Florida Layout Upper Level Update

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad and my blog!

We've been trying to get as much of the upper level in place before we head back north. It's been a little bit of a challenge as drawing things on paper isn't quite like the way you want it to look. Also, when you 'place' track on the wood to get a feel, the looks are deceiving. Most important, it needs to function. 

The main line track from the helix to the other side wasn't an issue. Getting switch machines underneath against the wall; well that's another story for another time. 

Here's the original upper level plan:

One of the biggest changes was made in the center where the yard is located. The plan was to have 3 yard tracks as there's one track closest to the wall which is more of a thru track to the industries on the west wall and as a crossover to/from the main and helix. The track closest to the front of the layout would have held two freight cars; maybe 3 if some small freight cars were in there. We scraped that and added two tracks from a switch on the east side to use for another industry or storage when pulling freight cars from the east side of the layout.

This shows the view looking to the east side of the yard..

Here's the view looking to west...

The next change was the area where we flipped the grain facility with the lumber yard. 

There will be two tracks for the lumber yard. The third track, which extends further to the left of the gray area, will be for an industry that will tie in to the lumber yard, so to speak. I'm thinking of adding a small building that will house maybe steel piping or something along that type of structure. 

 The next change was the way the track laid out for the industries. If I kept the original plan, the structures would be blocking the track and the engineer could not see where to spot the cars. Adding a slight curve (yes it's a small 'S' curve) moves the track closer to the front and now gives me to opportunity to put the buildings behind the track giving the engineer visibility to spot the cars. The single track on the left in the photo below was recently added and will be another structure. This may be a scrap yard or construction yard with Caterpillar equipment to support it. 

Here's another view looking east. The track to the right of the blue box car will hold one small building. The two tracks past it will be a small warehouse with inside loading.  The track where the freight car sits will have two large or three small buildings. One will be a refrigeration storage, the other a food. Not sure if I can get the third building in there. 

This looks much better, and gives me many switching opportunities. While the majority of the time I will run solo, I've already formulated the operating scenario for 2-3 people. Trains for the upper level will head to the yard, drop off the cars, pick up any that have to go elsewhere (back to the staging yard) and the operator for the upper level will switch it all out.

Two areas on the upper level didn't change. The grain building in the corner of the west wall will remain as well as the aggregate structure in the east wall corner. 

I'm hoping to get some drops added before I leave to give it a test run. If I do, I'll add some freight cars to the areas so you can have an indication of the types of cars going to each industry.