A few more months of distractions but back at the track planning/revisions. The room is shaping up with drywall going up soon and an estimated finish date of September. As I previously mentioned, I gave up some space for a storage closet but benefit from losing the electrical panel in the corner. Now I have a almost perfect 13' X 13' space with a single door that I can have opening outwards.
I've revisited this plan quite a few times and aimed for something a little simpler than the previous versions. One major change is the elimination of the various helixes, to be replaced by a twice-around the room nolix with a grade of 2.0%. This gives me about 12" of separation between what becomes 2-3 decks but retains all the major locations of the previous layout.
Functionally, the lower deck is the Swan Landing yard which is the junction with the mainline. Staging completes a loop of the mainline and also gives a reverse loop under the peninsula for Edson trains (notably frac sand that is from eastern sources). There is limited mainline staging as I am avoiding hidden turnouts here, but the potential to expand staging exists if needed.
The Grande Cache Sub leaves Swan Landing and rises through the peninsula to the siding at Hanlon, over the summit at Hoff and continues through Grey to Winniandy where the crew change is and coal trains originate. I have added a reverse loop for the subdivision continuing north to Grande Prairie with serial storage for two trains. I have not included some simple trackage for the sawmill at Grey yet but will add this as the design is refined.
I tried to keep the reach short for all decks and will have to work out some geometry for the Mason Creek bridge on the upper deck. The prototype is hidden in the forest so I have that to help given the limited space.
As it stands, several people could operate by running trains from either end of the division and I can add coal, lumber and a Jasper-Swan Landing local to add operations/complexity. The sidings and yards allow for 10-12' trains. There is storage for 8 or so trains in the various locations.
The obvious challenge for construction is the four different track levels crossing the door opening. I plan for the mid and upper decks to be on semi-permanent duckunders at about 60-64" above the floor, while the lower deck and staging will be on a gate system.
Here is the combined plan with everything stacked. Scale of the grid is 1'. Staging is red, lower deck is white, mid deck is blue and upper deck is green.
Here are the decks broken down a bit for clarity.
