Florida Update - APRR Southern Division

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad and my blog!

I took a quick trip to the Florida house to check on the place, even though we have a house sitter who checks the place twice a month. I like to make sure everything is fine, especially our air conditioning unit as it's the original equipment (18 years old!). While I'm here I took some time to do some work on the APRR Southern Division. 

One of the goals was to add a set of crossover switches in the yard on the lower level if a train is coming into the yard. This was fairly easy to do, and results in better operations for the yard.

Plenty of clearance for my four axle Geeps or Switchers. No six axle engines since the layout is a point to point with numerous industries and they're really to large for this layout. 

Another project that I did was to build the Walthers HO scale bumpers. They come 12 in a package. They're a little bit of a challenge since the parts are small and the brace is very delicate to the point I broke one beyond repair. Oh well it happens...

Due to the short amount of time down here, I chose not to start to build any of the kits as I didn't want to let them sit until my next visit (End of September), so I decided to start to place freight cars around the layout to give me a little feel of how I will switch out the industries. 

The front two tracks I have slated as coal cars to simulate being unloaded for export. Behind it will be the plastic pellet transfer. This is on the lower level west wall. 

North wall lower level will have a few industries, mostly long and narrow due to spacing of the tracks. I'm still not 100% in love with this and as many of you know, if I can find a way to make it better, I will change it!

 Same area will hold a couple of cars for some small industries..

This track on the right side of the North Wall lower level can hold a couple cars, which I do like..

 Same area on the north wall..

A view of the upper level yard. This is more of an interchange yard where freight that comes up from the lower level gets dropped off and the switcher based on top will deliver the freight. Also, the engine can take back the empties or cars loaded back to the lower level for destinations elsewhere..

Upper level east wall will have a few industries such as an auto parts facility, warehouse, frozen food warehouse and more. against the wall is the passenger line. 

Yes, Tropicana juice will be delivered to the local grocery wholesaler...!

Back to the lower level, a view of the staging tracks on the east wall..

This area will be for ethanol/propane/oil deliveries...

Back up top, Centerbeam cars for the lumber yard on the west wall upper level. I want to add another industry to support steel right next to it as I have the space for it...

A few things will be changed as I had given the layout a hard look. When I brought down my freight cars last year, I brought every type of car, including intermodal and auto racks. Even though it's a point to point I figured it would look good in the yard. While it would look good, you wouldn't find these cars in a yard unless they were headed for the scrap yard, and not on a switching layout with no home for them. They are going back with me, 2 auto racks and 15 intermodal cars (4 - 3 car well sets and 3 - 53' well cars). This will open up the yard for more cars to switch the industries I will be adding to the layout. 

Some other things are still not giving me the 100% satisfaction I want for this switching layout. One of them is the north wall lower level. The track plan as such still doesn't seem to function as I would like it. I may be able to use part of this track plan. Still mulling it over...

Taking parts of this plan will fit in the area. I would have to reconfigure parts of the east wall, and I think this would afford me a better switching scenario. While I don't have 3 way turnouts, Peco makes them if I decide to go this route. I have Peco switches on the layout in NJ and they work well. 

The next area is the lower level west wall. I'm not sure if I want coal on the railroad, despite the imaginary dock for unloading coal. Still giving this some thought. I would rather change it now before I add more industries than to finish everything and not be satisfied.. 

That's all for now. Next Florida update will be the end of September and I will be bringing down an APRR engine as well. By then I should have made my decisions... 

Thanks for reading and stop back often for more updates!