More plans...

I left you yesterday with the comment that laying out the track for the layout full size had given me some more ideas for the scenic treatment of the layout. Well it didn't just give me one idea it gave me two. Two very different ways of looking at the same plan. When I was playing around with the full size track elements. As I slid the through running line rearwards, I became aware that it became less and less apart of the shunting yard and became its own element. That was when I finished the last post and went and sketched the concept below out.

To emphasise further the fact that the through line was becoming separate from the shunting yard, I placed it on the other side of a dyke. This would give the chance to create a little scene in the back corner there. A barn perhaps or a chapel. I reached for my print off from Google Earth of the scene to see if there was anything there to incorporate and I did something most unfortunate. I looked at the picture upside down. I saw things in a whole different way. This way...
The through running line now appears front left and departs rear right. The actual haven i.e. the dockside has been moved to the rear. That means I would loose the silted up river as a main feature. But I gain a potentially very nice scene in the front left where the through line appears from behind a tree, passes in front of the goods shed and perhaps a dirt track level crossing before crossing over a dyke all in the space of about eighteen inches. The through line then disappears behind a building to exit to the sector plate rear right. The flipping of the plan move all the shunting activity to the rear of the layout so that if I wanted I could use three link couplings in there. Which reminds me I still haven't made a definite decision on those. If I intend to use some kind of auto uncouplers then I have to place the magnets under the track when it is laid.

But with two new and interesting scenic developments to agonise over that decision might be a while away yet.