Where in the heck is Darestof??
As you may know my layout is a work of historical fiction that is located in southeastern BC and northeastern Washington. That makes it very easy to select place names without needing to invent any. One name that appears in various places about the layout is the town of “Darestof”, which at the moment is at the end of the completed benchwork of the unfinished line southward into Washington. This name does not appear on any maps, current or historical. Suzy came up with the name one day and it stuck. It simply means “Da rest of the World”. This module is made from a 4′ x 8′ sheet of plywood and is designed to be moveable as the layout grows. It will always be the end of the line of whatever the current state of the layout is, and provides industries for switching plus a two track return loop to make operations easier.
The idea came to me a long time ago when I got tired of running train to the end of the track and then backing them up into town. I actually built two versions when there was two unfinished ends, but now that the staging track loops are in place, only one is needed for the remainder of the layout’s progress.
The first version was smaller with very tight curves, but did the job. It never had a name.
Version 2.0 was larger and an earlier version of the current Darestof, but was on the opposite side of the plywood, being mostly a mirror image. The problem was that all of the track switches were on the far side from the aisle, so they were a bit awkward to operate, hence the reversal to the current configuration.
In 2018 Version 2.1 was made by flipping over the plywood and redoing the track so that the switches would be closer to the aisle. It was also moved further along to make way for the new town of Curlew.
The one drawback with the current arrangement of tracks is that while the track switches are handy along the front edge of the module, the basic direction of the curves makes it a bit awkward to position it in the room. It really should curve to the right as you approach it, but it curves to the left, requiring some messy extra curves on approach. Because of this, I may consider re-doing it yet again when it is time to reposition it. We shall see when the time comes.