Dear Mr. Gill, Your plan looks good to me as it is. It is not complicated, and it would be fun to run. Your railroad would probably depend more on bridge traffic than on-line shippers. You can run opposing trains and arrange meets, because you have two passing tracks, and that's good. I could see you running trains from the staging yard, around a couple times, and back, stopping some of them in Shoehorn Yard to switch out cars for Granite City or the two spurs on the left end, which would make good interchange tracks. Then you could have a local or two, maybe out of Shoehorn or maybe out of staging, to switch Granite City. I do think the staging yard should have some more capacity; maybe two more tracks, if you can fit them, but you could get away without them. I did make some changes to Shoehorn Yard to make it more useful. I put the plan up on my web site here:
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any luck, that link will work. I added the long runaround track so an incoming train could clear the main line. This track has a tail so the switcher has somewhere to stay. You could come in, cut off the engine, and take it up the simple engine service track to coal up and dump the ashes (or take on fuel if it's a powered boxcar). Water could be out on the main, or between the main and the runaround. Then the yard crew could start breaking up the train from the back end, and meanwhile the main wouldn't be blocked. You could also use the 'engine service track' to keep a helper engine for trains that couldn't make the grade on the left-end loops. If you are going to use steam engines, you might want somewhere to turn them. Perhaps you could work a wye in somewhere - connect the upper-right main with the track near the spur I marked 'C', maybe. Cordially yours, Gerard Pawlowski