The Amtrak station and platforms have been moved to the center section, and the Metro station area will be turned into a UP car shop area.

I’ve been looking into basing the layout on a real world subdivision, and removing the Metro line made that a little easier.  The layout would be a more “Protolanced” than freelanced with this change.  The subdivision and towns will be real world locations, but the industries and what not will be made up (along with the Interchange to another railroad, presently BNSF).

The current plan is  adapt the layout on UP’s DeSoto subdivision. It runs between St Louis, MO and Poplar Bluff, MO.  Amtrak’s Texas Eagle runs along this route between San Antonio and Chicago, and UP has a car shop in De Seto.  The Amtrak station is further down line at Poplar Bluff, but I’ll have to move it to De Soto.

So I’ll be working on those details shortly, so look for a name change soon for the layout.

For a look at the town boundaries, click here.

The initial plan was based on the Wisconsin Central layout in Model Railroader.  I had to reduce the size to 11′x11′ to fit my space, then I adjust the mainline a bit to make the minimum radius 15″ and the max grade aobut 2.5% instead of 4%.

Originally, I had staging in the peninsula like the MRR plan, but I wanted to keep the construction of benchwork pretty simple since I’m aiming to build everything in sections.  Instead of triple decking the peninsula, I decided to wrap the staging around the entire layout and basically create a “twice around” layout. One time being on staging, the 2nd time on the mainline.

I don’t have elevations yet but the staging starts at 0″ at the lower left to the upper right.  Then a grade up to 2.5″ for the mainline.  The main will drop back down to 0″ as it wraps around the peninsula.

I also removed the liftout bridge in place of a duck-under right now. I may revisit that later, but having a bridge with 5 tracks on two levels… would be interesting to do for sure.

So I decided before I get to much more into the scenery work, and while almost all the track is re-useable, to call it quits on the Elmwood & Marigny.

Here’s a basic look at the plan now. It’s based on the Wisconsin Central layout from Model Railroader.  Since all my trains are UP based, it’ll continue to follow a UP theme.

The layout will be built with a series of sectional pieces, with all aspects of the layout (roadbed, track, scenery base) built within the confines of its’ section. That way whenever the time comes for us to buy a home and move, the layout can moved in smaller pieces up to around 4′x4′ sections.  The total size is 11′x11′.

A lift out section will allow access into the inside of the layout.

Looking to use Spline roadbed this time around for the continuous grade around the layout.  Max grade is 2.5%.  The staging areas will be cookie cut plywood.

Average train length will be about 8.5′.  Sidings are 8-10′.

Notable changes are:

• Moved both crossovers to the Elmwood side, and pushed them down the main little.  Felt the turnouts were a little too cluttered up under Dixie paper.
• With crossover moved, I pushed the North Elmwood siding right turnout more to the right side to extend the siding a few more inches.
• Added a curved turnout (it’s right above the intermodal yard) to the southern passing track on the left end.  I wanted to add this to a) extend this siding a little bit and b) added a nice visual element to the track with the curved turnout. I might move it closer to the tunnel some more to extend the siding a little more so the two mains aren’t so mirror-like.
• The yellow squares are markers for backdrop supports.
• Added an Amtrak butterfly platform near/under the Highway 603 overpass.
• Added a Walther’s yard office to the intermodal yard. The shed from the kit will go up by the Car shop.
• Added Walthers container crane to yard.
• Plan to have Highway 90 come down from the overpass on the right side.  A side street with intersect here for access to Dixie paper and the Amtrak platform. The road will then go up a hill for a 3-way intersection with the 603 overpass. It’ll then drop back down to grade to run off the layout. I’ll add a road to the carshop in there someplace soon.
• Extended the Marigny River left tunnel portal a little more outward into the layout to accommodate backdrop supports.
• Might remove the hill on the left side of Elmwood and keep highway 90 with an overpass again as the scene breaker.  Kinda thinking the tunnel might look out place.

While looking over the plan, I wasn’t happy with how the Marigny river and the added junction track looked.  I still had some open space that I wasn’t quite sure how to utilize.  Then I thought about how the Daneville/Donner plan is, where the waterway comes under the track and then follows it along the layout for a few feet.

So I changed up the plan to follow this same pattern. The junction track now runs on the “south” side of the river while the mainline continues on the “north” side.

And Happy New Year Everyone!

When the cleaned up plan is in place I’ll use that to mark the location of the backdrop and track. I’ll also use it to place structures on to see if they can fit and how’d they look.  It’s almost like bringing the track planning from software to real world at this point.

Once I get track down and see where turnouts will go, I’ll add some more risers in the middle for additional support.

Then it was time for the top.  I used 1/2″  birch bought in 2×4 sheets cut as needed.  I was able reuse everything from the old layout again, along with 1 new purchased piece.

Not shown is some changes to the legs. I decided to remove the wheels and make the layout stationary.  The layout was a little heavy for the wheels on these thing legs.  So those got pulled off, and I then I added 2 additional legs on each side where there was a module joint.

Next up I’ll be printing out the latest track, shown below, in full 1:1 size to layout and plot the backdrop (and then track).

So… that means I’ve got some extra space to fill. I thought I’d toss in some kind of mainline junction here running off the layout.  Might be useful as a little staging track or something.

Here’s the plan I’m playing around with now.