Mark's Indoor Switching Layout

Mark's Indoor Switching Layout

Mark sent me this wonderful message today:  

Hi Mike, I hope you are doing well. 

Thanks so much for keeping us all “in the loop” with an entertaining and informative variety of blog entries to make us feel part of the action. 

Today is my birthday, and I thought of reaching out to showcase a recent project that I’ve only just started in the last week or so.

It is an indoor large scale layout which promises to hold some pretty challenging operational moves.

Mark continues:

I have a small 2’x7’ nook in the basement that I am experimenting with by building an LGB/Playmobil switch layout. Being a basement, I was faced with the challenge of working around some plumbing, but this only added to the interesting design. 

The final result is some neat operating possibilities for small 2-axle Playmobil rolling stock and LGB ore cars. I wanted to mount this on a rigid foam insulating panel so that the shelf could be portable and possibly brought to train shows etc. 

The goal is to highlight how much operation is possible for G scale in even such a small space! The total capacity of the yard is 15 cars.

Trains approach the yard lead from the bottom left (not shown). The right hand side of the yard can be operated in classic Inglenook 5-3-3 fashion by ignoring the short runaround track and the two industrial spurs on the left. 

To add additional operating possibilities, the runaround track enables one car at a time to be shunted to the two warehouse tracks on the left. Each siding holds only 1, 2 or max 3 cars, so planning moves will be necessary!

Mark tells us that some of the sidings are populated here just for scale.

A few structures add to the scene.

The yard will be worked by small 2-axle switchers such as this wonderful CN “little critter” that used to belong to our good friend from Picton, Dave Walsh, and has found a new home with me 😀.

 I’ll make sure to put it through its paces (but not make it work too hard).

And here we find Mark back in 2019 running a live steam excursion around the IPP&W in Fred`s backyard.

I had a lot of fun chasing Mark and the train around the layout that morning!

Thanks so much for sharing your latest train project with us Mark.

Mark encourages anyone else who has some novel ideas or projects they are working on to share them through the blog via me.

That`s a great idea Mark...and Happy Birthday once more!

We are the OVGRS of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada