Yard Design Feedback

[ctclibby]

Hi

I don't remember reading about what your train lengths are and usually those lengths are set to fit on one classification track so making the classification tracks longer would be what I would attempt.

What do you think about moving the right crossover ( main to 1st classification ) more to the right closer to the ADM switch. This would give you a longer track segment that you could use for A/D.

Also, if you add a double-slip on the left yard entry between the switch lead and 1st classification track, you will save the space of about 1 switch length which would make your classification tracks just a little longer.

You might also consider changing the yard ladders to a 'compound' type as that will also give you more classification trackage.

You said that you have a 20 foot room, and this yard is probably in the middle of that length. What is on either side? I mean, is there a way to make that yard bigger if needed?

As a side note, I had trouble fitting my yard along a 24 foot wall. My siding lengths are 16 feet, so the yard A/D needed to be that also. I ended up putting the yard proper around a corner with about equal parts on both sides. You can take a look at the pix - http://www.soundrail.com click on Projects.

ctclibby

 

[Toyguy]

Thanks for the comments guys.

The grain elevator is really just a placeholder, as there won't be any grain on my layout. It's just representing some generic industry, but I see your point. What I will do is shift it all a little right onto the next module and use a passing siding so locos from either direction can pull in and cut off a few cars, then pick them up later.

Good thought on moving that one switch to the right too. I'll play with that in AnyRail tonight and see how it looks. That would allow cars on the bent lead to be pushed back onto the horizontal part of the effectively-shared lead/AD track and then pulled onto the mainline. Bear in mind that the stub end of the lead on the left can be extended into the left-hand module, which might work well in this case.

Train lengths will be short, no more than a dozen cars and usually about half that. With the lead wrapping around the top of the diamond, and the ability to push a really long train up onto the mainline if needed, I think that will work. Bear in mind that the stub end of the lead on the left can be extended into the left-hand module if I need to.

 

[Toyguy]

You know, I can see how easy it is to get addicted to just drawing plans and never actually building anything

Playing around again in AnyRail after looking up the term "compound ladder", I came up with this, which seems very attractive and gives me way more functionality in a space about 18" shorter than the last one. The white area in the image is the 10' width I set. As you can see, there isn't much hangover and the engine house was going on the next module to the right anyway. This plan is a little deeper, so I might have to use some fascia-style buildings in the back but that's OK. I am probably still going to use just a single bay engine house, so the other radials would be storage and maybe a diesel refueling area. The un-named track on the left would be storage and/or cabooses. If I were to stay with the original plan and push the engine terminal into the next module, there could be a couple storage tracks in the area where the turntable is now, so that's also an option.

One thing that strikes me is that an engine entering from the left has a long reverse route back to the engine service area after pulling cars into the yard. I tried doing something with a slip switch on the right end of the lower 3 ladder tracks but the geometry was really ugly. Maybe an option would be an exit into the engine terminal off the end of the lead on the right if the terminal were in the next module.

I also just noticed I need to flip the yard entry switch on the right. I always get those wrong

What do you all think of this one?

 

[cajon]

Try this clumsy revision of your plan. Gets rid of the switchback to the turntable plus puts RIP track on a spur. Have never seen a RIP track off a turntables. Any one of those 3 spurs could be your caboose track depending on how you configure the RIP track. Then again is this yard a division point that would require a caboose track?

 

[railBuilderDhd]

It’s funny how much a layout can change from what you started with and where you end up. This yard has really made a lot of progress and I love the input everyone has given to help make the yard the best it can be. This tread has me geared up to build a yard for my Free-Mo module group so we have a fun operation area and a place off the main line to keep traffic moving. We had real problems this weekend when we had 3 trains running on a single mainline.

I'm keeping an eye on this and will post anything I end up doing for a free-mo yard.
Dave

 

[John P]

Yes, the yard look realistic and fun, too. You should have multiple tracks to the turntable, as Cajon showed. The fuel, water and sand should be along one of these tracks, and the other one(s) available to park ready locos and just to get in and out of the roundhouse. Put the RIP tracks on the other side. What is the function of the track beside the ladder, going out to the left? Obviously not a lead. You could consider pushing the RIP track closer to the main, and having a local industry (coal? animal feed? lumber?) in the lower left corner. Switching that gives the yard something to do while the locals are out working.

 

[steinjr]

I also just noticed I need to flip the yard entry switch on the right. I always get those wrong

What do you all think of this one?

Mmm - change is the crossover from the main at far right, try to avoid having the RIP track come off the turntable (otherwise you need to find room for both the engine and the car on the turntable to use the RIP track), and try to lose the long switchback to the engine service area.

But a bigger question is this: you are doing a double ended yard. Double ended yards on a layout automatically have less capacity than single ended yards, since the second yard ladder (and allowing clearance at the turnouts) takes a significant amount of space.

