Bob's Track Plans

The 3-rail guys have found me, and this is the latest in a string of designs for O scalers. Ben had a single-car garage available and wanted the largest curves possible for his big steamers. We were able to come up with a design that had a 45" minimum mainline radius and offer the flexibility of operating as two loops or—using the cutoffs near the station—one longer twice-around.

Paul had a small room but some large equipment to run, so we ran staging around the walls where it can be "deemphasized" with trees and low hills while operators focus on the track near the aisle. Paul wanted a Wabash flavor so we stole Jacksonville, Illinois as the main location and worked in some good local switching opportunities in addition to the small yard.

Bob had a nice space and a distinctive prototype in the Cleveland, Akron, & Columbus Railroad, a Pennsy-owned short line in Ohio. He also had a very inconveniently located pipe protruding from his basement wall - but we managed to design the peninsula to take advantage of the interruption in the long wall. A circuitous route to the staging helped with access to the lower-level tracks and gave Bob about the longest mainline possible in the space.

Fuad asked for a modified version of a commercial track plan. Fortunately, he had more room rather than less for his version. Can do.

The Canadian Pacific's dramatic ascent of Kicking Horse Pass is a favorite modeling subject of my clients; I think this may be the fourth...

We fit a lot of 3-rail O scale into Garry's space, accommodating multiple trains on two disguised loops and a fair amount of switching...