I have been working on my layout, experimenting with different ideas. Mostly trial and error on the layout itself. Last night I tried Scarm. I came up with two designs, neither of which I am totally sold on.
The layout is to be built with operating accessories in mind. Coal loaders, milk car, cattle car, 97 coal elevator, 456 coal ramp with 397 coal loader, barrel ramp, log ramp, etc.
I want to have only one siding which will accommodate the 456 coal ramp. Otherwise, a train must be able to circumnavigate the layout without having to do any switching.
Here are two ideas I came up with. The first layout uses all O31 curves, the second has O42 curves at each end only with one O42 switch track at the lower right to allow access to the coal ramp siding. The available area, not including the coal ramp siding is 4'-0" x 12'-0".
Sorry for the small image size, I just couldn't get it any larger.