(https://hwtrblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/hwtr_v108-upper1.jpg?w=900)
Here's my plan for the upper level of the Haythornthwaite & Westby Tea Railway. Heights shown are above the floor - so this route rises 27 cm all in all with a maximum grade in the zig-zag of 2.4% to be assisted with PowerBase ... which will be tested after I collect my huge Hattons order at Christmas.
The upper terminus is a separate tea factory and passenger station.
The loop to the right has to go off scene to maintain my 30 cm radius goal. (Being in a short tunnel it will be able to break the plane of the back scene which is held 4 cm from my walls.)
Comments invited!
Couple of initial thoughts if I were building it*
It looks as thought the loops in the top station are longer than the headshunts on the zigzag, particularly the pair at datum + 159cm.
I wonder about having two headshunts at this point. I can see that you can pass trains at this point having an 'up' and 'down' switchback but I don't recall seeing this set up in real life (though I'm happy to be corrected on that).
That being said I dimly recall seeing a photo of a South American line that used a scissors crossing so that either siding could be used of either up or down (something like the L&LSR's Tooban junction at the end furthest from Londonderry) and may have been used so that a single points failure didn't block the whole line.
Apart from that it looks an interesting plan.
*at the end of the day it's your layout so feel free to ignore the above!
Thanks Julien;
Completely fair point about the head shunt lengths; they will need attention. Actually I'm waiting to test trains on my helix with PowerBase to know what lengths I can run and of course I'll need to be consistent and logical.
Until a few days ago my main line was going to stop at the lower level shown here and all the rest was going to be a branch line. But now I'm turning it all into the main line.
I think I'll probably keep the scissors (thanks for the terminology) to give another place for trains to meet but that's not fixed in stone or even ballast yet.