In this picture you are looking north or westbound. Like in previous versions of the layout I decided to call the area Fond Du Lac. Or I also thought of the Fond Du Lac Industrial Zone. Also in the picture you can see that I have the backdrop taped and floated. I also painted the backdrop a blue color that was matched from the photo backdrops that I use.
To the right in this picture is where the yard is going to go. I think I have plenty of room.
Another shot of the yard area, this picture also gives a nice perspective on the distance between the real level and the staging level.
This is where I originally thought about putting the helix, but plans have changed since that. I am going to come back to the opposite wall by 14'-6". So when the new addition is done, the layout will be in a "G" shape. So when walking between the helices to enter the layout, that will be a 4' aisle way.
In version 5, I swapped locations of the yard and industrial area. So now the yard and engine facility are on the longest wall because I wanted a nice sized yard. So that required me to move the industrial area right next to the helix.
The buildings you see in these two pictures are not in their permanent home. Some are, some aren't. Some days I just move them around and see how that works, some days I don't even go out to the layout. But since the weather is getting better, I will be going out there more.
While moving the pieces around and figuring out what was going where, I thought of a ops plan,,well sort of. For example one train could depart from staging, traverse the helix then arrive in the industrial area. The train could either serve the customers or it could continue to the main yard. The train could also park on the passing track, pull the industrial yard tracks, then yard the train it brought up from staging. I really have not thought about ops just yet, that is going to be a separate blog posting.
I use photographic backdrop from Realistic Backgrounds . I purchased these back in 2003, and I still have them. Now there are more companies that are doing the same thing, bigger and different scenes. So you just have to search for ones that you like.
You can see the Realistic Backgrounds products in the picture to the left and behind the boys. I don't know how that cowboys jersey slipped by me,LOL The city scapes I cut with a knife and straight edge to see how well it worked as opposed to just leaving the sky attached as you can see in the steel mill scenes.
So now we progress with more pics
Here is the main yard. I can bring in an 11' foot train into the A/D track.
South end of the yard and the pocket track.
When I had originally laid the yard, I realized that the tracks were too close together. This picture was taken when I had re-laid the throat trackage. The track pictured by the backdrop is an industrial track.
Just a shot of the SOO local pulling out of the yard.
Here we have the yard power doing some classification work.
After re-laying the south end, I worked on the north end. I had posted a design thread on multiple forums about designing a engine facility and it morphed into a combination yard throat/ facility design thread. With other modelers and friends giving suggestions I came up with what you see here. I used was the Santa Fe yard throat design from David Barrow's Cat Mountain and Santa Fe. All turnouts in the picture are Atlas #7 code 55.
The engine facility.
A nice aerial view of the facility and throat trackage, came out pretty nice.
You can see the yard and facility in this shot looking south.
This is where I am now. Time to install turnout control and install additional track power feeders. I am also thinking about making a section of the front facility track the new programming track. There will be a toggle switch to switch from main track power to the programming track.
Right now I am just running trains to make sure the yard works flawlessly.
Thanks for reading and following along!
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