Woo Hoo - It appears as if my Balloon Track idea will work after all. I laid new switches in place on top of the remains of my indoor layout, bent an S curve to get to a door opening and hung a half circle of track from the rafters with string to make sure the desired loop would fit in the available space. A few pictures of the proof-of-concept follow… [url=jon.barnbeckplace.com/Concept1-1024.JPG]
[/url] - Click Photo to Enlarge - Switches in place over top of existing track [url=jon.barnbeckplace.com/Concept2-1024.JPG]
[/url] - Click Photo to Enlarge - Looking back through the S toward the switches and Es-Cap-E Canyon [url=jon.barnbeckplace.com/Concept3-1024.JPG]
[/url] - Click Photo to Enlarge - The loop occupying newly acquired real estate Next up is cutting some holes in the wall and putting some plywood in place to hold up the new track, then I’ll pull up the old and build a new yard inside the balloon track. If you haven’t been following the development of my railroad, the reason for this change is to improve the operational capability of the railroad. My outdoor track ends in a large Wye, but my indoor track had a reverse loop made with R1 curves. Very few of my engines could get through the reverse loop while pulling cars, so I decided to clean out the storage closet to make room for an 8 Foot Dia. reverse loop. When complete I’ll have a point-to-point with turning capability for most trains at each end, like the EBT in both Common Carrier days and present operations. The balloon track idea was inspired by the local rail yard in Danbury. My version won’t be as big, nor laid out the same, but it will be an operational yard within a balloon track.
This picture taken when Danbury was a busy stop on the New Haven JR