Except for failure to do posting, both planning and work have progressed in the past 3+ months.  On the planning side, received comments from a couple of you on the last post of layout plan. Mike Garber copied the pencil plans from the blob, marked them up and sent his thoughts and questions as an attachment to an email.  Thanks Mike, that made it very easy to respond.  And am sorry that some of you could not see all the information easily but am focusing on planning/building layout, not a blog.  However, have not reduced the file size for the photos of the penciled track plan as much as before, again took some time to try to enhance the photos and presented them in a large format to try to make it easier to view.

Also received a number of ideas from Bob Warren.  Most folks I have talked to prefer and are more comfortable with a single level layout and Bob is one of them.  With every track plan for the layout, he included a discussion specific layout plan, thoughts on operations and a line diagram:

 

I first asked for input on the yard in the closet and got the following:
  

Next came working on the entire area for a two level layout.  One of the things he tried to do is to increase the length of the run for the nolex by starting it at the far end of the closet instead of at the wall between the closet and train room. 

The first two plans were "B" and "C", the upper level the same for both of them.  Shown in order below are "B" [lower level], the alternate lower level "C" and finally upper level for both "B" and "C":

Next came the another two level design:

And another two level design:

And then a 1 1/2 level design with single end staging:

While the yard design was detailed and scaled out, much of the other plans were more of just the concept nature.  He certainly put more in the design than track arrangement by providing the discussion and line diagram.  The description of operation and line diagram has provided some pretty neat ideas even if my initial build remains little changed from the plan in the last post.

I have continued to gather ideas in the form of photographs of construction methods as well as both photos and emailed electronic documents of operating documentation like card cards, waybills, schedules, etc.  Below are photos of Seth Gartner's beautiful New York Central Piney Fork Branch that show what I have in mind for the nolex:

After looking at the construction Keith Stillman used for his upper level [using double slot wall shelving]:

and seeing Chris Artale's storage shelves in his garage using single slot wall shelving on 32" centers, have decided to go with the single slot wall shelving on 16" centers in the train room and double slot in the closet [the yard in the closet is going to be considerably deeper than any place in the train room that is against the wall].  And have also adopted Chris's suggestion of having the vertical supports tall enough to have a storage shelf both above and below the layout.

About a month ago I moved lots of stuff away from the walls in the train room and younger son, Will, came up from Williamsburg and we got "water level" marks in both the train room and closet and vertical supports in place in the train room.  I got the ceiling painted, some shelving in place at both the lower and upper levels.  

 
Recognizing that there is a desire to put as much operation/track into the limited space and also to provide realistic information for planning, I cluttered up more of the basement with a two level mock-up.  The large box provides a 10 inch height, the cardboard is 12 inches deep over the lower level in these photos and the lip is 2 1/2 inches high.  V & T Rwy track standards were derived from the mockup which provided information as to the closest that a track can be to a vertical surface and closet track spacing [1 1/2 inch and 2 1/4 but 2 1/2 inch better, respectively].   

FOR THE NEXT TIME

There is a 100 inch long piece of serpentine track from the old layout now in the basement for the checking of trains on different grades with specific locos.

Installation of the wall shelving in the closet.

Drawing up scale drawings of track arrangement.

Establishing a line diagram for the modeled right-of-way and an "operating senario".

Identifying the lighting for the train room and closet [probably fluorescent  or LED track lighting].

Thanks for reading.  Comments and questions appreciated.