Layout Plans

Plans on this page

• Dolton Industry Park
• Illinook Industrial Park
• Illinook Junction
• Case Industrial
• Chicago & South Forest Terminal
• C&O Chatham

Track Plans of Current Layouts

Dolton Industry Park

Dolton Industry Park is a 6x1 feet switching layout designed to fit inside the house. Perfect for those nights when it is to cold to play trains in the garage!

Designed to be fully self contained, with no need for attached staging. The crossing in the middle of the layout is actually a single slip.

Illinook Industrial Park Plan

Illinook is a 3-2-2 Inglenook style track module featuring a hot-mix asphalt plant, which connects to the CSFT at Forest Junction, but can also be operated by itself. The module is designed to use a short switcher (GE44 tonner or a SW1500 or similar), with rollingstock being 40 scale feet or less in length.

The graphic below shows the overall track plan.

• A = Switch lead / main track
• B = Industry spurs
• C = Interchange track

On the track plan above, tracks marked A have a capacity of a loco and 2 cars or 3 cars, tracks marked B have a capacity of 2 cars, and track C is an extra track providing either extra space to pose a train if using the module by itself, or as an interchange track if it is connected and operated as part of the C&SFT. The left hand side of the plan shown is where it will connect to the C&SFT. The right hand side of the plan can be expanded, although that is somewhat unlikely given projected space restraints.

Attributed to Alan Wright, the Inglenook trackplan on which this module is based is one of the simplest of layout track plans, but can provide a considerable amount of operating enjoment. The original plan was designed to have track capacities slightly more than on my plan.

For more informatiom about the Inglenook track plan, try these sites:
http://www.wymann.info/ShuntingPuzzles/Inglenook/inglenook-trackplan.html
http://www.carendt.us/microplans/pages/shelf/inglenook/index.html

Illinook Junction

This plan, like Illinook is a 4 x 1.5 feet Inglenook 3-2-2 module, with a twist.

The Inglenook part of the plan is the Team Tracks, which each hold 2 x 40 foot cars, and trackage between the Illinook module and team tracks access turnout on the main track (the one along the top).

Previous Layouts Track Plans

C&SFT Layout Plan

The C&SFT track plan had a number of major features, namely: a 3 track live staging area, a passing loop, 10 spurs to switch, an MPD area, a 3 track double ended yard, and a yard lead independent of the thoroughfare track.

The graphic below shows the track plan of the layout just before it was scrapped in 2011. Illinook was attached to the top right hand side of the plan.


The track plan below shows the maximum extent of the track plan. This was the plan of the layout around 2007/2008, and featured 2 multi-track staging areas, 2 single track staging areas, a 3 track yard, MPD, 2 branch lines and a thoroughfare track.

Chatham Layout Plan

The track plan of Chatham is a switching layout with

• a 2 track hidden staging area,
• a short runaround track,
• 6 industry car spotting locations,
• a passenger depot (scenic interest only).

The track plan is not based on any particular already existing track plan example but was designed with a maximum layout width of 1 foot. Hence the track plan has long spurs with multiple industries on most of those spurs.

The graphic below shows the track plan.

The two staging tracks are approximately 5 1/2 feet long each, and can hold a GP loco and about 6 or 7 cars (depending on car lengths).

Case Industrial Plan

The track plan for Case Industrial is best described as a Spaghetti Bowl of tracks, with sector plates. While the track plan is original in that I did not consciously copy any specific concepts from any other plan or layout, I m quite sure that the track plan was influenced signficantly by a number of the layouts featured at http://carendt.us .

The plan features

• 3 industries, one of them having 2 spurs,
• a small two track yard,
• a 1 car capacity runaround track (between the NY Minerals Unloading Building and the East Coast Food Distributors, both of which have a sector plate inside them).

The graphic below shows the track plan.