Moose I would look at obtaining right of way so that you have 2 leads going into the turn table. This would make it much quicker and easier to get engine on & off the turntable. Make sure your water columns are set so that your power can take water while coaling. Saves time for the Shop crew/Hostlers.
@porkypine52 Thank you very much for the suggestions - very much appreciated! The plan is to try to fit the water columns just to the right of the coal tower if they don't interfere with the sand tower. Unfortunately, the current configuration of the tracks and turnouts is about the best a moose can do with the available space to accommodate the locomotive service facilities while ensuring that the track radii are not too small for any rolling stock, including the large articulates.
Moose mind melting more... Tinkin' about best place for the caboose track. Your thoughts, give them to Moose! (please?) It's admittedly a rather small railway yard , so how often will cabeese need to be changed out in this yard? Probably not often, and when they are, it would be a switcher from the roundhouse area that would be handling the caboose. Sooo, Moose think (it happens) about options: 1. Leave caboose track where it is, near the three warehouse & brewery spurs, because that's been the plan, like, fore-ever; [See Yellow arrow] or 2. Use the spur currently assigned to disease'el services, and move disease'el services in line with the coal tower; [See Red arrow] or 3. Use one of the "exterior tracks" adjacent to the roundhouse. [See Blue arrow] Options 2 & 3 would allow an "industry to be named later" to be added adjacent to the spur currently designated as the caboose track. Moose like this idea'r because the building would be triangular. How kewl would that be? And Moose leaning towards Option 3, since that would allow Moose the option of eventually moving the disease'el services in line with the coal tower and repurposing that spur for some other purpose...
Before I answer, I have a couple of questions. Do trains generally arrive and/or leave from both directions on A/D tracks? Are yard goats responsible for moving caboose to/from caboose track? If both of those are answered yes, I would submit that option #3 (next to roundhouse) would work best, since it allows a yard goat to use the turntable to get on either end of the caboose to transfer the caboose between caboose track and arriving/departing trains. That wouldn't work if the arriving/departing steam loco does this job (big steam loco and tender are too long to fit on turntable with caboose). Whether such an arrangement is prototypical or not, I have no idea, and defer to others' judgement.
@BigJake The answer to both questions is yes. Moose always looking for what is prototypical. Since it is such a small yard with a relatively large turntable, it is difficult to find anything that confirms that a caboose track off a turntable was ever used.
Almost anything is prototypical if the prototype is not limited to a few railroads/regions or less. Your railroad; your rules. If I like it, it's SOP on my railroad!
Any place that the yard goat can extract them from the end of the train and move them to promptly, or the arriving loco can achieve. Near to a yard office? Our club's best yard has tracks either side of the main, but one of the escape roads has stub ends after a switch that lazy engineers tie up in. P.S. useful to have access from either end if possible.
And in a PRR yard (Gibbard) an oldtimer advised: 1.Inbound track.This is where the cabins was placed after being removed from a inbound train. 2.Servicing track..This is where the cabins was cleaned,restocked,service and inspected. 3.Outbound ready.This is where the cabins was spotted after servicing..If business was slow they would be placed on a storage track.
If the caboose track was accessed from the freight house track or the right end of Siding 3, it would eliminate the mandatory switchback movement on Siding 2 any time you added/removed a caboose to/from a train...and give you the option of more brewery spots on Siding 2 or (after tweaking the 2-way road a little to shift Brewery Siding 1 upwards an inch or two) maybe use Siding 2 for another railyard industry, such as a team track or a cleanout track for boxcars.
Good point about servicing the caboose(s). In a small yard such as this, the inbound caboose track could also be used for servicing them. Again, the turntable provides easy access to retrieve, move and spot the caboose with the goat, as well as put the caboose on the right end of the goat for attaching it to the correct end of outbound trains headed in either direction from the yard. And yard personnel are likely centralized around the roundhouse anyway. Whether or not it was ever done this way in a prototype yard, at least it works functionally, and no run-arounds are required.
Another Caboose Track option: Make a 2-ended Caboose Track. Connect the left end of Siding 2 into the left end of the upper A/D track (A/D 2??). Connect the right end of the Caboose Track to the Freight House Track. Caboose Track is renamed the lead from Freight House Track to Brewery Siding 1 and Siding 2. Siding 2 (which is now 2-ended) is renamed the Caboose Track. Remove the turnouts that connect Siding 3 and Siding 2 (renamed Caboose Track), so that Siding 3 only has a turnout on the right end and entire length will only be used for storage. If you plan to break down and build lots of freight trains originating and terminating in this yard, you will want to have a 2-ended caboose track. If you are only switching out a block of 3 to 8 freight cars from through trains (which seems most likely with just 2 double-ended tracks, no classification tracks in this part of the layout, and only the Freight House and Brewery industries nearby), then the plan with the stub-ended Caboose Track will be sufficient and will provide you more options for spotting those 3-8 freight cars.
@ppuinn Thank you for the suggestions. All very much appreciated! Moose has been trying to avoid any changes to the placements of the existing track and turnouts. If you could see the underside of the bench work, then it would be clear why. Gave serious consideration to your suggestions, but cannot see implementing them because the bench work supports & joints along with feeder & bus wiring make even minor changes a major chore. For example, there's a joint on the lower left side of the yard that makes adding a turnout with Tortoise machine there impossible.
Moose contemplated adding a triangular building between the "house track" (below the depots) and the track labeled "caboose track". Unfortunately, such a building would have a ground floor footprint of just 600 square feet. Hard to imagine any industry so small requiring its own dedicated track. At a minimum, Moose likey to move the caboose storage to the current disease'el track and move the disease'el services next to the coal tower. Might then shorten the caboose storage track to add a shed at its end to help define the track as being able to service the caboose there. Then the current "caboose track" could be just an extra storage track, ad-hoc loading track, or similar.
I never thought about benchwork interfering with track placement due to under-layout switch machine placement before. I use Unitrack sectional track with built-in switch machines, but I am instead constrained by the choice of sectional track products. I suppose I could mix Unitrack sectional and flex track, but I haven't needed to yet. Different obstacles for different choices in methods and products...