Dover will serve as the main operational hib for the middle level of the railroad, receiving trains from Haverhill, sending trains north to Conway and beyond, and running locals down to Exeter and up to Rochester, Ossipee, and Wolfeboro. While Dover is not modelled as a very large yard, trains will be much shorter than on the lower level, so the yard should be able to handle the traffic. The yard also serves a few local industries as well.
The Dover stretch begins with the railroad bridge crossing over the Cocheco river. After passing the station, the mainline and siding then cross over the bridge over Broadway St.
As with V1, I will be modelling the Oast St. brdge crossing over the three tracks just north of the roundhouse and machine shop.
The track arrangements and industry spots can be seen on this track diagram.
The very long siding serves as the arrival/departure track as well as serving as the drill track for classification. Two classification tracks provide the ability to buid both a south bound local to Exeter and a north bound local to Rochester and Wolfeboro. Trains to and from the gravel quarry in Ossipee will always be unit trains and will not require classification. While they may sometimes stop in Dover to exchange power, they are really through trains heading to or from Boston Sand & Gravel in Boston via Haverhill.
Many of the structural elements for Dover were present and had been completed for V1 of the NNE Scenic. They will be reused after any repairs or touch-up on V3. Photos with the roundhouse and machine shop, the turntable, sand house, and fuel stand can be seen in the V1 Archive pages of this site until the newly located Dover area of V3 is constructed. The track plan for Dover has not changed in any significant way since V1 except for the major expansion of its length. It occupies a far longer stretch of benchwork, allowing for longer trains, more car storage, and therefore more effective operations. On V1, the total length of the Dover section of the layout was roughly 5′. Here on V3, Dover occupies over 25 linear feet of benchwork or roughly 5 times the layout area versus V1.