Good Start

Couple of concerns:

Make sure the yard ladders at Cornwall will fit. they look very short on the drawing. Its VERY easy to jam in too many turnouts when drawing. Check by mocking up the actual ladder with turnouts to make sure.

I personally dont care for switchbacks like shown at the Navy Base, and would think a better arrangement would be a extra double ended siding and the spur coming into the mainline or on top of the ladder if space allows.

Is there a drawing for the second level? Maybe I missed how the second deck is connected.

How do you access the staging below the door?

I understand your concerns...

I understand your concern, back in the late 40's Iona Island had a single switchback.  What appears to be the left switchback is actually suppose to represent the tracks leading off to the northern areas of the island.  It only became a double switch back out of necessity to fit the part of Iona Island I wanted to model.  The actual siding is in between the two mainline tracks, the NYC allowed for fouling of the main while switching the Navy arsenal.  They had to realize this due to the very nature of how everything is arranged. 

I am using 3rd PlanIt to draw the layout and it looks as though the yard in Cornwall will fit, I do realize it is hard to tell with how small the layout picture is.  My original drawing was bigger but when I uploaded it to the website it was shrunk to fit what the website allows for pictures.

The second level will be accessed via the helix at the top of the drawing, it will come out on the second level running along the stairs and then hang a 90 to run along the wall over Iona Island.  I am still drawing up the second level and wanted to know what modelers thoughts were on how the first level looked.

The staging is on the other side of the layout rooms' wall and will run over some of my workbench.  It was really the only place I could put it and the wife doesn't want that area walled in at all.  So the staging/fiddle yard is open to the outside world but I may still be able to convince her to allow some type of walls once that is up and she can see that it needs to be protected.

After thinking about it....

Randy,

I took what you said about the switchbacks into consideration and decided to flip flop the spur so that now there is only one switchback that leads to the modeled area of Iona Island.  I can't bring myself to eliminate the switchback all together as it was how the NYC handled switching the arsenal.

Still working on the second level, I'm finding the town of Newburgh to be harder to design in 3rd PlanIt then I did when I used a template with pencil and paper.  Once Newburgh is done I think the rest of the level will go quickly.

Please comment on what you like don't like or if you even think I could have done the first level a different way.  I am open to suggestions plus I have nagging feeling that I could be more space efficient with the layout.  Any help would be great.

NYC

I think your off to an awesome start!  Keep up the good work and keep us posted on the progress!

Modelers license...

Did the WSR or NYC handle the arsenal or just spot cares on it's trackage and the switching accomplished by the government.  It's was pretty common for arsenals to have dedicated government switchers. 

If so this would make switching Iona island even more interesting because it would require a dedicated crew to run it's switcher while the road crew was only responsible for spotting cars.

I only ask because the survey posted shows the defining line between the WSR and Government trackage, not always a deciding factor but very likely particularly for you time period.

My other concern would be the double track main line.  Yes it matches the prototype.  However double the track means double the cost and double the trains/crews. It's just a thought, but perhaps you should consider your operations and weather you can support both mains.  Others have reduced mains from double to single, to reduce amount of equipment/crews and add a twist to the operation, scheduled meets.  The important part is enjoying our railroad, and for most that means operation.  Which work best when all jobs are filled.  So if it takes 10 operators to operate a double track main or 7 to operate a single.  The likely hood of gather the fewer people means you will operate more often.

Just some thoughts, I think you have a great plan and goal your working to achieve.

Cheers

Thanks for looking

Dustin thanks for commenting.

It was indeed run by the US Navy, so it would have been operated independently of the railroad.  In fact, I believe they used GE 40 ton diesel switchers during the time period I am looking at.  So I will be purchasing a Bachmann Spectrum 40 tonner sometime in the near future.

I have given this thought (before and during this design phase) as I have seen the same question come up in other threads of modelers who had double track mainlines and were asking for comments on it (whether it be operations or layout design).  I think I have come up with a solution to that, MOW.  I can simply shut down parts of the mainline while the MOW crews "fix" problems with track, bridges, tunnels and other things.  Right now I am planning the layout just to railfan and to casually operate.  I know at some point that will probably change and I will want to take operations much more seriously.  If so then I can impliment the MOW option to impose restrictions on the layout.  An excellent point Jeremy and thank you for taking a look.

Scott

Maintenance of Way

Scott, never even considered that.  Nice plan I like it.  I just wanted to make sure you considered it, under layout specifics you didn't specify operations so I brought it up.

Being that Iona island was serviced by the Navy I would try and emulate it's trackage as close as possible.  Yes removing the switchback is easier but if there is a dedicated crew for the job they are going to be there all day anyways.

Best of luck, hope you get to construction soon.