Continous Loop Layout - Basic Operations Question

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I am starting to get interested in conducting “realistic operations” on my layout which raises a basic question.

My layout is fairly large with a double main line. My principal objective, when I first designed it, was simply to “run trains”. As a lone operator, I can generally run four trains simultaneously, two trains on each main line track.

My question is: what do those of you who conduct operations do about a continuous loop layout regarding “destinations”?

Here is an example. I have a farm siding and I want to move a series of covered hoppers west to a 4-track siding which I will treat as an interchange. Headed west, it is not that far away from the farm siding - - maybe 20 feet on a 200 foot main line. To me, it doesn’t make sense to have a local pick up the covered hoppers at the farm siding and then fairly quickly drop them off at the interchange. Meanwhile, I may be running three other trains on the layout. So, to me, it makes sense to let the local make several runs around the layout before dropping off the cars at the interchange. Of course, it is not prototypical, but is it acceptable? What do others do in this situation?

Rich

2

Anything YOU want to do is acceptable.

It just depends on how close to prototypical operations you want to get and what parts of “operation” do you want to model.

I thought you were using the 4 track yard as staging?

3

Someone on that other thread suggested the use of the 4-track siding for staging which I am contemplating.

Maybe my use of the term “interchange” is incorrect in this context. But, I thought that one of the suggestions was to use the 4-track siding as staging.

In that thread, Mike remarked, “Unless I break up or somehow turn the train, if a train goes into staging as a westbound, it will emerge from staging as another westbound when you decide to send it off again. You can then consider using 4-Track Yard as a fiddle yard. In effect, it’s your connection to the rest of the North American rail network”.

That concept appeals to me, and I may be incorrectly referring to that activity as taking place at an interchange. Help me with this concept and the correct terminology.

Rich

4

I appreciate that notion that anything is acceptable, but I am just curious what others do on a continuous loop layout?

Do you arrive at your destination as soon as you reach it, or do you bypass it the first time around and make one or more loops before ending that part of the run?

Rich

5

Rich, here is what I would do if I were to operate a continuous loop layout.

I´d write a train order, i.e. “storybook” for each train I plan to operate. In this storybook, I write down with what cars I want to start out, which cars to take where, which cars to set out and pick-up where and finally, where the train will end. I´d also determine the number of laps the train has to run between each stop, which could vary to simulate distance.

6

I can’t tell you what I do since I haven’t had a “loop” layout in about 30-40 years.

If you want to roll up some miles you can do a lap or two between each switching event. You might even want to fomalize it that every place is 2 laps fron the next station.

If you are just switching and concerned about car forwarding that works fine. It only becomes a problem when you try to incorporate the operations of the trains in a prototypical manner. Running a train through the same place multiple times gets problematic then.

Or.

You can consider the layout a smaller slice of the railroad and just do the local work out of your yrad and let the through trains do laps as interference. In that case the local only goes through any place once and every lap the through trains are a different train.

7

Thanks, Dave, that helps.

Am I using the term “interchange” correctly?

Rich

8

I like that, Ulrich, thanks.

Rich

9

Our layout started out as a continuous loop single track main layout until the mid 1990’s. we then rebuilt it as a single track point to point layout with two long passing sidings. Eventually, after expanding to our current layout, I double tracked the entire layout, and restored the continuous loop design. We still run point to point with the locals, but four the unit trains which consist of an eastbound coal drag and a general merchandise freight, and a westbound empty hopper train and a similar merchandise train continuously run. Since I’m not modeling the West Virginia coal fields, or the steel mills in Pittsburgh or Buffalo, these trains can keep reappearing like a line of east and westbound traffic. This leaves my sons and I to run our local freight peddlers and passenger trains in between the unit trains. Our two main classification yards represent staging for the locals as well as additional cars for the two general merchandise trains. The nice thing is that We can run the four trains without concern and still have fun building our local trains and set off and pick up in between. If you have the space, leave your class yard leads long enough to grab a string of cars for shuffling without interfering with the main lines. When I was a yard conductor in Buffalo, we knew we could get the switcher and 14 cars up to the signal for the CSX main without tripping the light, and that allowed us to build our trains unopposed. The same applies with our model Railroad. I try to emphasize to the kids that the mainline traffic has to keep going. As far as setting off and picking up, we only have a couple of sidings that require tying up the main for any length of time, and it’s usually just a drop off point for one boxcar, so you can get in and out before having to stop the through trains. The central point of our layout is an industrial yard with a refinery and other small industries. The local can duck into this yard for set off and pickup. For a typical night of train operation, it works well whe

