River St. Diamond Redux

A signature scene that defines Kingston's Hanley Spur is the diamond crossing of CP over CN at River Street. When I laid track on my layout, I only had a 30-degree diamond. This required quite a flareout and straightening of the CP track as it crossed CN. To be prototypical, the CP and CN tracks need to be just a few feet apart, but my resulting distance was too large. But that's all I had to work with.

At the Associated Railroaders of Kingston Rail Fair train show in October, I picked up a handful of diamonds. I should clarify....these were all Atlas snap-track diamond crossings of track at various angles, from 90 degrees down to 19 degrees purchased from Sam MacLauchlan. And each was bargain-priced at $2. 

So, I decided to re-do the diamond crossing situated right under the River Street bridge. One downside of this is that my current CP alignment near the backdrop meant I could serve the Woolen Mill, Dyeco and C E MacPherson with switches leading to spurs right off the 'main' track 'north' of the diamond.

As part of this re-do, I decided to add another track (Oops, I did it again!) to serve those three industries. While that meant adding a switch, it actually removed three switches from the 'main' track. Before construction started - the new diamond is at centre, CN at left and CP at right near backdrop:

I started by removing the bridge, removing the diamond, adding the new diamond and see where that left my trackplan! Although the 19-degree diamond gave me a nice, close CP-to-CN distance, it threw off the approaches to the CP customers on the 'south' side of the diamond. (Although I would love to have an anatomically-correct arrangement of spurs off the CP, the constrained space available on my 10x11-foot layout just didn't allow for this nicety.)

Progress photos. 

Above - the old 30-degree diamond (D)and two switches (S) off CP 'main' track

Below - the new 19-degree diamond and two relocated switches  

Note the distance between the decreased distance between CP and CN (lower arrow):

All track back in place. The boxcar is on the CP, with Dyeco to left, switchback to Woolen Mill and C E MacPherson off to the right.

As a result, I flared the Sowards coal spur and Anglin/Canadian Dredge & Dock/Anglin spur out from the diamond, resulting in a more gentle curve to the spurs from the rather severe 19-degree diamond. The finished diamond scene (below hey CN boxcar go home, you're lost! and view from other side of bridge in top photo).

I did something I really shouldn't have. I added a switchback (S in photo below), the 'north' end of which serves two spurs prototypically some distance separate from each other. Aaagh! I hope to revisit and revise this in the future, but for now it was expedient and allowed the Woolen Mill (WM), Dyeco and C E MacPherson (MAC) to all remain rail-served in my limited available space (photo below, with CP yellow lines and CN red lines)

I then took the opportunity to paint some of the ballast, rail, and ties when the track was lifted, making the black-tie and brass-track affair less obvious. Replacing the rail, I was pleased with the finished product, and the proximity of the CN and CP 'main' tracks under and past the River Street bridge on both sides! Final detailing awaits, including rebuilding the road crossing and replacing some poles and signs now that there is less space available due to the extra track.