Been a while since I started one of these threads, so I feel a bit like Ricky Bobby and I don't know what to do with my words! But I guess the best place to start at is the beginning, so we'll start with a bit of backstory and then dive into where this layout is at so far.
I've always been a fan of trains as long as I can remember, which is weird because I don't have much family history with them at all. I started out with a Thomas the Tank Engine figure 8 set as a kid (I still have the original Thomas and the wooden bridge from it, I'll eventually do something with that as a display I think). More wooden track and trains followed, and then a Life-Like HO scale set, which became an HO Bachmann set, and eventually a tub of N scale trains I would set up on a bit of MDF I kept under my bed in my bedroom. That graduated into some layouts, but primarily of the roundy-round variety. I never could figure out switching and never got the wiring progressed that far. Then came college and disc golf and I took a break from actively building models, but kept up with the hobby press and this forum here. After graduating, I dug the N scale trains back out and tried to build some switching layouts based off the industrial park I worked in, and then a freelanced but much closer to reality short line that I developed after playing around with a lot of different set-ups with Kate Unitrak. However, I kept getting frustrated with how small N scale is compared to how big my fingers are (my wife made me remeasure my ring finger and then measured it herself when I told her I needed a size 15 ring). This is not a knock on N scale, I just can't work in that tiny of a scale thanks to my sausage fingers. A move to HO was in order.
I bought a few switches and set up what I thought was a slick little switching layout, but I soon became disappointed with it. My primary complaint was how the two spurs branched off the main and the head room for actual operations. I also finally figured out how to search for shoreline videos on YouTube like the pro disc golf videos I watch and found a couple great operations to mimic. I kicked around several ideas:
1) combining the Livonia, Avon, and Lakeville trackage in Avon, NY, with the Seneca Canning Spur the WSOR switches to get my preferred mix of industries and a switcher/road freight interaction.
2) copy the way the Nashville and Eastern operates, in particular the junction between the main from Nashville to Lebanon and the branch to Old Hickory. Once again, I would change the industries and setting but operate as a branch train meeting the manifest between the two big regional yards.
3) combine the track layout from my hometown of Aiken, SC, with the Pickens Honea Path branch to reach the right balance of operation and industries.
Ultimately, I chose Option 3. Options 1 and 2, while nice ideas, would result in the layout feeling cramped, repeating the sin of the first go at creating a switching layout. About the only free area of Upstate SC that doesn't have trackage but "could have" had it is Taylors SC down towards Woodruff and Union. In my world, this is another remnant of the Piedmont and Northern, a Duke family company that kept being thwarted by the Southern Railway when they tried to connect the Spartanburg to Greenwood main with the Gastonia to Charlotte main. The story goes like this: "When the Duke family was creating their interurban empire of electrified lines which would soon become the Piedmont and Northern, they tried connecting a third area of the state. Aiming to approach Charlotte from the South and connect it to their Greenville lines, a line from Taylors to Union via Cashville and Woodruff began construction. Outside Woodruff, the line split into two mains, one towards Union (aiming to cross the Charleston and Western Carolina/ACL) and the other aiming for the state capital, Columbia. Ultimately, this line was unable to cross the Southern in Taylors due to yet another loss in the courts, but did tie in with an interchange; a second connection was considered further down towards Spartanburg but was unable to be built. Not being able to connect the lines, this became nothing more than a short branch line from Taylors to outside Woodruff, serving a textile mill and the usual agriculatural industries of the rural Piedmont region." My current layout is the junction of the two lines, based off the trackage in Aiken, SC, where the original Charleston and Hamburg railroad split off to Edgefield and Hamburg.
Layout Stats:
main shelf: 20" deep by 9 feet
Staging extension: 2.5 feet by a few inches
Curve extension: 2 feet by 16"
The track plan is not much more than a run around with two industries, a transload and what is currently being used as a box plant spur. Once Phase 2 is built, the box plant will move onto there, and this spur will become a lumber yard. Phase 2 will also include a Fertilizer Dealer like on the Pickens Honea Path branch and a passing siding which is used to store off-spot cars, a practice both the Pickens and Carolina Piedmont (the local shortline in the town I live in) use. Staging for phase 2 will be a cassette; right now I just run the train to and from the little extension in the upper left, with the locomotive parked in town. I am also leaving the options to other industries and ideas open, including having a small peninsula to model a roofing shingle plant where the box plant would go; the future of that industry would be TBD but I would certainly include it, as they're a great source of a variety of traffic and can be used to model some fun car movements.
This photo shows the left half of the layout. The engine is parked on the run-around track, with the junction switch in the foreground. The boxcar and plastics hoppers are parked in the transload spur, which is one of the two old mainlines. Yes, that is close to the edge of the benchwork, a bit closer than I originally planned but the line wound up with a slight curve so it wouldn't be parallel to the benchwork. I think I will ultimately build a small scene extender to plug into the front; for now I just keep the cars further down the main. There's a screw in the foam right now to prevent cars from rolling off the layout. The brown boxcar in the back is on the staging extension.
Here, the boxcars in the back are on the current box plant spur (will be a lumber yard in the future). The runaround and main are in the foreground and come to a curved switch. Right now I have just enough track beyond the switch for a locomotive. Eventually this will extend to phase 2 once we can move the home office into the guest room. For now I just plan the switch moves so I don't need to move more than the locomotive and worst case I'll break the stage magic and 0-5-0 cars onto the other track every once in a great while.
So that's where I currently am. Everything is temporarily connected while I make sure all the track works; every piece of rail has a feeder and the frogs will eventually be wired to a Tam Valley frog juicer. So far it's been a lot of fun and the two industries are giving me the chance to have a lot of different car movements. Once phase 2 is built this is going to be a rather fun little layout! Next steps are figuring out what I want to do as far as town buildings and roads in the back and adding N scale roadbed to get a little vertical relief in the rail. I know I'll have at least one store, probably a small restaurant or convenience store, house that's been converted into some sort of office, a couple actual houses, and the lumberyard building. Otherwise we'll see if anything else jumps out as a good spot filler or if it's a perfect spot for negative space.
