UPDATE 11/24/07 - Chem Plant

The Chemical Plant Conundrum has long been an issue. Dad wanted the upper level unloading-rack tracks to wrap around the plant. He said there was a prototype. Maybe... but I doubt it was quite like we built it! Prototype or no, the tracks we built were too high (50 feet in the air?), too tight (around 15" radius), and they blocked both the VIEW of a nice industrial scene, and also ACCESS to the switching areas therein. Because of it, we never switched the industries.

It sounds bad, but dad is no longer with us, and neither is his loop.

Here we see the typical viewer's view of the situation. This is the FIRST scene that a visitor sees when they enter the room, and it was intended to be a showpiece someday. The roadway on the crossing used to go over the tracks, then thru a tunnel in the "fill" (which is where the bare particle board is in the pic). The prototype would not likely have spent the money for a 500-foot-long fill (with a tunnel for the access road) if they could have gotten away with a 100-foot-long stub like we have now.