Crossing the Main while Switching

[mu26aeh]

Is this more like what you are saying Robbman and sirenworks  ?  Have the crossover closer to the switching, as to clear the main in a more timely manner ?  (new crossover in Aqua )

Capture by Adam Henry, on Flickr

[sirenwerks]

I was thinking more like this (see the lime green lines).  Forgive the rough drawing.

[basementcalling]

Is this more like what you are saying Robbman and sirenworks  ?  Have the crossover closer to the switching, as to clear the main in a more timely manner ?  (new crossover in Aqua )

Capture by Adam Henry, on Flickr

That's back where I originally placed them. BTW, I've been impressed with that mill you have going on the Hanover Sub. Nicely designed and executed.



I'm sure I am not understanding what Robbman and Sireworks typed, other than Siren suggested moving the pulpwood turnout 90 degrees around the corner so it connects to the curved turnout at the top right and the spur runs down towards the bottom of the image of the plan.

I tried this instead.

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With the crossover here I can quickly access both tracks from the main and have room to uncouple from cars not being spotted.

I have to be careful where I put the crossover so as not to get to close to the end of the grade transition from the 2% climb up from the top side of the backdrop and the canyon crossing scene over there. My experience with turnouts as the first piece of track at the top of, and especially the bottom of, a grade are not good for reliable operation. Cars run better if the tracks can completely flatten out before entering the turnout so much the better.

[basementcalling]

I was thinking more like this (see the lime green lines).  Forgive the rough drawing.

Thanks, Sirenwerks, but that places the West end turnout for the coal spur on the grade where it's transitioning from 2% to flat. I know I don't want the chipwood turnout so close to the end of the passing siding. I want to keep any switching activity within the "double tracked" area. Letting the local out into the single tracked territory would add headaches and heartache in all probability.

[mu26aeh]

That's back where I originally placed them. BTW, I've been impressed with that mill you have going on the Hanover Sub. Nicely designed and executed.

I took Robbman's comment as flipping the direction of the crossover you had in bright green.  IE, you have the siding crossing over to the main, where as I flipped it and it has the main crossing to the siding. 

As for the paper mill design, that comes from Bernie Kempinski's Danica Forest Products modules from MR a few years ago.  If my version looks 25 % as good as his, I'll be happy.

[basementcalling]

As for my paper mill design, that comes from Bernie Kempinski's Danica Forest Products modules from MR a few years ago.  If my version looks 25 % as good as his, I'll be happy.

Ditto. I've worn the cover off my April 2001 MR from looking at his article about that module.

I had the good fortune to see those in person before he sold them, and operate on them once. It was a treat.

I'm now thinking like this so the switcher can move directly into the chip track from the siding with the crossover between the two spur turnouts. I did have to go from a #10 crossover to a #7, but hey, what's the likelihood I can get more # 10 turnouts before the end of the month anyway.

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This set up also moved the turnout location to access the two chip tracks and frees more space. Hmmm. Tomorrow I can mock things up and see how it looks on the benchwork instead of just on Anyrail.

[OldEastRR]

Not knowing what your overall operation is, I assume that the long siding is for 2 through trains to pass or meet. How often that happens or what's in the way when they both get there would have to be considered in that case.
If not for meets and passes, why such a long long siding? Does it double  as a storage track for cars dropped off and picked up by the local/through freights? Or for a local that comes in, does work, and turns, so it needs a make-up track to build the return consist?
As for crowding, right now you have a 4-track main at the power plant, so the scene must look pretty busy as is. If you added turnouts to connect the inner ends of the power and pulp tracks you could make a short runaround track so the switcher doesn't have to run all the way out to both ends of the mainline/siding to get on the other side of a cut of cars, tying up both tracks as it does so.
No matter what, I see lots of zigzag switchbacks for the switcher work here. No momentum setting for the plant switcher!

[georgiaroad]

I would guess that, at a complex this size (pretty tiny for most paper mills----but then again, standard disclaimers about compression and model railroads apply, of course) the plant switcher would not be permitted to cross the Class 1's mainline at all. The Class 1 would probably prefer to send out a local twice a day to shift whatever cars are necessary to the opposite side of the main, using the green siding as a setout point.

Either that, or the mill would pony up the dough to build conveyors across the main to reach the unloading site.