Hmmmm. Warning: Hopefully constructive criticism ahead

Two things immediately jump out at me:

1. No run-around track. Hard to serve both leading and trailing point spurs without a way to get around your train, unless you pre-block everything and have the locomotive placed in the middle of the train. 

2. The switchbacks. They're something I understand the prototype really tries to avoid doing. It limits both how many cars you can drag back to an industry, because of a limited lead distance, and also how many you can have at other industries, because of shortening the lead to the opposite spur. And why the parallel tracks to the switchbacks - that also shortens everything and I don't see where you gain anything from it. 

Also, as regards industries... I'm guessing you intend to have one industry on the "top left" with those three tracks, one on the "top right" with those two tracks, and one on each side of the crossover below the main. 

Frankly, this looks like a case of filling the space with too much track. The bottom part looks okay.. But I think you should really rethink the top half - it looks like a Timesaver taken to extremes. 

And add a runaround that will fit your average length train on it.

Slip switch or crossing?

A few questions:

a) Is that a slip switch or a crossing?
b) any particular reason to have two switches diverge from the main to the "top" of the module"?

Personally, I'd change those dual diverging switches into a single one that diverges before (to the right of) the current switch going to the bottom of the module. Then you can eliminate the slip switch and branch the two tracks from the removed switch on the mainline from the single diverging route.

I believe that will reduce the amount of switches, reduce the specialty slip switch and still give you the exact same capability of switching cars in the upper section of the module.

Make sure you plan in where the section boundaries are in your drawing: so you don't end up with placing switches or the crossing on or close to a section boundary.

Quick eval

The join line for the two modules looks dangerously close to frogs on those three turnouts in the center, and the Free-mo purists are going to whine about less than #6 turnouts off the main.

Drawing a blank on industries for the upper segment of the plan.  The lower could be a 40's era piggyback unload ramp set on the left, or a freight house along the bottom margin.  Lower right, the ubiquitous scrap yard.

Tim B.

Capitol Free-mo participant

Need for a run around?

I disagree with Jeff regarding the need for a run around. You could assume an east and a west local servicing only their trailing point switches. Or let the event layout planner ensure a run around isn't too far away from this module.

I do have to agree with Jeff that the top section seems to just try and fill the space with track. Switching the right hand side there would be a pain because any cars on the left hand side will be in the way. If those would be 2 distinct industries their loading/unloading operations would have to be coordinated so car placement by the local can be done efficiently and thus at the lowest cost.

I now see that you are planning to split this into two sections of 66": I think at least the switch from the main to the lower right side of the module is on a section boundary. The switch that splits the lower left hand spur into two is pretty close, just as the slip switch in the upper side.

Couple comments

While I know you are trying to compress as much "switching" into as small a space as possible, as the former (recovering?) UP terminal manager of Salt Lake City, the is way more complicated than the track in the Salt Lake area.  Most of the industry in Salt Lake was pretty straight forward spurs with one or two story buildings or tip up construction in the more modern areas.  About the most complicated switching was in the oil refineries and the only place we had something approaching a switchback was on the north side where we operated  a piece of the old Bamberger line.

I would have concerns about the number of tracks crossing the joints.   A slip switch is not that common, especially in a industrial setting.  Most slip switches were in passenger terminals.  As others have said the number of switchbacks will be tiresome to work, plus the multiple close parallel tracks will be harder to scenic or to justify as separate industries.  Less may be more. and look better in the end.

I would ask what your goals are for this set of modules?  Are they intended to be a stand alone layout or fit into a home layout?  

One option to consider in Salt Lake is the that the UP and DRGW ran right next to each other, plus the Bamberger line was on the east side of the UP north of Salt Lake City.  In addition the Salt lake Garfield and Western  paralleled the WP going west from Grant Tower.  One option for a Freemo module would be to have a switching area with a main track running through the middle representing either a railroad that crosses over one of the other roads or where a railroad merged with another road and consolidated the switching of the other railroad.  That way if this was intended to be a semi-autonomus switching area in the Freemo  set up, that concept would allow the switching to be independent of the Freemo main track operation.  If it is intended to be switched by trains on the main track in a Freemo set up, then simplifying the switching would be better.  With Freemo being a single track operation.  Having a switching area where the train working the station has to sit for a long time, unable to clear, will tie things up on the whole set up. 

Improvements

Ok! Lots of good fast advice and criticism! Thanks, everyone! The biggest issue seemed to be the massive yard on the top half; too much track in too little a space. It also caused issues with the module connection point. So I've made some changes: 
 

I removed the large yard, replacing it with two separate smaller industries. If I want to do a really large industry in the future, I can do a separate module. This also clears up the split issue; the closest points are still 5-6 inches from the module edge. In terms of industries, I like the scrap yard idea; would be fun to model. For the larger two-track industry I'll do either a lumber or intermodal yard, depends if I want to make a larger intermodal yard in future. I want the top left industry to take in boxcars, though I don't know if I want more boxcars in the bottom right. I might switch out "manufacturing plant" for something else in future.
All in all these changes give me more opportunity for interesting modeling potential, as well as making the entire thing more prototypical. I still get to keep the elements I wanted like the run-around (which was present in the previous design, though smaller) and the crossover. Next step will be to throw together some frames! If anyone has more feedback, keep laying it on me!

