Testing the track plan, Part 2

The next task was mocking up the passing tracking near the shore. This could be built from a pair of left and right switches, but I wanted something more streetcar-like, which for me meant something like the passing tracks on the Morecambe Tramway.

Let me digress a bit. I'm told my great-grandfather on my mother's side was an inspector on the Morecambe Tramway, but his career came to an abrupt end when he slipped off a tram one day and permanently injured his foot. So, I've been curious about that tramway, and have tried to study its history. This passing track arrangement isn't unique to Morecambe, but it's applied in a few places on its old route, so I thought I'd use something similar on my layout.

I've built mine using a pair of Atlas Custom-Line Mark IV wye switches with short sections of curved track attached to each branch cut from Atlas 18" radius curved Snap-Track such that the passing tracks are parallel. I was concerned that there might be an electrical short in this configuration, but it seems to work just fine. Here's a little snippet of a DC powered streetcar negotiating a pass.