​Double headed GP's running westbound off the branch near White Rocks

My design givens were this -

1. 11 x 27, 297 sq. ft. room. Ceiling height 7.5’
2. No helix; continuous 2% grade at non switching areas provides space for a double deck layout
3. 5 through track staging under center peninsula 
4. Point to point
5. Follow the train around the room                                                                                 

The druthers -

1. main line with running room between switching points
2. minimum 24” radius
3. a western themed layout – something close to home
4. steam or first gen. diesel era – either, but not both
5. designed for operations
6. DCC,  flex track, #6 turnouts, code 70 throughout

Spurs on the modeled Placerville branch all have a local runaround track. You can work any spur whether you’re an east or west bound train and get back to the front end of your train. Passing sidings of which there are three, provide enough track to accommodate 15 cars, double headed locomotives and  caboose. If I was going to have opposing east/west freights, along with RDC (diesel era) or McKeen Car (steam era) I thought I had to provide at least 2, if not 3 passing sidings. Like this for example.

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Southern Pacific ran the branch this way; eastbound trains going up grade made set outs. They did not pick up  cars unless a it was in intra branch service; then it would be picked and taken eastbound for set out further up the line.

That means no car gets picked up and taken to the end of the branch, then turned, then set out on the WB run. SP didn't considered that  a good operating practice. Of course it was a waste of fuel.

Conversely, westbound trains, superior by timetable and class, picked up all cars heading off the branch or down grade and like its eastbound counterpart worked intra branch service cars by not only picking up, but setting out farther down the westbound line.

This is exactly how I run the modeled Pville Branch.

In the last years of the branch, a single train, typically with a set of GP9’s on the head end, would work both east and west directions in a one turn, See photo top of page

I would say that as design time went on and I began the bench work phase, model operational and branch history, that is industries served on the branch, dictated how I laid track. Those rail served industries that I chose to represent may have existed over any period of the branche’s lifetime and that’s how I populated or industrialized my layout..

For example, there were at least two milling companies near the west end of Placerville that were rail served at the beginning of the last century.  Today Globe milling sits by the lower Placerville station just as it did in 1908.

Atlantic Richfield or ARCO, along with Standard Oil of California, existed into the mid-fifties and were rail served on the far east side or upper Placerville as it was known. ARCO sits today on the modeled branch still receiving tank cars of fuel oil, and other petroleum products for nearby businesses and homes.

My last example, the Amador Copper Mine, was borne out of a online forum discussion that led me to think that in the late 1800’s, bags of copper ore were brought by horse drawn wagon from Amador County, to El Dorado County and loaded into SP box cars at Latrobe, for smelter in Sacramento. So outside of Latrobe on a hard ascent, sits the Amador Copper mine.

Part of the fun of building the Placerville Branch has been figuring out which industries to model, how to fit them into the scene and then incorporating them into the layouts operational scheme.

But more about that next time.