Reach ins to corners?

Hi,

That siding is going to improve things a great deal.

I am wondering if reach-in to the upper left and right corners will be an issue? Especially the upper right where you have to reach in a ways and reach over the structures in front of those spurs?

Chris

Is the switching shelf going to involved car storage cassettes?

My father-in-law has built, out of masonite & pine, a whole bunch of cassettes for car storage that he stores in something that looks a lot like a bank of mail slots.

I've asked him to take photos with the idea it might make a nice article - and looking at your switchng shelf, that's practically identical to what he has - he just slots the cassettes in on the end (there is a hinged support) and pulls the cars out with a switch engine - rather like a car float, actually.

Answering Questions

The switching shelf will either be cassettes or a teo track fiddle yard.  A syou may recall my emphasis here is on industrial switching, so I don't need a lot of capacity to move stuff around once it gets of fthe visible protion of the layout.

And as to reach in - I generall make buildings removable that are in the way fro such things - though at 6'3" I have farily long arms, so getting into the coerneres isn't too big a problem.

Some suggestions

Hi Phil,

Interesting plan. A couple of comments...I'm wondering if the switching shelf will be long enough as a lead for the refinery. On the plan it looks like you can extend if needed along the wall and the shelf only needs to be an inch or two wide. If you can mangage, a track or two added to the siding at the front of the long bench on the top of your plan would add some operational possibilities. Your plan has three main swiching areas but nowhere other than the siding to organize cars for each switching job. Lastly, if you haven't already done it, switch to N Scale, you'll get a lot more rairloading in your space!! Couldn't resist that one!!

Looks good. Keep the progress reports coming.

- Steve

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Thanks for coming over

Steve,

I'm already in N-scale, so switching (that way) is moot.  You are correct that the shelf needs to be extended - I added that to show it's general placement, not it's final configuration.  I haven't decided if I want to make it a permanent two track fiddle yard type of operation, or a cassette staging area where whole trains can be cycled on and off.  That will have to be decided one of these days, I guess.