Please be gentle - I know very little about railroad operations!
I see many track plans where an industry is served by a dead-end spur off the main line.
My train, pulling a rake of wagons, trundles along the main line until it reaches a facing-point turnout where there is a dead-end spur for Industry X. I need to drop off an empty wagon and pick up a full one. How can I achieve this without a run-around loop? Do I need to assemble my train with the drop-off wagon being pushed by the loco so it can travel down the spur??
If, instead, the spur is on a trailing-point turnout, I can go past the turnout and reverse down the spur to access wagons, but it’s still far from clear to me how I can swap wagons without the benefit of a run-around loop.
From your use of the word “rake” instead of cut or train I’m assuming a non-US provenence so this might not apply.
On the prototype a facing point switch is no problem. You drop a crewman at the switch, run back and another crewman mans the cut lever. The engr accelerates and on signal the car is uncoupled. The eng runs by the switch, its thrown as soon as the engine clears and the car rolls into the track and the brake is tied down by hand. All of which is impossible on a MRR! Plan B is the crew’s junior man rides the front of the car from the last run around track to the spur. The car to be picked up is pulled out of the spur and parked on the main beyond the switch and then the set out is run into the spur. The pick up is then run ahead of the engine to the next run around track. An alternative (if you can’t/won’t do the preferable…having ample runaround tracks) is to make all P/Us and S/Os in one direction w/ trailing point switches and get the others on the return trip
A very common setup, both in the model and the real thing.
That’s a difficult situation at any time. There are a couple ways of handling it. One you have mentioned - put the car ahead of the loco at the nearest runaround, and put the picked-up car ahead of the loco until you get to the next.
The other way is a bit sneakier: avoid the issue by making the setout and pickup on the return trip. That’s how the real roads generally do it. It’s not safe to run with a car ahead of the loco for any distance, particularly at speed. [:)]
And yes, the previous poster described a manuever known as a “flying switch”, but while it’s often done it’s usually a minor infraction of the rules, and impractical on a model railroad. (Though Bowser used to make a gadget I think they called a “Coaster”, which was a boxcar floor (US) with a heavy flywheel tied to one of the car axles, which could, with practice, be made to perform a flying switch…)
My pike has a few of these on it (just for fun). The method I use is I only switch the tracks with a trailing point switch that agrees with the direction of normal movement. My eastbound local will only service the eastbound trailing switch tracks. The local continues east to its limit. Performs a runaround move to head back westbound. Then it services all of the westbound trailing switch tracks This is also the case on a few of my industries that are within a section that contains a runaround arrangement due to the particular track arrangement. It is just easier to switch them and ties up the main less to get those cars when the local turns back west.
I am aware of a shortline railroad that would travel several miles (eastbound) up a branch line to serve a lumber mill with a facing point spur. This was the last customer on the line, and although there was a runaround track three miles farther up the branch, the crew preferred to handle things without using the runaround or a “flying switch”. Instead, they always used two locomotives, with the trailing unit “dead in tow” until they reached the spur. Then they would start up the second unit and proceed as follows:
Uncouple the lead locomotive and run it up the spur.
Throw the switch for the main track and use the trailing locomotive to pull the rest of the train forward (east) until it clears the switch.
Back the lead locomotive on to the main track. Now it is on the west end of the train and can perform the needed moves to pull the loads out and pu***he empty cars in to their spot.
With the loads now coupled to its pilot, the lead locomotive pulls clear of the switch (west) so the trailing unit can also move west past the switch, then reverse and move on to the spur.
The lead locomotive now pushes the cars past the switch (east), allowing the trailing locomotive to run west off the spur and on to the main track.
The lead locomotive now moves west and couples to the trailing locomotive.
The crew shuts down the lead locomotive, and the roles reverse. The trailing locomotive now becomes the lead locomotive and pulls the train back to its point of origin.
Although this sounds pretty complicated, the crew had practiced this and become quite proficient. They swore to me that this was actually quicker than running around their train at the passing siding three miles away.
Obviously, the catch here is the use of two locomotives. Back in the steam era, when two locomotives required two crews, this would seldom (if ever) have happened.
I am building a replica of this spur on my layout, and I am looking forward to
A 'turn" is a local that operates much like Tom describes above - it goes “out and back” - returning to its point of origin (without doing a loop as is the case on many model railroads).
The crew on the turn would switch all the trailing point spurs on the way out, leaving the facing points. Then they would use a run-around at the end of their run, and switch all the trailing point spurs (formerly facing point) on the way back.