2010 March 11

While I think I have worked out a plan for the mainline (a basic circuit around the room with some partially hidden staging tracks in the centre peninsula (it may not actually be a peninsula any more), the branch line has taken more time to develop.

The current idea is that it will leave the main just south of the main yard (along south wall of garage) and gradually climb as it progresses along the east and north walls, coming into the centre section on a narrow shelf (enough for a passing siding and a little scenery - maybe a cliff wall). Arriving at the south wall again it will turn right, still climbing and pass behind the main town at about 8-10" elevation.
Reaching the north wall it will turn again to be the top level of the centre peninsula, with a rural town (grain and/or timer?) occupying this area. This will give about a 60-70' run on the branch with one passing loop and a terminus of sorts. The line will continue under a road bridge to show the unmodelled continuation of the branch.

The eastern wall will be the tunnels and bridges section with just the mainline (maybe a passing loop here too) and the branch at a higher elevation.

The PFE Group will be visiting in a weeks time and no doubt Dave will have his thoughts to pass across on how it should be.

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that Ray Parmenter, a regular visitor to my old layout called around last Sunday afternoon and was surprised to see that I was starting with a new layout after six years with none. The industrial branch on my old layout ran from Olmstead to Raypar (named after Ray Parmenter). Ray arrived just minutes after I cut in half the old Nelson Yard (4.5m) as I could see no use for it in the configuarion it was in. It was also laid with Code 100 rail and hopefully the new layout will be Code 83 and 75 to get a better appearance with more scale track. I did however remove all the H&M point motors.