Two for the price of one

Came across some other pictures on the camera tonight, so thought I might as well talk about them. I've been messing around with the track layout for paikakariki loco depot, and I think Its almost OK now.


(cropped together from 2 pictures which don't quite match, but you get the idea.
UPDATE. Darryl has taken pity on me and sorted it out properly))
Of course, the way to do it is full sized, and pushing loco's around to see if its going to a) work and b) look the way I want. An important part of modeling real locations is to choose scenes that you like the look of, then compress then into the space you have while not losing the flavour. It sounds obvious, but....

The general operating plan is that locos arrive, uncouple from the train, then run backwards around the back track to the turntable. This is set up to rotate only between the 2 options, replacing a delicate alignment job with running a stall motor into a hard stop that lines up every time. The loco can then back up to the oil/coaling stage. From there it runs forward into the shed and into the que for the next train back north. It sounds simple, but I think it will probably be a full job on the model just shuffling loco's (and quite honestly it will probably be the one everyone fights for, especially with all those big steam loco's I have yet to build)