One item brought back from Atlanta was defining the route.

The Route of the 
Virginia & Tennessee Railway    











There is insufficient space for a division point yard with associated engine facilities so the desired yard will be in Kingsport, TN, and serve the industries in the area plus the line down to Johnson City, TN, and up to coal and logging country through Gate City and Appalachia, VA.  

"Druthers" to be modeled [not all may make the final cut]:

Yard with minimum service facilities
Chemical industry [wood products based - Tennessee Chemical]
Titanium processing [American Cyanamid]
Coal and lumber
Interchanges with other railroads 
Blocks of insulated box and refrigerated box cars
Clay products [brick, pipe]
Misc small shippers/receivers
Limited passenger service
A "Y" would be nice 


The plan last posted, July 12, 2013, had the advantage of having the yard along the long open wall and still having enough distance for a 2.5% grade going to the upper level, the yard at 42" height and the upper level at the door at about 54" height.  But the problem with that plan is there would probably be nearly as many trains crossing the door at 42" as exiting the other end of the yard.  The other end of the yard would have a lot of traffic with two lines, one the 42" level and another using the "Nolix" [around the room helix] to get to the Top Level.  That plan would constitute more crossing the door at the 42" level than I hoped.  This has led to doing an elevation drawing to better see what is going where [see below].  Included in the elevation drawing is a "vertical curve" of about two and a half feet [one car length for each percent of grade] at each end of the grade.


Elevation of July 12, 2013, plan.  Going from left to right is like entering at the door and following around clockwise.  The grade going up is the "Nolex".


















Next is to investigate moving the yard so the lower level crossing of the door would rarely occur.  Possibilities include putting the yard in the closet along one of the 12' walls [leaving 6" to 10" shelf on the opposite side] and possibly having the yard at an elevation between the upper and lower levels.  Maximum number of operators in the closet would be two, operators would run their train in to the yard from outside of the closet.