It may very well be a worthwhile trade-off, to get the look and feel you want for a not so busy small town yard, or - for a busy model railroad yard - to get the ability of having two crews switch the yards from the opposite ends of the yard, or to allow trains to enter and leave any track in the yard directly.

Not sure if it is a smart trade-off or not in your yard - it (like whether it is a good idea to use the main as the switching lead) really depends on your expected traffic frequency/density, and how many cars you need to be able to hold in your yard.

Smile,
Stein

 

[ICG/SOU]

Please take my ideas with a grain of salt:

Jeff Wilson put out a great book on Engine Servicing and Terminals. He's got some generic plans on modeling the servicing areas in a layout. What I strove for in mine (albeit my overall layout design isn't that great) is that the locomotives could move into servicing from either direction (which isn't always practical), but the more I started looking at the prototypes (using Bing Maps or historical information and blue-line drawings/plans), I noticed that the track was set up so that there wasn't so much backing up by a locomotive, even at the smaller terminals (the 100 mile ones), necessary, from taking a loco off a train, running it through the service tracks, running it to the turntable to be either sent to the roundhouse for maintenance, or turned and run to the other end of the train to be reattached (for the return trip).

I'd go back to the diamond yard (it makes the yard tracks the same length). I'd put the RIP track off the yard, since the RIP track is usually for rolling stock, especially if you've got a dedicated service shop (the roundhouse). It could be stub ended. You could get a small caboose track in there, too. The track (the dark red/brown one on the left) could then feed into your loco service area (with ash pit, inspection pit, sand tower, water tower, coal bunker/chute/tower) along the way to the turntable. Another track could (your current RIP track) run parallel to the loco service track, so that there is a way for locos to come an go from servicing without bottling everything in to the roundhouse area. You could take a another track from the service and head to the right, to tie into the yard lead and mainline too. If you cut your roundhouse to two stalls, move it closer to the edge, then you could have a wall open and have a vignette where a loco is getting serviced by a shop crews.

With the different track arrangement, your locos can enter/egress the servicing area from two directions, more than one at a time. You get a RIP track in a better place, as well as gain a caboose track, and a more efficient (space wise) yard. If you make your runaround/house track (the one at the top) longer (assuming you're wanting passenger operations there), then you'll be able to put a whole consist there, and not block the main. If you had a smaller train station, you could put the house track around the back of the station, as many stations of the late 1800s and early 1900s had, which would gain you some track length for a house track.

Like I said, though, grain of salt.

 

[steinjr]

I'd go back to the diamond yard (it makes the yard tracks the same length).

It certainly does.

And that may be important for flexibility in a through staging yard - any train can go into any track. But yard capacity wise, any double ended yard has significantly less capacity than a single ended yard of the same length:

Using a compound ladder also gives you a bit of extra yard capacity, compared with a straight ladder:

What makes the most sense in any given case really depends on planned usage.

Smile,
Stein

 

[ICG/SOU]

Thanks, Stein. I assumed that he was going to go for a double ended yard, and with the amount of space (width) he has, beyond a third track on a pyramid is pretty useless.

If he keeps a through track or two (a double ended A/D track) and stub ended yard tracks, then he can get a lot of car storage/classification, depending on his usage.

I didn't mean to derail the thread, but that engine terminal needs better flow.

 

[402drvr]

Stein

Is that last yard, the compound one, is that ten feet long? If so it looks like it would be perfect for the yard on my layout?

 

[Toyguy]

Played around some more tonight with the plan, dropping in a double slip to try something with the service area:

The gray area to the right, of course, is the next module area. I was looking at moving the steam servicing back there for some more space. That arrangement also let me use the leftover stub track on the right as an inlet to deliver coal to the coaling tower on a separate track.

This also lets me get in an area for diesels since I am doing a transition phase timeframe, and I liked the idea of having a local industry down on the lower left for slack times in the yard.

What I don't like is the long haul to steam servicing but I could live with it.

Traffic on the layout will be light, so using the main as a lead is no problem and in fact adds a little interest in scheduling. A loco coming from the right still has a long route back through the yard to get to service, but a possibility there is a crossover between the steam service track and the coal delivery track. Diesels could even do that and then use the turntable to get to their area, giving the yard boys another little something to do.

Thoughts?

 

[steinjr]

Stein

Is that last yard, the compound one, is that ten feet long? If so it looks like it would be perfect for the yard on my layout?

Depends on what you would want to use the yard for on your layout (which is probably a theme for a different thread).

The yard shown in the illustration is an 7 foot single ended staging yard - it has no provisions whatsoever for running around cars, a switching lead, engine service, local industries etc.

A normal yard that size used for switching would have been suitable for a max capacity of about 75-80% of the max capacity for a staging yard - call it about 40 cars, before it got too clogged up.