10

Rich, back in the days of smaller continuous loop layouts, lot of guys did designate a “number of laps” to simulate greater distance - it is a fine idea.

My layout is continuous, but there is a point at which the mainline is hidden, and in that hidden area is a wye junction to the staging. It is there that all trains “terminate” during operating sessions.

But for “fun run” or display running they simply “reappear” at the other end of the line.

My staging is designed to allow trains to be turned or to continue in the same direction. So the west bound empty coal train, and the east bound loaded coal train never change direction, simply reappearing for the next session. But the passenger train that went east in the morning can return to the west in the afternoon.

As for freight locals, they all work out of my one visible yard, all local traffic starts and returns there. Mainline trains pickup and drop off large cuts of cars or whole consists can end and originate in the yard as well as in the staging.

The whole concept is to really only model one major “place” along the mainline and simulate the realistic coming and going of trains, people and cargo.

And in addition to the main staging, there are a number junctions along the main that are also supported by more through staging. These staging areas simulate both interchanges with other roads and additional routes of the ATLANTIC CENTRAL.

In display mode these junctions and their hidden staging provide four completely isolated loops for continuous display running.

Others may operate differently, but I am not comfortable “controlling” more than one train at a time unless it is simply a display loop. My operating sessions are designed for a dispatcher and an operator for each train. Local trains are generally operated by a crew of two people.

Sheldon

11

Thanks, Shedon, that concept of really only modeling one major “place” along the mainline is a recurring comment about layout design and operations, as I am beginning to find out.

Rich

12

One idea, frequently floated for small layouts with short loops, is to let one lap of the loop represent either X miles or Y minutes of running time - the same as running laps between siding and interchange.

My own layout is, in schematic, a big loop. The visible portion comprises two stations and their connecting track, plus an independent point-to-point shortline which is modeled complete from end to end. The only time anything will orbit the entire loop is when I am either running in a newly-activated piece of self-propelled rolling stock or when I want to run a couple of trains to entertain mundane visitors. At all other times trains leave staging, do their thing and either terminate at the major station or return to staging. Trains leaving the major station terminate in staging, there to remain until their timetable-ordained return.

Since I’m working to a master plan which hardened into granite a long time ago I designed the track plan to suit the operations. Actually, the timetable came first!

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

13

My question is: what do those of you who conduct operations do about a continuous loop layout regarding “destinations”?

The link here: http://www.modelrailcast.com/media/PDFs/R_n_D_Layout_012810.pdf shows the 1.0 version of the Rawhide & Duct Tape on which I am a regular crew member. The one thing that is incorrect in the diagram from when I began operating on the layout is that staging was and is actually through staging and the Salt Lake (now San Jose) end is connected to the the track through Clarksville (now Gilroy). What was the Oakland end of staging is now Los Angeles and the directions have been reversed.

As you can see, the railroad is a twice around single oval with passing sidings and some “towns” which have industrial switching. If you’re inside the layout, west is to your right, east to your left (the exact opposite of what is shown on the diagram since it was decided by Dave, the layout owner, to mimic the SP Coast Division to the extent possible). Through trains go either from San Jose to LA or vice versa and and all through freights stop at Roseville (now Watsonville Junction) to drop off and pick up cars. All local freights are operated as turns and originate out of Roseville (Watsonville Jct.). On the R&D 1…0, there were 3 turns, the Clarksville (Gilroy) Turn, the Stockton (now Castroville) Turn, and the Monterey Turn (that’s Cannery Row in the diagram, but Cannery Row is in Monterey so it really doesn’t matter how it’s labeled here).

