The Track Plan

Greetings, everyone!  It occurs to me that I haven't ever published the track plan.  I designed the whole layout using Winrail, a software I have used for decades.  The layout is a dogbone design, meaning it's a double-track railway line with loops at each end.  In my case, the loops are one and two levels below the station, so it's what is known as a folded dogbone layout.  I also have staging yards on each loop level, allowing me to switch off trains and provide some variance in what runs around the layout.  Let's go through the levels one-by-one...

Bottom level:  

This is the section I'm currently working on.  The three-track staging yard in the upper section of the layout plan above is completed.  Trains enter the staging yard from the right and exit to the left.  Then they make a half-circle before looping back towards the top of the track plan, completing the dog bone end.  The main line proceeds around the circumference of the bottom level while gaining height in a 2% grade.  By the time it comes past the front of the layout again (the area in yellow) it is at the same height as the middle level.  The area shown in yellow is actually the only part of the track plan here that will be in view.  It is the 'Paradestrecke' or 'parade line' and, although the track plan shows it mainly straight, will be built using Marklin's you-build-it flex track.

Now for the middle level:

This level sits about 20 cm above the lower level.  Because it has to fit inside the tracks coming up from the lower level and the tracks coming down from the upper level, the staging yard is smaller- only two tracks.  Still, it will allow one train to come in and another to go out, providing some variety to the train traffic in the station.  This entire end of the dogbone is located out of view of the spectator.  

Top level:

Here is the train station, located on the top level.  The track plan for the station is provisional- I'll decide exactly how I want the station to look and whether I want to add some stub sidings for freight cars, additional passing sidings in the station, etc.  Again, the station itself will be visible, but the track will come out of a tunnel and disappear into a tunnel at both ends.  Because of the use of  unrealistic 1020mm (the so-called 'Schweineradius' or 'swine radius') and 1176mm curves I have designed the scenery to hide those curves as much as possible.  As you can guess, 'A' connects to 'A' and 'B' connects to 'B' on the other levels.  The grade down to the lowest level is mostly 2% and the grade down to the middle level is about 3%.  

The single biggest comment I can make regarding track plans is this: Don't be afraid of multiple levels.  It allows for so much more in a limited space than a single level does.  I strongly recommend, however, that you actually lay out some track before construction to see how tracks on multiple levels interact.  I did this when designing this layout and discovered a few places where tracks didn't have enough clearance from the level above.  This is why the middle level is narrower than the lower level.  In the original design the middle and lower levels were identical, but when I laid out the tracks I discovered the interference issues.