HO Main Layout – Arlington Expansion

Construction of new track work into the south end of Arlington Yard from Quarry was completed in 2016. The purpose of this activity was to provide another mainline track for through trains to pick up and drop off cars at Arlington. This frees up existing track so that dedicated tracks holding southbound and northbound cars out of Arlington are now available. In addition, a switching lead at the south end of the yard has been constructed so that the yard switcher will not interfere with mainline activity. A side benefit from this is the lengthening of the existing classification tracks by several car lengths.  The mainline switches were installed with holes through the sub-roadbed under the switch throw bars to allow later installation of under layout switch motors. The intent is to eventually have route switching set up automatically through the use of accessory commands on the throttles of engineers entering the yard.

The following photographs show the changes before and after this new construction.

New track connection by Arlington town at the north end of the yard:

Before: After:

New track connection at the south end of the yard:

Before: After:

Note the light-colored sub-roadbed in the “After” shot above showing where the original track alignment was located with the shorter yard tracks. The arrow shows the new track added to the mainline.

New switching drill track at the south end of the yard off the mainline:

Before: After:

The arrow above points to the new south yard drill track. In the before picture, there was only a mainline track coming into the yard. In the new alignment, the mainline is a sharper curve and comes into the yard on dedicated mainline tracks away from the classification tracks.