Yet Another Tweak

I work towards the essence of the switching model railroad, one element of which is aesthetics.While in the real world railroads appear small and skinny and spread thin across the landscape, because of extreme space limitations model track-plans tend to  instead have a busy appearance. To reduce busy-ness I set about  simplifying the PER track-plan to eliminate all non-essential trackage. This project dovetails with another aesthetic concern, the need to maintain a "shelf" model railroad wherein the operator is always close to the train, "trackside" if you will. This lends believability to the model as being a miniature real train.

So. This was the recent view looking towards the West End:

Showing the run-around siding and a crossover.

I went to work and this was the first result:

     

Run-around gone, West End sidings now with

entry from the West and

the benchwork ("shelf")

narrowed by 6"

Before:

After:

Hmmm. Why not simplify by eliminating the second siding in favor of  lengthening the main siding? Could space be found to accommodate a [longer] siding? Well, here it is:

It works.
From right to left, tank car spot for PVA (polyvinyl acetate), box car spot for loading paint (behind the main structure), tank car spot for acrylic resin, covered hopper spot for titanium dioxide (white pigment) and storage for two cars off-spot.

Eliminating the run-around also permitted narrowing the benchwork at the East End from this (previous):

To this (now):

By now just six track switches enable full operations on the Plywood Empire Route. While I've not seen a prototype short line railroad that uses shove-moves on it's "mainline" such an operation is certainly possible and for a model railroad it permits and encourages a lean streamlined track-plan wherein the essence is promoted and distracting clutter is minimized. Or so it seems to me. I leave the Reader to make their own judgement.