Bob's Track Plans

To give Shawn a yard, a double-track main, two commuter rail stations, and some scenic running in the California mountains we used two-turn helixes at either end of the visible main line. These permit the construction of a relatively large concealed staging yard with enough "finger room" to rerail and maintain trains. Shawn can set 2-4 trains orbiting on the mainline while working the yard and industries for a basic, but satisfying, operating pattern.

It can be tricky to make use of two rooms when they are available for a railroad while still maintaining access and a walk-around design. To evoke the railroads radiating west out of Chicago, I made sure most of the mainline could be operated from within the central aisles of the larger room, with some "cheating" involving extending the Eola Yard into the secondary room to achieve enough room to handle longer trains.

Things are big in Texas, especially the purpose-built building Dave Oppedisano built when he moved there recently. Dave will once again...

Fabien lives in France but is a big fan of American railroads and the Cascade crossing. His modest space—even in N scale—persuaded us to...

BNSF's San Jacinto Branch departs the main line a little west of San Bernardino, and recently became a route for MetroLink commuter...

Timothy had already built his benchwork and staging level, but asked me to help him with the visible deck. It was necessary to loop the...

John wanted to model the Marshall SUb, which runs Northwest from Sioux Falls, SD up to a small yard in Willmar, MN where it joins the...

While working on John's home layout we did a modular version of the same prototype for his Scout troop to build. This 8-module plan is ...

Another popular plan, published in Model Railroader, based on the BNSF and its junction with the shortline CDCS. Download PDF