Evolution of a Track Plan

So three years ago, this was the track plan I had settled on: (This is a very rough tracing of the original, published in the August 2005 issue of Model Railroader.) :

I chose it because first, I wanted a sectional layout. My reason was mainly that, having waited this long in my life to get going on one, I didn't want to have to tear it down in 5 or even 10 years if we wanted to move. The original designer of the layout above conceived it as a portable layout. (Check out the original article for details.) I liked it because it had continuous running, it had several distinct points on it (3 or 4 communities/station stops), and even a branch that could lead to a logging camp (or a mine, but ultimately I settled on a logging camp). As originally conceived by the designer, it was of a Texas shortline with desert scenery, but I saw it would be easy to modify scenically to depict Wisconsin's North Woods, the setting for my railroad.

As originally designed, the layout is portable, with two long sections that fold back to back and two 'wings' that fold down from a 90-degree angle to flat. I took the basic concept, but instead of following the identical dimensions and construction techniques for total portability, basically treated the various segments as individual sections in a sectional layout. The result was four sections of portable benchwork: two segments that were each 6 feet-9 inches long by 2 feet wide (labeled "A"), and two that were 4 feet by 3 feet ("B"):

The basic track plan would stay the same -- in fact, with the configuration, it almost had to stay the same. I spent some time working on details, testing a few variations, and so on, but couldn't really stray from the plan as drawn.

Yet there were some real challenges in the design. I didn't really care for the s-curve in the tunnel between the sites I called Aaronsburg and St. Matthew, for instance:

I had great reservations about the track up at the upper right corner that, after getting up to 3 or 3.5 inches above the lower level, immediately had to descend to the staging area:

And I was leery as well about the track descending from the other end of Eagle Junction, again to the staging section; I wondered if it wold really work:

So those were the kind of things that had contributed to my feeling so stuck, and, perhaps, help explain why I've been all but paralyzed over the last couple of years.

Still, a few attempts to start from scratch with the same basic group of sections led nowhere. So two weeks ago, determined to finally advance the ball, I began sketching out the detailed plan at a scale of 1.5 inches to the foot. Then I had a brainstorm: A completely different way of arranging the sections. What if...

...I put the two "A" sections at right angles to each other, and the two "B" sections at the ends of the "A" sections... Like this:

I could then add "filler" sections, the triangular segments partially outlined in red in the sketch above. They would be bolted to their adjacent sections and would not need extra legs, simply "floating" in place.

The resulting track plan just about drew itself! It went through a few tweaks but the basic approach soon fell into place:

The pencil sketch isn't great, but basically it's a loop-to-loop with a turnback in the middle. As shown here, it starts with a lower-level reverse loop in the upper right corner, then travels to the left and down, with a turnback at the lower left-hand corner. The mainline continues, rising, to the other end reverse loop, back in the upper right corner and over the lower reverse loop. At the upper reverse loop, there's an engine terminal and a branch to the logging camp. 

I expect if you look at the original track plan you can see how it was morphed from that one,. 

Exciting and liberating, but not quite perfect. Even though the leg on the right was shorter, it still extended too far into space right in front of the stairway from upstairs, when placed against the basic map of the basement room where the layout is to be built:

I tweaked the basic configuration some more. I turned one of the "B" sections 90 degrees, then offset it some, making the most of the space I had available:

I'm sparing you some slight detours that I took in working this all out. To make a long story a little shorter, here's how it fits now:

(One big bonus: A set of closets at the left of the room by this view that would have been rendered totally useless because they wereall but inaccessible when the tables were set up for the very first configuration are now completely accessible once again. DairyStateMom is very happy with that turn of events.) 

The trickiest part was fitting a full turnaround into the section that was offset. Since at this orientation it was just three feet wide, it wouldn't even quite take my minimum 18-inch radius:

But extra floater sections on the offset section, both at the outside and the inside...

... leaves enough clearance to fit a full turnaround loop in that space:

(This is, of course, very crude, made with MS Paint; but you get the idea. And as I develop the detailed plan, if the dimensions or position of either floater section needs to be further tweaked, I will do so.)

So here's the very, very rough sketch of the track plan in this final configuration:

A couple of points of note: The upper and lower reverse loops are now to the lower right in the above sketch. The logging branch still comes off the upper reverse loop, going to the lower left corner, then curving around and going up the left side part way. (So this logging branch line gets a little bit more length to it than previous iterations.)

The engine terminal, however, has now moved to the turnback loop instead of being attached to the upper reverse loop. That's because the compromise I had to make to accommodate the turnback loop left me with a fair amount of open real estate on the rest of the 3-by-4-foot section at the top of the plan.

The upper loop area, now sans engine terminal, is still to be called Eagle Junction (more on the names another time), because it is where the mining branch peels off from the main line. So the engine terminal, instead of being at Eagle Junction, now is at Aaronsburg. But that suits, too. Because this layout configuration enables a much more thought-out staging track arrangement. From the lower level loop (lower right), which is St. Matthew, there's a staging track area that runs all the way around to the left and up (essentially, right under the log mining branch) to rejoin at Aaronsburg. So Aaronsburg is also a junction.

I'll write more about all this another time. For now, it's back to the drawing board as I develop the plan in earnest.