Two sections here: Area A Armstrong Street and the Yard.
The original design of Area A is as follows:
It has a lot to be desired. Basic problem was the uninteresting area in the center.
At the Toronto 2003 NMRA convention, I got inspired one night and came up with this plan:
Swanson Foods at the right is a major customer and the tracks into building #3 are extended into the closet. Cars must be in a specified sequence per customer requirements. The publishing company got shifted to Area E and an enlarged Plastics company fit better here.
Bending the Grain Elevator tracks made it a tad more interesting, increased the capacity and give some visual separation from the interchange tracks. ( Note - I changed it back when it was built.)
The best addition is the second run around track. In thinking out the switching moves, it was obvious that cars are pulled first before the spots are made in order to make room on the industrial spur. Where do the pulls go to prevent interfering with the new spots and hampering the switching? The leads are too short to hold them. So, a second run around track was added and the overall look of a heavy industrial area was enhanced.
The maximum capacity for cars at the industries was increased significantly from 45 to 61. Typical number of cars increased from 25 to 45. The impact of this means two more locals are required to service all the industries. Yea!
Area A can now support four local freight instead of two: a grain turn, interchange transfer run, a food turn and another to service everybody else.
A couple of changes were made to the first design. A crossover from the main to the arrival/departure track was further to the right so that an arriving or departing train would not interfere with classification. But, it meant that trains could not arrive or depart from any of the classification tracks. I shifted this crossover to the left to enable those movements. There are not that many trains arriving or departing that warranted loosing the flexibility to use the classification tracks.
I also added the switchback industrial track to increase the switching moves to another (building flat) industry or two.
Last updated: 09/11/2004