Thanks

Scott, I have been mulling over for nearly a year what to do with a section of my layout that is 7 ft long and 22 inches wide and empty.  Your comment about "imagineering" has got me deciding what to do.  While I won't actually have ships or a wharf, the aisles will be the wharves.  And your thought about industry, well, that was helpful.  I never thought about a seafood business.  Anyway, thanks for the article and getting me actively thinking about how to address my empty space.

Thanks

Thanks Scott. A very well thought out layout and food for thought. Regards. Trevor

Toledo Terminal Railroad

Hi Scott,

I live in the Toledo area and my son has been talking about building a model of the Toledo Terminal.  It was a belt line serving Toledo and interchanging with many railroads, just like, I am guessing, the Tacoma Belt.  Your article gives some excellent ideas on how he could do that, especially in his space, and I'm going to share it with him.

Do you have an MRH blog or trackplan that shows how these TOMA modules fit in with your greater design?

Thanks for sharing what you've accomplished.  It all looks terrific!

Trackplan

Michael,

As Scott's official photographer (and regular operator on his layout), his layout room is much larger than the one provided for the TOMA contest.  His layout is served by 4 different class 1 railroads (GN, UP, WP, Milwaukee) and the Belt.  The original layout is a large, narrow shelf rectangle with 2 double sided peninsulas in the middle.  The 'bottom' of the rectangle is the belt yard.  

The peninsulas and the other sides of the longer sides of the rectangle feature industrial switching areas similar to the ones added in phases 3 and 4 of the TOMA design.  Off the 'top' of the rectangle, track leads to the fiddle yard shown in the TOMA design.  The port module was actually the latest section he added to the layout and is connected to the fiddle yard similar to the TOMA design.  Each of the industrial areas is only served by its respective class one so there are approximately 25 different 'jobs.'  

A class 1 crew departs the fiddle yard with 5-8 cars, heads to its area/industry to switch, returns to the Belt yard with pickups, drops them for sorting, and returns empty to the fiddle yard.  The Belt yard then classifies the cars and calls for a transfer crew when there are 6-8 cars for a specific class 1.  Transfer crew delivers them to the fiddle yard (i.e. the class 1's yard 'off' the layout) and the cycle continues.  Five, 2 man crews will typically only get through 10-12 of the possible 'jobs' in a 3 hours ops session so it makes for a very efficient design if you like switching puzzles.  

You can easily operate there once a month for a year and not have the same job (and even if you did, it would be different based on which cars needed picked up or spotted).

sorry there's no trackplan but hope that helps.

One Module/Second Place?

I'm not into opps, etc. but this concept WOWED me! Very well done.