Posted by Charles W
on March 7, 2009, 2:03 am
75.207.170.X
Some more or less recent shots of my layout...
An as yet undecided industry. All I really know is, it will receive lots of covered hoppers and either loaded or empty tank cars. Personally, I'm thinking it would be a decent ethanol plant, but I've been building a sizable boxcar fleet as well, and it would be nice to have somewhere else to stick some of the boxcars... 
The other side of the unknown industry: 
The power plant in the corner won't be quite as steady of a customer as most of the rest of the industries on the layout but...it'll add a nice touch of variety. 
Two shots of the other really big industry on the layout... 
Operation consists of up to two trains at once, one per mainline. Each mainline (inside/outside) is wired in an either/or arrangement with the siding nearest to it. In other words, I can either run a train on the inside main or the sidings on the inside of the loops. Likewise, I can either run a train on the outside main, or operate on the main sidings on the outside of the outer mainline. I have yet to figure out how to attach the switches/wiring to anything solid, which has led to some issues in getting electricity to flow from time to time. Due to the cost of DCC (i.e. the cost of converting 20 locomotives to DCC), at this time DCC is totally out of the question. If the layout survives long enough, it's been wired to allow eventual conversion to DCC operation in the future.
I've made a couple of changes/improvements since these shots were taken. I'll try to get a shot or two more up before too long.
Charles W.
310
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