The railroad will be housed in a 24' x 36' brick building, the interior
of which is presently under construction. Except for a small
workshop and restroom; the layout itself will command the entire
interior space. The building has central air and heat, and is
well insulated. Walls and ceiling are of gypsum board, and
the floor will be covered by a high-grade, tightly woven commercial
carpet. This will provide a comfortable and quiet atmosphere
for the railroad.
Shown is the preliminary
track plan. The mainline is represented by the red lines;
the passing sidings, yards and industrial trackage are in green; and
the
logging operation is rendered in blue. The cyan-colored track
belongs to the connecting railroad; the Illinois Central (running
across the right side of the plan), and the pink is the Texas
and Pacific (shown entering
the Monterey yard at the bottom). The dashed lines
outside the plan represent hidden staging trackage located behind the
scenery at each location. This particular scheme yields a
136' mainline...equal to 2.25 scale miles.
The railroad line begins
at Monterey, the town at the lower left. It proceeds
northeasterly and goes through Oneida, Whittier, Maynard, then Willis (located
in the right-hand peninsula). The line continues to hidden
trackage at the right, representing its continuation to the town of
Bude.
One particularly
noteworthy feature on this plan is the loads-in/empties-out
configuration at the bottom right. This will service two
industries at the Willis end -- a plywood plant, and pulpwood loading
yard. The plywood plant will ship plywood in boxcars and wood
chips in special hoppers. The Monterey end will receive the
pulpwood and chips at a paper products plant. The woodrack
(pulpwood) and woodchip hopper cars will be used in the
loads-in/empties-out scheme.
The logging operation will
be featured on an upper elevation at the center and top. The
line
will wind down, cross the Little River on joint trackage, then
terminate at the mill, which will feature a log pond for unloading the
freshly cut timber.
2/24/07 Note: The plan continues to evolve...fine tuning and
tweaking is in progress. Elevations have changed since the
prior
version posted here. Several sidings have been adjusted, and
the
mainline itself has shifted in a place or two.
11/15/08
Note: More refinements and tweaking. A few industries have swapped
locations, and the LC staging tracks have been curved a bit to allow
better access. I'm trying to eliminate difficult to reach areas where
possible, or at least to minimize those areas.
7/25/09
Note: And yet more refinements and tweaking. I've been
firming up the decisions as to what industries and structures will go
where, and modifying the spaces and trackage arrangements accordingly.
This evolution of space planning will likely continue up until
the point when the trackage and each industry is actually constructed.
Click here
to
view the Adobe PDF
version of this plan, which allows you to zoom and pan for a better
view. The latest version now has the 12"x12" grid imprinted. Also, here is a PDF file for a slightly older version
of the plan.
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