Dealing with compression...

Posted by Jeff Young on Jun 18, 2015; 4:21pm
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/Dealing-with-compression-tp2535.html

My Silica branch is considerably compressed, with about 2’ of branch line before the loading spur at the end.  Worse, it goes downhill rather than uphill.  Together those facts leave me with a bit of a quandary over what to do with the switches:

A) Maximise historical accuracy: put Elliot stands on the branch and spur switches, and put an (oddly uphill) derail with harp stand in between them.

B) Maximise functional accuracy: put Elliot stands on the branch and spur switches, and delete the derail (and its harp stand).

C) Capture the gestalt of the area.  Put an Elliot stand on the branch switch, and a harp stand on the spur switch (so it sort of “represents” the derail as well).

I keep going back and forth between (A) and (C).  (B) hasn’t gotten much air time because I don’t like losing the harp stand.  (Jefferson, next up the line on my layout, has the wye compressed out so it doesn’t have any harp stands either.)

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Jeff.

Background: most of the layout is 1936, with an emphasis on modelling rather than operations.  But I've bent history here and there: Marshall Pass is set in 1940 so I can run the Shavano; Alpine Tunnel is still open (‘cause you gotta have a tunnel); and the D&RGW still uses its track into Kokomo on the odd day (so the two halves of the layout can interchange).  However, I try to be historically correct as much as possible (so, for instance, the D&RGW hasn’t bothered to update the harp stands on the Blue River branch, and the D&RGW Kokomo depot and water tank are still standing, but not in use).