thinking about scrapping the whole Casa Grande plan… 1

Well, modeling Casa Grande in the 1980’s appears to be a little more difficult then I originally planned. The signature building is (was) an art deco depot built in 1939 (burnt in 2009) and I can not locate a SPINS (Southern Pacific Industry Numbering System) for CG at all. I can buy a kit of a Southern Pacific Type 23 depot, or I have plans to scratch build one in styrene.

I am kicking around the idea of freelancing a new city on the Sunset Route. the idea that I have is to have a small yard on the west end of town and having a large switching area on both sides of the main. now here is where it gets fun, and not prototypical…all of the track will be based on 2 classic switching puzzles, but increased to hide their true nature, so when I want to use them as a puzzle, I can scale back the number of cars that “fit” the sidings. The yard to the east will be an Inglenook, the main switching area will be a Timesaver, and the top siding in the west of the Timesaver will be another Inglenook pointing the opposite direction, at a grain silo to make it look more realistic. The run-around will have to be long enough for a pair of GP’s and a pair of 50 foot cars and the liquid fertilizer plant will need to have a siding long enough to hold my pair of early Atlas jumbo tank cars (just about 6 inches each).

My givens are simple, code 80 Atlas flex track since I have a dozen pieces, and Atlas custom line #6’s so I can use my SD40-T2’s…

I threw this plan together VERY quickly in Atlas RTS in about 20 minutes. It is currently on a pair of 30 inch wide doors, and can be narroewed down a lot!