 
          
            Texas South East number 3 spots cars at Sabine Brass & Copper.
          
        
        
          
            This is Len Turner’s Texas South East Railroad, a freelance HO
          
        
        
          
            scale urban industrial switching layout set in the early 1950’s.
          
        
        
          Len says, “I based design and construction of the TSE on Lance
        
        
          Mindheim’s series of books on small switching layouts [Even
        
        
          though Lance’s examples show contemporary railroading,
        
        
          here’s a superb instance of applying Lance’s design principles
        
        
          to layouts set in the transition era.
        
        
          
            – MRH
          
        
        
          ].
        
        
          I designed the track plan for industrial switching operations
        
        
          with a full loop main as the switching lead. I designed the TSE
        
        
          to be simple with straight forward switching – no switching
        
        
          puzzles or ‘Time-Savers’ and so on. The plan includes a three
        
        
          track staging yard and a full loop with two runarounds. The
        
        
          track plan will continue to evolve as I get further into construc-
        
        
          tion of the layout. I used mostly Micro Engineering code 70
        
        
          Flex track and ME code 70 #6 turnouts. For the yard trackwork,
        
        
          I used Atlas code 83 with #4 and #6 turnouts.  My minimum
        
        
          curve radius is 24”. For more on the TSE,
        
        
        
          .
        
        
          Yes, it’s a model - 3
        
        
          MRH-Jan 2013