Appreciated
- Kieran

Kieran, I like the

Kieran,

I like the simplification of your design. It looks more prototypical; which is a goal of Free-mo.

If you have some rolling stock, I'd design the industries to use the cars you have. Also, if you have a time frame that you want to represent, that will help define the types of industries.

Based on this track design, a single "cassette" or staging module makes this a full fledged, operations based layout!

Looking forward to this concept moving into a fully functioning layout!

Tim Moran Akron, OH

Redesign is much better

Kieran, the redesign is a lot better. One suggestion for this redesigned plan:

"Merge" the RHS switch of the run around with the most RHS switch on your module, effectively making the run around longer. Then replace the crossing with a LH and a RH swich. You might need to move the lumber spurs a bit closer to the mainline if you want to keep them parallel to the mainline. Or you could simply have them angle both away from the mainline based on the LH diverging angle.

This removes the crossing, and changes the Y switch for a regular switch (in a different location) while giving you a longer run around.

The re-design

looks good to me. Enough track to make it interesting but not so much to make it look over done. The only thing you might want to consider is moving the lower spurs closer to the mainline so you have room for  more spacious buildings. As it is the tracks take up the prime real estate leaving little room for industrial scenic development . ....DaveB

Re-design

The new plan is much better. 

An option for an industry is a beverage distributor.  They receive cars of beer and soda.    That means they can receive reefers (kegs) and both RBL (insulated boxcars ) and regular boxcars.  They are common "industries".

I personally wouldn't go with an intermodal ramp, they are really big and you don't have near the space you need to do it justice.  I would go with a transload dealer or a petrochemical dealer.  One option is a dealer that receives oil and custom blends it, then ships out the blended oil.  Of course with a module. small layout, it really doesn't make and difference  whether its a blender or just a dealer, tank car in, tank car out, same difference.  Anyway, the two tracks parallel would work well for a unloading rack between them.

Denver switching district

When I saw you mention Denver as a potential location for your plan it reminded me of a Denver location I noticed a few days ago while searching Google earth. There are numerous warehouses and it's loaded with lots of spurs, several which resemble your planning. The location is the northeast quadrant of the intersection of I-70 and Colorado Blvd. The area is entirely enclosed by a large circle of track. It could even be a pattern for several modules to constitute an entire around the walls layout. It appears most of these customers receive boxcars but there's certainly opportunity to substitute other customers for greater variety.

Switchback

Hi,

looking (only) at your opening post made me think of a tank farm which has a very similar layout, switchback included. Looking at the following track plan, taken from https://www.openrailwaymap.org

To the right you'll see the tank farm's unloading tracks. To the left you'll see the switchback. The very short switchback (far left) has been rotting in the weeds forever, if you ask.

A train of tank cars will arrive from the top right, pull into the track adjacent to the station (actually track 1). It will then reverse into the unloading facility.

Have fun and stay healthy.

Multiple sections

I think Free-mo can be an ideal system for a switching district. But we need to think beyond one module as a district. Consider the endpoints of the district as Free-mo compatible but design the layout between those points as a sectional layout.

Here's an HO scale layout based upon a 1.25 mile B&O branch line in Fairmont, W. Va. Click on the image to review the full size.

This originally appeared a decade ago in Layout Design Journal #41 with the "Modeling a Mile" article. Note the end points are Free-mo compatible. Elements of the prototype track and industries have been compressed and some have been repositioned in a more linear setting, But all the prototype customers are represented in a 10 x 20 sectional, portable, HO scale layout.

When considering Free-mo for an industrial district, think beyond a single unit for the project. Make the endpoints compatible and be creative with the rest. Don't forget there are Free-mo branchline standards that can make an industrial segment a free-standing addition to a larger Free-mo set up.

Eric

No redesign of the area

.

In your place I don't redesign the first sketch

Course no runaround, but somewhere in ops, to easy to have a runaround.

This is like a time saver switching area; you must be quiet and clever, this is a very interessting switching area.

I have copy it and may be use it in place of my layout.

When you look at the FREMO design which is a copy of the real thing, this design is not easy to switch and even if you have place to "run around" in some area, the whole design oblige you to use only one team track to build your train or change the switch list.

This is particularly evident it's not easy to switch a model of a real area like the one inspired in the Fremo design.

Often, we are looking for easy switching design, but it's not always the case in reality, and this give challenge in ops, so I would'nt redesign the basic idea

Just my opinion