So I am working on building the bench work of my N scale logging shortline called the Blue River Railroad (BRRR), yes the acronym was part of the reason why I picked the name. I already have a couple of section built and put in place. However, I do need some reference point in how to design the home yard for the railroad. The railroad has three engines, two shays and one ten-wheeler, a MOW train, two passenger cars, three caboose, and log bunk cars. I'm trying to make the whole layout feel like it's in the remote part of the Appalachia mountains where the only connection to the outside world is two sidings for Inbound and Outbound interchange with a Class 1 railroad. The home yard will be in the middle of the E shaped layout. Does anyone have any suggestion or reference points I can look at?
The type of railway you want is very unique. you may want to do some research on the real thing. https://www.usa.gov/libraries That is just one starter source. Libraries are very interconnected these days and you can get anything on Interlibrary loan. It depends on how developed your local library is, but our library allows one to check things out online and they send you an email when it gets there. But yeah, libraries man, they're a life saver. A month or two of reading some old books and you'll become our local authority on these logging lines. You'll be telling us what to do on our logging layouts.
My favorite shortline, Feather River Railway, was basically a wye, with one leg going up into the forest, one leg at the sawmill, and one leg to it's connection with Western Pacific. Edit; there wasn't much of a yard at the mill, a few tracks for making/breaking trains and a small shop/service area. The interchange with W.P. was a couple of tracks. Definitely a smallish operation.
Just a thought, in North Carolina they had the Graham county railroad, it essentially a loggng railroad per say, they did haul finish limber, they interchange with the southern railway on the Murphy branch. Check it out the inter change was 3 tracks on the side of a mountain. They had 2 shay one was a 3 truck, the other was a 2 truck. Great history. The railroad is all but gone. But one of the shay 1925 is at the north Carolina Museum in Spencer NC, she did Operate for a few years, sadly just for display now. Thanks jt