At least that’s what it feels like.

Here’s the drafts I came up with last night for a point-to-point layout.

The level 1 yard would be made to simulate just the beginning of a much larger yard. (ie: a mirror would be used to simulate tracks just keep on going).

I would keep some hidden staging along level 1’s north wall. Just to have a spot to hide some trains that go to where I call “some other place”. (ie: build a train either yard and send off to “some other place”) until another session.

I was also toying around with the idea of creating maybe a little staging cart, something I can butt up against the south end of level 1, to run some other “ready to roll” trains as run-throughs. I would want to store the cart under the layout on the south wall, so I would have to figure out a way to raise the track up and down about 4-5″ from cart top to layout level.

I’m also debating on going back to all manual turnout control. One goal with the continuous loop was to be able to build fully computer controlled scenarios, utilizing the full east/west hidden staging yards. With a point-to-point, I don’t think that would work as I would want.

Oh, and another reason for manual turnouts. $$$

At 39 turnouts, that’s almost $700 in tortoise devices alone, plus another $500 or so for decoders. That’s almost $1200!

Humpyard manual turnouts - around $253. Little easier on the wallet.

So… I’ll probably use humpyard manual turnout throws for every turnout. I’d still like to have signaling work with block occupancy using Digitrax and JMRI. Though I’m not sure how to incorporate manual turnouts into this. For example, when I throw a switch, how will the system now that and set the signal aspects according.

Also, the staging area will be hooked up with IRdot-p detectors for automatic train stopping.

All and all I think things are coming together and I’ll still end up with a good layout. I won’t be able to sit back and watch trains run around the layout continuously, but at least I’ll still be able to watch trains on a layout.