The Wye at Turay
Following the first op session (OS), it was discovered that we needed a way to turn locomotives at Armstrong. My vision was to have them back all the way to Valley Gate and turn on the turntable there. Alas, that is a quarter to a third of the mainline run, and the feedback I got is it would be too far of a run; it would feel like a run to another town. Directly across from Armstrong is a switching area called Turay. This is also where the staging tracks from "points east" come onto the layout as well as the future branch line out to Halcon Cement will originate. The branch line will actually run OVER the helix going into staging. So I got to noodling on this. Basically the branch running over the helix would act like one leg of the wye, while the tracks going down the helix would be the other. I actually kept and installed the helix segments connecting the two to protect trains going down the helix. So all I needed was a connector between the two legs of the wye a