Progress at Summit

The town of Summit is the name given to the block of track at the top of the helix. After a little brainstorming with myself and my wife Pam as what to name the town, and after mulling over many combinations of catchy names. I finally decided to keep it simple and name it Summit. The plans for Summit are three industries and accommodations for pickup and drop off for helpers which will entail non-powered dummy locomotives. The town at the bottom of the helix will also have accommodations for the same purpose. 

To mainly provide for operational interest, the plan is for every train that traverses the helix will have helpers on the end for both up and down movements. The train crew will cut in the locomotives before traversing the helix up or down, and like wise cut out the helpers when arriving at top or at the bottom. The reason behind having helpers on trains down the helix was to provide a way for the non powered helpers to be returned to the bottom of the helix without a separate crew to do this or an extra move for the crew. When operating sessions finally commence, they will be closely monitored as to weather this will be feasible pertaining to the question, "Will it become too much of a bottleneck?" I know many of you are thinking it will but again, the main reason for this is to add operational interest. After observing operation sessions and it does become just that, a bottle neck, the idea will be abandoned.

The North end of Summit with siding turn out and the turnout that will eventually lead to the two industries at the north end. The blank cork on the right is the branch line that will eventually lead to a grain facility.

The upper two pictures show the south end of Summit showing helper storage track for downward helix trains and eventual lead to the south industry with the mainline, siding and branch to the left in the lower picture.

Far south end of Summit showing the helper storage track for trains reaching the top of the helix with the freshly glued down cork for the branch to the left. I'm still in planning stages for the three industries for Summit and a name for the branch line town. This will be revealed in future blog posts when decisions have been made.

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