More progress on the track plan

As I play around with it, right now I'm leaning toward some variation on a lap-with-branch configuration.

Here's the latest version, including a simplified version of the Gumstump & Snowshoe-inspired shelf layout at the end of the Staffer branch (the yellow rectangle). I've routed the branch to the left, around the inside of the left-hand loop, to get enough altitude. The mainline is pretty flat, with just a half inch or so of elevation on the back side to provide a little separation from Lockwood Yard. The branch climbs a three percent grade to cross over the main, then continues on a modest grade to Stauffer.

For posterity, here are a few AnyRail "sketches"on of earlier versions:

There is a door at the lower right; the gray rectangle is an existing book case. I wanted to make sure there was enough clearance to get to the door. With this one, the branch comes off the "wrong" end of the yard -- a train made up in Lockwood yard would have to back out of the yard to the left before taking the branch. Or, I could say that branchline trains need to circle the lap before proceeding up the branch, giving those trains a much longer run.

In this version, I've had the branch come off the mainline, so that branchline jobs would exit the yard to the north (left), run 15 or 20 feet on the mainline, then take the branch near the upper right hand corner of the layout. Shorter branch, but maybe makes more sense operationally.

First effort at a more detailed design for the Lockwood yard. Spur tracks in the Town of Lockwood area would serve local industries. There's another industry track at the right (south) end of the yard. The track at the lower left is a switching lead and engine storage pocket. I might try to fit a turntable in somewhere. [Edit: The yard arrangement will need to be changed a fair amount to fit the latest revision of the overall plan.)

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B&V Harbor Scene

I've been assuming that if and when I build another B&V layout, it would represent the mountain portion of the line. But in the real world, what little track the railroad built was down on the coast around Oxnard, Port Hueneme, and the southern part of what is now Camarillo. I've been putting together some cardstock buildings from Clever Models for my Lockwood & San Emigdio On30 mini-layout. The ones I've selected for that project have been mostly small wood and corrugated metal structures typical of a remote mining area, but Clever also makes a lot of buildings more appropriate to urban, industrial or harbor areas -- in fact, they sell a collection of six or eight buildings called "The Waterfront" that includes some larger industrial or warehouse-type buildings and a small coastal freighter. Which got me thinking, why not do a shelf layout of the B&V at Hueneme harbor? Here's a preliminary track plan, a "flipped" version of the classic G...

Side-Tracked

The other day, as my wife and I were rearranging some furniture in the living room, she made the comment that it might be fun to put a small train display on a side table where she normally displays some potted plants. She had in mind my Lockwood & San Emigdio On30 diorama, which she's watched me work on the last several months -- but of course, the suggestion got me thinking in other directions. Since the purpose, at least in part, will be to entertain the grandkids when they come to visit, it makes sense to have a continuous lap. Since the tabletop is only about 25 by 54 inches, that limits me to a 10 or maybe 11 inch radius, a bit more if I overlap the tabletop a few inches. I'm thinking On30, so that's too tight for any of the equipment I currently own. There are some people doing wonderful work in On30 building mini- and micro-layouts with these kinds of curves and smaller, using the Bachmann 0-4-0 and 0-4-2 Porters, Davenport gas-mechanicals, and other small switc...

I haven't had much to say here for some time, as I have been building a couple of small On30 layouts, but I've recently been thinking about jumping back into H.O. with a Bakersfield & Ventura project. I don't know that I will ever have the space to build the largish B&V layout I posted about a couple of years ago, but I could probably manage a 4 x 8 representing a small piece of it. I started looking at Iain Rice's Lilliput Logger plan, with the idea of building a version in On30, but Rice originally designed it for H.O. My slightly modified plan would work either way, with nothing more than changing the track spacing on the sidings. With H.O., I could also lower the elevation at Stauffer a little, to ease the grade a bit. In this draft, haven't even bothered to change the station names. The On30 version represented a narrow gauge line connecting to the standard-gauge B&V in Lockwood Valley, somewhere around the present-day Grade Valley Road, and running...

Bakersfield & Ventura Model Railroad

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