This one is pretty straight forward, but often misunderstood.
I would add in, put in something that Drill track is the same thing as a lead. It took me the longest time to figure out what a Drill track is.
Yard leads, drill tracks - in Australia they’re known as a shunting neck. I presume that term is still used in the UK as well, where it originated. Good use of graphics to explain things, Chip.
Cheers,
Mark.
Chip, these are really great. What made you think of doing this?
Beg to differ with you NS2591 but there is a signigicant difference between a drill track and a yard lead. A yard lead is a track that branches from the main track and gives access to a yard; a yard lead is the alternative to a runaround track which I addressed in a previous topic; a drill track, on the other hand, is a track, almost always stub ended upon which a switcher works while sorting the yard. Note: a yard lead can be used as a drill track but, if being utilized as such, will require a train wishing to enter the yard to stop and (and this depends on the length of the yard lead) foul the mainline. Some yards had yard leads miles long - others only a couple of hundred yards.
I remember Bill Schopp (the RMC “Layout Doctor” of many years past used to address this issue in almost every issue of RMC in which he had a published trackplan). Because of space limitations on model pikes we very frequently use yard leads as drill tracks but, on the prototype, they are two definite entities.