I keep thinking I'll put together a small O scale (2 rail) industrial/switching layout, but haven't come up with a design I liked. Does anyone happen to have designs for small (one or two walls of a bedroom) layouts that aren't a loop or a straight line? I have a Rivarossi 4 wheel industrial switcher, an Atlas box awaiting paint, decals (seaboard?), and final assembly, an old Southern cattle car craftsman kit awaiting assembly, an Intermountain tanker partially assembled, and a Weaver C&O PS2 cov. hopper. Got any bright ideas as to what industries I can model with a minimum of additional equipment? One I've thought of was a meat packing house... buy a refrigerator car, and it and the cattle car can serve the packing house.
Do you have any switches? If so how many? If I understand you right, you are thinking about an L shaped layout. How long would the two sides be? A meat packing plant would be doable, and you don't have to model the whole industry. A building at one end that would load the reefer and cattle pens at the other end. On the other leg of the layout, you could have a trestle for your hopper to unload into a truck, the load being sand for roads. Your tank car could be used in conjunction with the meat packing plant, the load being the tallow. Atlas will have their 2 rail O scale track out in a few weeks and their switches will follow soon after. They will also have some crossings also. Have you given any thought to bench work? Sounds interesting, keep us posted. Greg Elems
Right now I have some Atlas flex, a circle of 24" radius track, and 4 Atlas switches, also 24" radius. Not exactly scale stuff either, the rail is huge. Is this new 2 rail Atlas track going to be closer to scale than it used to be? I had hoped for no more than 8 feet on each side.
From what I've been told, it will be the same size as the old flex. The difference will be in the tie spacing, closer, and have spikes instead of the clamp looking things on the old. I'm looking forward to the 5.5 switches myself. If you can live with the 24" radious, you should have two nice sections to tie into with switching and a view block of sorts at the corner. Greg Elems
Ah cool. Okay, so there'll a meat packing house, supplies meat and tallow, and demands cattle... A hopper unloading area... How about a team track for whatever I wanna park there? unload tankers of chemicals into waiting trucks, etc... Maybe some sort of manufacturing facility too. This would be plenty of traffic to keep a switcher busy for a lil bit. Maybe a couple tracks to represent a yard lead? Maybe I'm being a bit optimistic as to what I can fit in the space.
A team track is a very good idea. You could have a fairly long one that has an auger for unloading the hopper at one end and a dock for spotting box cars or flat cars. I would have part of your team track paved also. That would be another spot for your tank car that a truck drives up to unload. You might consider an interchange track that your engine picks the cars up from and spots them when the switching shift is over. Then a yard lead could be used for more industry. A short track at one end to park your engine and have a small building for the crew to get their paper work would be appropriate. Greg Elems [ 09. September 2002, 03:40: Message edited by: Greg Elems ]
After thinking about it some more, I may just build it as a powerplant "railroad", and later connect it to an actual "railroad" with other industries. This seems to me to be a more appropriate situation for the switcher I've got, at least. Or maybe I could just model a freelanced chemical company that is large enough to need its own switcher. Tanks and covered hoppers full of chemicals, plus boxcars full of 55 gallon drums.
