Mainline Madness - Almost finished...

Well in the not to distant future I will hopefully have the mainline on the centre peninsula completed, and it will also be the final section of the top deck mainline to be completed too.

Once this is finished it will mean I will finally be able to start with the scenery phase of the construction, and also start operating the layout and having open ops session.

This photo shows the relocated passenger terminal in its new location on the south side of the mainline on the centre peninsula.  This was swapped as I wanted to add additional passing sidings & a freight spur, this could only be accomplished on the north side of the mainline.

So the passenger terminal & freight terminal have been swapped to accomplish this.  Now I have a passing siding and freight spur on the north side of the mainline.

The freight terminal has it's own dedicated two sided unloading dock, and an additional unloading spur on the south side.  I wanted to have both as it adds so much more for operations and switching.  In addition you can see the passing siding next to it (south) and the the mainline.  There will be a crossover between the freight spur and the passing siding to allow movements when cars are spotted at the freight terminal.

The next section is a series of curved turnouts incorporating Walthers Shinohara & Peco curved turnouts, these range from #8 through to #7.5 and #7 in both brands.  These series of turnouts allows for trains & switches to move between the mainline and the various passing sidings, passenger spur, freight spur whilst the others are occupied.

The curved turnouts also serve the food industry that is located on this curve, to date the industry has not been decided but the structure is based around the Walthers Cornerstone "Magic Pan Bakery" kit.  This will be added to via a Pikestuff add on kit to allow for a refrigerated storage & transport area.

This industry will see a wide variety of tank cars, box cars, covered hoppers and refrigerated box cars and is served by two spurs.

The last section will be the timber wholesalers & hardware warehouse, this section has been moved from opposite the freight terminal.  This was due to the limited space available in this location to store to 74' centre beam timber cars.  It also didn't do the industry justice, as I wanted this to be a fairly busy wholesalers.  I want to be able to deliver bulk raw timber loads and also generate outgoing finished timber boxcar loads.

More updates to follow shortly when I finally get the last mainline track in...

Jas...