Smile,
Stein

 

[steinjr]

Thoughts?

Mmmm.

Switching using the main as the switching lead is totally believable for a small auxiliary yard on a not busy line - the type of place that is more easily modeled on a modest sized model railroad layout than a major classification yard.

But I also think that a yard which is small and relaxed enough to use the mainline as a switching lead would be too small to have an elaborate engine facility with double slip switches, a dedicated RIP track etc.

An auxiliary yard could still have interesting traffic flow, with blocks of cars being set out or picked up by trains passing by northbound or southbound, maybe with a local switcher crew using it as a base (with or without an engine house of some kind, and with or without servicing facilities).

A northbound train passing train might drop off cars that will be handled by a local turn based out of the yard, or a block of cars which will go on a southbound train that will curve off in a different direction a little bit down the line (think of the mainline like a Y, with the northbound train coming up one side of the Y, and the southbound going down the other wing of the Y), or a block of cars which will be later taken to a nearby interchange with another railroad by a transfer run or whatever.

Another alternative could be yard that originates a few local turns, like in this yard (track plan heavily inspired by David Popp's Waterbury Yard on his Naugatuck Valley RR) which serves to originate and terminate several turns (i.e. trains that start out from this yard, do their work and return to the yard again):

It every day has several inbound and outbound trains - in the morning a transfer run comes in from the interchange with another railroad (staging), picks up outbound cars for the other railroad and departs.

The yard switcher (which also serves local industries right by the yard) blocks cars to go on the island industries turn, the rural branch turn or to be delivered to local industries, the two turns depart (either to actually serve modeled industries or to go into staging), and then the yard switcher serves local industries near the yard.

In the afternoon, the traffic flow reverses - the local turns come in with cars they bring back from the industries they have served, the yard switcher sorts out outbound cars, the afternoon transfer run brings in more inbound cars (which will be distributed the next day), and takes back some of the outbound cars (the rest will be picked up the next morning, when it delivers the inbound cars that arrived overnight).

Or you could have a yard where a train from the south terminate in the morning, engine goes to servicing, a train from the north comes in in mid day and terminates, engine goes to servicing, yard switcher build new north and southbound trains during the day, the engine that arrived from the south then departs in the afternoon southbound with a new train, followed by the engine that arrived from the north departing northbound with a new train in the evening.

Lots of traffic patterns are possible. What determines how much your yard needs in the way of engine facilities and track capacity is determined by how many engines and cars you are planning to keep there at any time, how many trains you will be building at the same time (a track used in the morning to build "the northbound local/turn" can in the afternoon be used for building a block of cars that will go on "the westbound through train").

So it really does not make a lot of sense to design a yard first and then the rest of the layout later - what makes sense is to try to think about desired traffic flow first, and then try to design staging and yard facilities so they can support the desired traffic flow.

Or you can just wing it - that also works. And if it doesn't work, you just make changes - to your traffic flow or to your layout. As you have noted, it is very easy to get stuck in analysis paralysis

Smile,
Stein

 

[fast_ian]

...(think of the mainline like a Y, with the northbound train coming up one side of the Y, and the southbound going down the other wing of the Y)....

Hey! When I proposed that in my thread, you told me off! OK, it was a long way from a finished yard, but still ...... You "scared" me right off the idea!

Cheers,
Ian
The referenced post; http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/showpost.php?p=214511&postcount=66

PS - Sorry for the hijack - I too am learning a lot about a yard design, but I had to comment!

 

[steinjr]

Hey! When I proposed that in my thread, you told me off! OK, it was a long way from a finished yard, but still ...... You "scared" me right off the idea!

Cheers,
Ian
The referenced post; http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/showpost.php?p=214511&postcount=66

PS - Sorry for the hijack - I too am learning a lot about a yard design, but I had to comment!

Difference is that you have a small layout where you had planned to lay your track in a actual physcial Y shape, with a very short tail on your wye, running all the traffic back and forth through that short tail track - running the train into the corner with the engine heading some way, and then backing out again on a track parallell to the track you arrived on, with or without running the engine around the cars before backing the engine down the other track.

In this case I am suggesting that the OP could take advantage of the fact that he will have an adequate amount of staging beneath his layout to let the same staging represent several different virtual destinations.

One train arriving at the south end of the modeled area heading north can be assumed to have arrived at that point via one route, while another train departing heading south into staging can be assumed to branch off from the southbound main a bit down the southbound main and take a route e.g. towards the west - with the junction being just south of the end of your modeled area - i.e. in staging.

Physically you use the same set of double ended staging tracks connecting the north and the south end of the modeled part of the layout, but conceptually traffic can go south, west (via south staging) and north, and possibly in a couple of other directions as well, via north and south staging respectively.

If you want to model traffic flow and routing, staging makes it a lot more interesting

Smile,
Stein