PLANNING A NEW LAYOUT (CONTINUED)

Another road name I'm considering is "Idaho & Pacific"...a lot of railroads, small and large, seemed intent on including "Pacific" in their names, though some of them never got near that ocean.  Not far from here, we have the Idaho Northern & Pacific today, which operates a couple of ex-Union Pacific branch lines that are strictly local, and we are a Rocky Mountain state, hundreds of miles inland.  Sounds ambitious, though.

As I've said, my layout will depict a small town that happens to be at an (offstage) junction, where the east/west mainline connects with a branch.  Actually, I've decided it will connect with both a northbound and a southbound branch.  Thus, switching activity will largely consist of traffic between the branches and the mainline and between the branches themselves, which will presumably operate local trains originating at the junction town, with no through services from one branch to the other.

There will also be a couple of town industries to switch, a lumber yard and a coal dealer, as well as a small freight house and team track.  Eventually, there will be a little passenger train switching activity...adding or dropping cars for the mainline, assembling short locals and mixed trains for the branches, etc.

The layout will be set in April 1947, and, as was the case for the prototype roads, freight house business will steeply decline in the next few years with the loss of l.c.l. traffic to trucking.  The team track will have a more extended future.  Branch passenger traffic won't have much of a lifespan, either.  However, since it will always be April 1947 on my layout, none of these upcoming developments will affect my scheme!

I won't have any room for staging, so the arrival/departure track will serve to absorb and regenerate traffic via a simple card order system.