Next, I laid seven roundhouse tracks. I've only got six locomotives, but you never know. While I don't have the appetite or the budget at the moment for another locomotive, perhaps one day someone will release a really nice turn-of-the-century locomotive (I wouldn't mind an 1870-80s wagon top boiler ten-wheeler with a balloon stack). Truth be told there will be my two-stall enginehouse at the other end of the layout, so in fact there will be storage space for three extra locomotives, but that's academic right now. There's an overhead photo below showing the outline of where the roundhouse walls will go when I get around to building those (planning for a stone roundhouse).
I've put in an overshoot track so all tracks coming from the yard have something on the other side of the turntable. Since the photos below were taken I've trimmed the overshoot track a little. The overshoot track is also wired with power in case locomotive pickups are on the overshoot.
As the track work was coming together I made a few compromises and changes from the original plan. The photos show the coaling tower closest to the turntable with the MoW track extending behind. In theory, I could spot a coal gondola there to service the tower. However, I've since trimmed the MoW track and placed the water tower closest to the turntable. It feels a little less cluttered and while that means I can't spot a coal gondola behind the tower, I think that will be secondary overall to the general feel of the scene.
The second compromise was the caboose track. I really didn't want anything in front of the turntable to block the view. But in the end, this was the only space/most logical space I could think of for the cabeese. In reality, there should only be a few cabeese on this track at a time, which shouldn't block the view too much, and may add some foreground interest once the roundhouse is built. I've placed the track heading off the edge of the layout, hopefully giving the impression there is more to the track than is shown on the scene. In theory, it could serve as an attachment point in the future if I ever needed to attach a module there.
Coming up next I'm looking to build my own hand crank mechanism for rotating the turntable without reaching into the scene.
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| The caboose track has a pin to prevent cars from rolling off the layout. But I liked the idea of a track disappearing 'off layout'. |
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| The red line roughly marks the walls for the roundhouse that will need to be scratchbuilt. |
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| A general view of the yard. |
Looks good. Just a thought... would such a small railroad with only a few coalburners (I see some of your engines still burn wood) need such a large coaling tower? That thing would probably keep your engine's filled for weeks. Perhaps something more smaller... and like involving hand-shoveled coal... might be more appropriate for your line. And it wouldn't be so visually dominating (unless that is what you want).
ReplyDeleteThat is a great thought. You're right, it probably would be too big. At the other end of the line I have a small wooden derrick and bucket coaling station. I think I've persevered with the tower because I quite like the look of it. I'm thinking that once the roundhouse is in place it will appear less imposing. But if it still doesn't look right I could always swap it for a smaller structure. I would be open to trying that so I'll keep thinking on it. Thanks again for the interest and good ideas.
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