Track gang at it again!

 Well,

The track gang came along last night and made some changes to my layout last night, it seems that management was not happy about the progress this past weekend. So this past Saturday Robert and I went out doing some lite rail fanning here in Phoenix and I realized how spread out things are on the real railroads. I have always know this, but in my effort to try to cram more industries into my track plan I got a little carried away. I was more in Model Operations mode then trying to model the real thing.

Also another layout has really brought the idea of Less is more is this great layout Red Dirt & Rails which is a nice little railroad. I heard about this layout from Robert who found it on Youtube, and I binged his videos and was very impressed at just how well he captured the Oklahoma area. I knew I had to change mine as it was bothering me.

So last night I took out the middle set of tracks which I was calling the switch back track, when I put it in I made it easier to switch out the trailing and following industry tracks, in reality the real railroad would never have done this and it looked to cluttered.

Before, middle track is just a switch back.

Here is the track after removing the switches, much more simpler plan and feels right. Another thing that removing the track, it gave me more area for modeling the industry along this section. I was going to use just facades but now I can add more depth to this section of the layout.

After, removed the switch back track

Less track makes it tougher to operate, thats a good thing!

More space for the industry as well!

I am happy with the plan now and it does capture the feel of the real railroad to me and it gives me an opportunity to do more modeling with the industries along this section of the railroad. So I will lock down the rest of the track later today or tomorrow.

TK