Fiddlin' around

At this point the layout plan remained unchanged for over a month, which may be a record.

Prior to changes

Then one day I went down the basement to try to visualize what I was going to have.  This was a big mistake - in not having done so earlier.  I had used 32" for the width of the narrow central portion of the layout and 42" for the ends.

I can stand by the wall with my toes up to the third 9" floor tile and reach reasonably near the wall - perhaps within 4".  But the current 32" width would make that almost a foot.  And the left and right corners would probably be more than two foot past my fingertips when leaning against the fascia.

This would leave the branch line and the mine out of reach without using a step-stool or lean-over.  Another rework was in sight.

I trimmed the central width to 27".  (I can stand by the wall with my toes up to the third 9" floor tile and reach reasonably near the wall.  There might still be a need for a small step-stool if there's a problem in the center of the branch line.)

There would no longer be enough room to have a wide loop, so the ends were adjusted to loop back to the double mainline, which now becomes a passing area on the mainline.  The east end branches off of the mainline, loops around the yard, splits off to the branch line down the back, and continues to provide access to an industrial area loosely patterned after Woodstowe before connecting back to the passing area.  This last section of track would be red-flagged during operations.

At the west end, the mine was shifted forward within reasonable reach of the front, also providing some background space in which to provide some higher mountain scenery.  The mainline would hug the fascia in what would appear to be a narrow gorge, while the loop would be disguised as a double tunnel going off to the northwest, and would also be red-flagged for operations.  I switched the direction of the interchange to also go from front to back SE to NW, and changed it from a branch interchange to a crossing interchange.  Most of it would be hidden in a tunnel, providing a somewhat short but handy staging area.  I might provide a Raspberry-PI camera to be able to view the last couple of feet of this hidden track to aid in positioning any staged train.

The branch line was shifted forward a couple of inches also.  This will necessitate that the branch line passing track be on top of a 90-degree cliff against the lower roadway (which is not all bad from a scenery perspective), and could provide a slight scenery rise before the painted background.

To allow access to the tracks from underneath, there could be no under-track storage on the west end (or at least nothing that couldn't be moved easily in the case of a tunnel derailment).

After the rework

More importantly, I decided that the main at the east end would turn south well out from the wall, allowing me to add a temporary staging track (which would fit in front of bookshelves we planned on putting along that basement wall).  The west end would also have a staging track, but this would necessitate cutting through the existing drywall (and would complicate the shelving I was planning on the other side of that wall).  The staging on both ends would be three tracks centered on a wood panel 8"x 48", providing staging tracks 30", 33", and 36" in length.  These would be stored underneath the layout when not used.

Staging track

I could even add a fourth and fifth track on the staging if I wanted.