Those were great, weren't they! Anyway, now I know how they unload car floats. So more prototypical XTrkCad operations for me from now on. Anyway, thanks to MC, I'm one step closer to building this thing. The way things are just coming together (similar to the way the layout did) I think maybe this is the layout for me. Not that I don't want to build the other layout some day, but this one seems to be MUCH more likely to come together some day soon. Now, off to get ideas for scratchbuilding locomotives...
I knew I'd seen this somewhere.... you can about hear the flanges squeal to the east coast.... http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=339228&nseq=0 This is off the "N" St. bridge in Portland and you can study it on Google Earth. I measured it out 'roughly' to 125' radius with the ruler in Google Earth. OK, folks, that works out to 9.4" radius or the 'prototype' for the curves we're talking about here. Looks pretty scary with full-sized covered hoppers on it. As far as for power, talkin' trackmobile! This is just a fantastic scene to model. That elevator would make a perfect backdrop divider, and you could turn this into a return loop off of a peninsula scene.
That's off the Steel Bridge looking north. The Memorial Coliseum is the big glass/steel/concrete building off to the right. I can sometimes hear the squealing over a mile and a half away at my office. The space here is very tight. The tracks leading to the lower deck of the Steel Bridge also have a very tight radius.
Found a nice step-by-step on hand laying a curved crossing. Whether I take up MC's offer to build it, or I try to do it myself (or get his daughter to build it for me!) this will be useful info. :thumbs_up:
