Murrbahn: Layout Design from prototype track plans Gaildorf/West (4)

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Quelle: Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg (PL 723 Bü 55). Used with permission.

North of the freight shed is the freight yard of Gaildorf/West. These tracks are used for cars going to and from the weg branch line, local customers, as well as for layover of weg passenger equipment between runs as needed. Bahnhofsstrasse extends past the freight shed and turns into the access road for a team track to facilitate trans-loading between trucks and freight cars. This is used primarily for loading wood onto R-cars. There is a track to the freight shed platform and a storage track next to it.

A very unique and peculiar feature of the freight area is the branch line track from track 1 cutting across all yard tracks and continuing on the street side of the station building. weg trains departed from the street side of the station until 1967, afterwards the line starts at track 1at the station building.

The main line tracks extend past the passenger platforms near the station building and run parallel to the freight yard area to a usable length of almost 700 meters, a good option for passing and meeting long freight trains on this single track main line.

Just like the cut opposite the station building, there is a hillside cut along this area.

Once again length compression yields a somewhat different look and feel of the station, but retains operational possibilities. In order to allow full length passenger trains to stop at the platform, while at the same time squeezing both passenger and freight facilities into the available space, the passenger platforms extend parallel to the yard tracks. The diagonal weg track is omitted completely due to the space constraints. While it would have been a nice feature, it doesn't add anything to operations, so I'm not feeling terribly bad about leaving it out. I might model the old street side track in pavement, but don't connect it to the operating tracks.

The track to the freight shed is represented correctly, and the storage track is part of the team track  running besides the access road.