Real Estate Boom

[wm3798]

Well, this past weekend, young Master Andrew was evicted from the layout room, and now resides in the area that previously served as the Crew Lounge just outside.  (For those of you playing along at home, this area will one day be Meyersdale and Rockwood Junction).

Anyhoo, I suddenly find myself with a great deal of real estate, but a very limited (as in non-existent) budget.  So, plans to lurch forward with the Final Plan will remain on hold for the immediate future.  However, several thoughts have occurred to me that will make progress toward the final plan, and improve (generally) the traffic flow of the layout as it now exists.


First, I'm thinking I'll move my workbench area over to the corner by the closet.  I have a nice computer desk left over from my old office which will be a nice base.  It has the slidey outey keyboard thingy, on which I can keep even more stuff, and I can consolidate some of my junk boxes into some plastic storage drawers that I've been accumulating, so I pretty much abandon the L shaped rig I built out of old kitchen counters, and clear the way for the construction of Cumberland and the west end staging yard here...

(Christ I have a lot of crap!)

The other move I'm thinking about would be to take the temporary yard module and turn it 90 degrees so it goes down the side of the room.  I'd keep the turntable and all where it is on an L shaped peninsula, but straighten out the main line, which will enable the addition of an eastbound yard throat and longer yard tracks.  This would greatly ease Ed's pain when the yard starts to get jammed up.


The downside to this would be both the east and westbound approaches would be on a curve, but no longer having to work around a small boy, I can broaden those curves out a bit.  My goal is to move existing elements around here, and to avoid any major reconstruction.  If I get into that, then I might as well start on the whole shootin' match.

One major upside of this, however, would be the ability to add a yard to represent Elkins, which would again, free up the main yard of a lot of coal traffic.

The good news is I have some time to think about all this... I have to refit that room downstairs for Gracie first so when she comes home from Germany in January she has a room...  But I'll probably host another ops session this fall when the Brain Trust can gather and we can try on a few ideas.

For your reference...  Here's the current arrangement


and here's the Final Plan...


Any thoughts from the crew?
Lee

[RockGp40]

Thoughts...... hmmmm. YES, YES, YES! Finally. Geeshhhh. Get that dang boy up on outta there!!!

Can't wait to operate them there trains again!

[Bob Bufkin]

Only thing I see is the Elkins and Hagerstown turntables are kinda close together.  Otherwise looks great.

[John]

I would take a weekend to "declutter" .. trust me .. I know this

[wm3798]

Already in progress...
Elkins will be 2-3" lower than Hagerstown, so there shouldn't be any confusion... Geographically they're still a hundred miles apart!
Lee

[train1]

Organize the space first.
This way you can get a good look at the possibilities and have nothing to trip over while you build.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

mmm... space...

Here's what I think you should do. I think you should move the yard around one quarter turn, put it about where H-town will go, and slowly start working your way around.

Bring the Chaffee branch in from the garage, get it up and running, and then just keep moving, keeping things running as you go.

Then, when it's all done, write an article about "organic" layout growth.

[wm3798]

Ed's hit the nail on the head...  I'm trying to work how to keep things running, though...
Lee

[wm3798]

Regarding the clutter...
Yes, I no longer have to share my space with 5,000 Bionicle robots, Power Rangers, and other characters of varying shapes and sizes, but I will continue to provide a certain amount of storage for a variety of household wares... So a lot of what you see is what you get.  Once the benchwork gets underway, I can more readily dispense with it visually.  Bear in mind also that we just got the kid out of there yesterday, and I shot the images this morning...  The dust has yet to settle.  I'm headed up there tonight to begin making some sense of it all.  The first process will be to start relocating the work bench to the other side of the room.. that will take care of the lion's share of the mess you see there.

Once that's done, I can get a better handle on what to do next.  As I said, I'm looking at improving upon the temporary arrangement as I'm not financially in a position to do much that's new, or in compliance with the final plan posted earlier.  It may involve some reconstruction of the yard, because one of my goals is to improve capacity there, and provide for the make up of east and west bound trains.  Right now, everything gets switched at the west end of the yard, which gets pretty complicated when three trains are stacked up and the eastbound local has to go out.

The good news is I have most of that visualized in my head, and parts of the new approach to the yard can be built to specs in the final plan.  This would be the section more or less from Cumberland to Thomas on top side of the drawing.  I'm envisioning the area around Ben Bush as being the new westbound throat with the yard beginning at the top then sweeping around the bend to head down the side wall. 

I'm hoping to work it so the engine terminal and turntable can sit out on a 4' peninsula at about where the bar stool is sitting, making it convenient to the new workbench location.  From there, a narrow shelf would continue over the work bench to tie in back at North Junction and back into the staging yard.  That much I have figured out.

Where I'm getting hung up is whether to rip out Williamsport Jct. (the wye where the current yard lead joins the main body of the layout) and install the Cumberland track as planned.  This gets hairy because it will involve tearing out most of the Ohiopyle section and rerouting the mains to make the necessary connections to keep everything running.  At that point, I have to decide whether or not to just go balls to the walls and build the full peninsula according to the plan, including the installation of the Chaffee branch... a thought that has occurred to me more than once over the past four years...

Unfortunately, even with the substantial stockpile of lumber I have in the garage, that would require a substantial investment in new track and lumber that's better suited to the task.  Until my employment situation becomes less... er... fluid..., that's not going to happen.

I can effect the changes to the yard by merely adjusting the grades to and from it, leaving the approaches more or less intact.  Building out part of the Elkins Line and tying it in at Williamsport Jct. will be a bit of a clusterbomb, but a solution may reveal itself as work progresses... that's usually how it works with me.

Either way, as I said, there's no big hurry.  I've got plenty of other life priorities that need to be addressed before I start busting things up up there.
Lee