Simplicity thy name is not Loop

Maximum dimensions are about 65" x 43"

One might think a loop requires no thought at all. In response I'll simply say that this one incorporates a lot of thinking about what I want from my 'layout'.

There's a long straight run along the back for a Toronto-like street scene. It'll be easy to photograph scenes there since the track's along an edge.

The curves at the end of the long straight are of 9" radius, which is a comprise between prototypical streetcar track realism and the practicalities of running HO scale streetcars.

The wye passing track down near the shore is similar to those used on the old Morecambe tram line my great-grandfather worked for. The wye configuration allows for two or three streetcars to be on the layout at any one time, while keeping an uncomplicated streetcar-like feel to the track.

Weirdly, on the old LOL I had a railroad-like passing track along the main urban street! It seemed cool when I built it, but it turned out to be a royal pain. It was located at the back of the layout so it wasn't convenient to use, its view was blocked by tall buildings, and it was hard to justify in a built-up urban scene. Although the new layout is designed to be viewable from any side, I didn't want any switches at the 'back' in the long straight section as they'd be hard to reach, not to mention look odd. When the layout is in the basement, which will be most of the time, the long straight track edge will be along a wall, so any casual use will be degraded with hard to reach switches.

There's lots of untracked real estate for buildings and scenes - urban, suburban, and open country - which are my main modelling interests.

The track plan isn't loaded with switches and railroady-like track features. I'm not much interested in operations beyond running streetcars around the loop now and then, so I didn't want complex track work to needlessly get in the way.

An earlier iteration - note longer passing track

Considerable time was spent getting the track plan down to a minimum size. I want there to be a density of buildings in the urban area, and not leave me with the tedious job of making buildings just to fill space. Creating buildings and scenes is pleasurable for me and I don't want that to change. I also wanted the overall layout size to be manageable for me to carry it upstairs for showing off, or toting around in the CRV.

As shown by those yardsticks in the photo on the right, there'll be some sort of one-way street that runs parallel to the long, straight streetcar track, although that perpendicular offshoot will go. That road caused something of a philosophical dilemma. All good planning advice says there should be diagonals to create interest and draw attention to a focal point. But, I realized that the linear park and parking lot at the Havelock yard is etched in my mind and I want something inspired by it on my layout to separate the urban from the open country by the shore. It seemed running such a street parallel to the long track in the urban area was the thing to do. Hmm. It'll be included, but maybe I'll angle it a bit to make it a little more dynamic. Grid? Diagonals? What's a planner to do? 

Don't let anyone say designing a loop is simple :-)