel portals, while not prototypical, will help visually isolate the yard.

 #2 is a problem.  I'm not sure if this fouling point is right or not, because I never really measured it!

THAYNE!  Can you do me a favor?  Measure from the back wall corner where the ceiling meets the benchwork out to the point where the separation is 4.5 inches.  That is the fouling point.  I need that dimension as soon as I can get it so that we can confirm the lower hidden staging trackage.  Thanks!

 #3 will wait for now.   I'll come back to it.

 #4 I wanted to make sure that the yard tracks I drew in were long enough, and I wanted to label them for their purpose.  On each I named them and put in the number of 50' cars they would hold.  This will work fine in that I think the average length of a train is going to be 8 cars and a loco.  I also added that to the stats page.

#5 is the river bump that Thayne added.  I don't know the real measurements, so we'll just rough that in since it doesn't affect the trackage.

 #6 Here's another on of those pesky sharp over/unders.  This one I'm going to leave as is since it is very close to the city and cover it in concrete as the prototype will do.  We'll draw this later when we start the scenery elevations.

 #7 To make the layout appear larger and to install the city, we'll take the grade on the back corner and make it hidden.  We'll put in city buildings there...and they will probably cover some of the track in front of this as well.

 #8  This morning while it was quiet and I was warm in bed I started thinking about the switching district.  In order to get cars in and out I'll need a small yard here, and a yard lead.  Using number 8 turnouts means a bigger spacing between track centers, so I decided I better put the yard lead in now before I go to far.  This lead may be shortened.

 #9 Was to decide how to build the lift out bridges.  Think I'll let Thayne do this part.  I've never build a lift out and never seen one built that I was really impressed with except Howard's aluminum channel version.  It was straight, so not sure I can use that design here.  Need to read up on it.

#10 The sidings here need to be equal to or shorter than the passing siding to the right...and they are.  This is eight cars, which magically is the length of the siding, and the Brooklyn siding.  It is NOT the length of the Portland Terminal siding, so we may have to fix that.  They should all be 8 cars long + loco.

There!  Another good night of track planning.  Time for bed.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, so I will probably be busy!!!  (wink wink...I have little children) So we'll see you in a few days.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!