Now as I discussed earlier, I added an additional spur to the plan exclusively for Loco parking (And now I am thinking of doubling it up as a stop for the single RDC unit that brings passenger to the port). This was not in the original plan, but I thought it wouldn't be much of a problem to fit it in.
And I was so wrong! It was probably the biggest challenge for me in laying the tracks. I had to spend hours to find the right spot for the turnout because as soon as I include the turnout, it changes the curvature of the rest of the track in that side of the runaround-and it started getting screwed badly. While trying to keep the curve broad, I was getting S curves and if I wanted to remove the S curve, the minimum radius was becoming less than 9 inches! However, after hours of struggle I finally found the right spot that would keep the minimum radius more than 11 inches without any S curves. This incident tells me that for small layout planning is ever more important than in larger layout. When you have large area at your disposal, a few inches, or even a foot might not make much difference, but for a small layout even a centimeter can screw your happiness.
Anyway, this is how it stands now:
I wanted the run around tracks to be parallel to each other, but inclusion of this turnout didn't let me do that. Even the spur is not exactly where I planned it-but hey, I am open to accept changes! :)
For some fun and testing purpose, I tried running my Life-Like Proto GP-38 on the steep grade of 6.5% in the trestle with two cars. And yes, I am satisfied with the smoothness of the grade. And this little 4 axle wonder delivers some awesome slow speed action even at 6.5 % grade! Have a look:
Very nice indeed.
ReplyDeleteRoy (Geared)