Back from hiatus; Track plans: 3

It's been a busy few months since I've updated this blog. Much has happened since then in my planning for my new model railroad.

I promised in my last post to throw in a track plan at some point of that design, but I'm going to reneg on that one. It's been some 35-plus years since I even had the track plan, I never built it, and taking the time to recreate it doesn't seem to serve much purpose. So I'll move on.

In high school, I finally settled on a new track plan and actually began building it. It had to be in my bedroom, so I was limited accordingly. I couldn't even fit a full 4x8-foot standard layout in the space--but I knew I didn't really want to make the point-to-point design that I had toyed with previously. Instead, I shaved 6 inches off that 4x8 and made it a 3-1/2x8 foot design. It was a simple enough plan: a figure-8 over and under plan. There was to be a small terminal and yard off of one of the two loops of the 8, at grade level. The route climbed around a curve to a mine spur, just before the main line crossed over first itself, then the yard area. As the line descended around the other loop, there was a siding. Then it returned to its original starting point.

Here's a real rough version of it. I skipped the yard/engine terminal details.

Anyway, what I liked about the design was that a) it included a yard and terminal; b) it "went somewhere"; c) it included some mountain terrain, however small; d) there were additional stops beyond the terminal.

I worked on the layout off and on during most of my high school years, but never got it to the point of running. By my senior year, it was torn down, and I had begun work on a shelf unit built on the remnants of that layout. It, too, never reached the stage of all the track in place. Then it was off to college, all railroading put well on the side for years.