The distance to the edge is a consideration and on the loops there is definitely space to tuck it in some. I started with the thought that I would have 4 loops but I have now trimmed that to three. So there is room to move it. The joints are soldered while the flex is straight. It looks wonky in person but those are the things I have to learn to do. Radius tools I will have to google. So i contine to putt(actually wide open as I slowed it down in the speed table, and it has not run in forever)one diesel back and forth on the track I have laid. If you look carefully in the pics you can see the torture test train in the background. 2 boxes, one empty and one loaded BLMA F89s, one MT autorack and one Athearn autorack. Metal wheels, combination of body and truck mounted couplers, this thing will find track issues. Since I only have two turnouts on the wired section I am batting .500 with turnout trackwork. The closest one works fine but the far one makes the first BLMA car unhappy. I will be addressing that soon. Many people have said you can never have too much staging. Many other people have said spacing in staging is critical. 1.25 or 1.5 center to center? I drew plans based on 1.25. Put a couple pieces of flex on that spacing and you realize that any fixing of a car on that spacing would require moving the trains on either side. I designed for 7.5 inches of space between bottom of benchwork and track. It seems ok in my brain so far. The inside corner behind the drill is the furthest reach at 17.5 inches from either side. That is a long way for stuff at that back track or two. But I have already eliminated a few by increasing the spacing. I will deal with the reach to keep capacity at the 14 tracks I have laid out now. Each track is double ended and leads to one of three return loops. Outside two loops each have a turnout to serve two tracks on either side. The inside track will serve three tracks on either side. So depending on what is going on each “end”(there are three) of the layout has 4 staging tracks with one clear through track available. The loops could each store a train so that is two more slots with still an open through track(is it necessary? i dont know but it is available). So 14 trains in the storage yard. The A/D yard has room for 6 more trains with keeping one through track open for each end. The current plan has all tracks capable of feeding trains outbound from Sheffield yard. That will be the middle track on the helix. Trains on this track either go south to Bham on the lower deck or west to Memphis on the upper. Traffic to and from Sheffield will be the most numerous. But even at 20 trains capacity, that is going to require some reuse in a full operating session. Potentially I can stage three more in the helix as the first trains out raising the number to 23 trains with maybe 1 more outbound from Sheffield in the upper part of the helix. So two on the Sheffield lead (middle track of three) one will go south and one will go west. So things to think about and really begin to flesh out an operating plan for.