Local freights are run when they have been built by the yardmaster. In version 1.0, generally the Stockton (Castroville) Turn was ready to go first. When the switching is complete (we use car cards & waybills), the train is run back to Roseville (Watsonville Jct)… It’s the same for other turns.

Dispatching is done by track warrant,

14

Andre, no, I do not have any passing sidings. Since I have not conducted any operations in the past, I did not see any reason to build in any passing sidings. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t.

Rich

15

I ran into a similar situation with my layout when I started developing operations on my layout. Here’s my page on how I did it.

http://chatanuga.org/WLMRops.html

Basically, when an eastbound train, for example, leaves Chicago for Pittsburgh, it heads out the east end of the yard and runs eastbound around the layout. If it has cars to drop off or pick up at Mansfield, I’ll stop it to perform that work when I deem it to be time and when there is room in the yard to drop off cars. It then continues eastbound until I decide it arrives at Pittsburgh where it will enter the west end of the yard and be broken down to send the cars back west. To keep track of where the cars are located (west of Mansfield to Chicago, in Mansfield, or east of Mansfield to Pittsburgh), I use color-coded dividers in my holders for the car cards on the front of the layout.

Kevin

16

Interchange is when a railroad gives or recieves cars to or from another railroad. The CNW went to Fremont, NE. It handed off cars to the UP who took them further west (and vice versa). That exchange is interchange.

17

OK, that makes sense.

If a local brings a string of loaded covered hoppers from a farm siding, and parks them on that 4-track siding, and then a main line loco picks them up and takes them 500 miles to a processing plant, what is the 4 track siding for operations purposes? On the other thread, Mike called it “staging”, but I am trying to rationalize it in railroad terms.

Rich

18

Rich,

Those four tracks are a yard. In most cases rail car movements work like this:

Car is delivered to siding empty to be loaded, car is loaded.

Car is picked up by “local” and moved to nearby yard.

Car is placed in train headed to destination city, mainline train travels to yard in destination city over mainline and terminates there.

Car is switched into a consist for a local, local delivers car to destination siding for unloading.

IF, the origin and destination are on different railroads, then part of that mainline trip involves “interchange” or transferring that car (and likely many others) from the trackage and handling of one railroad to the other.

Only in modern unit trains do cars move directly from source to destination, and even then, not always.

Now, about trackage - in most urban/industrial areas VERY few industry sidings are served by turnouts directly on the mainline, even if the industry is right along the mainline. More typically industrial areas are served by separate “belt” or branch line trackage. OR in the case of industries directly on the mainline, there is often a passing siding, sometimes very long, with the individual industrial sidings branching off from the siding, not the mainline.

Along the PRR mainline of the Northeast corridor (now NS?), there are four, five and six tracks in places as the mainline is four in some spots, two in others, and various industrial and branch line feeder sidings come and go.

A “local” pulls into such a siding and does a lot of its work without blocking the main, and needs permission from the CTC dispatcher to go out onto the main.

This also speaks to your question about caboose movements - in those days, they just left it sit somewhere in the area, out of the way of the movements they needed to make.

On my layout, most industries are served by a belt line, a separate branch line that feeds directly into/out of the yard. Locals onl

19

Rich,

Staging can be anything you want it to be. It could represent the next division HQ on your own line or it can be an interchange with another RR.

Since there’s usually limited space available and I have nothing like industries in mine, it’s just a fiddle yard, which is where I “interchange” with my rolling stock drawers. Some people have giant staging yards where they classify and build trains that will return from staging. Others are like me, this is where the big 0-5-0 does the work.

I’d like to throw out one concept here that will help clarify how you think about 4-Track Yard. What Milepost is it?

You could say its MP0, where a train originates,

You could say it’s MP100 (an entirely arbitrary number, but we need a # here), which is where the train terminates.

And if you had the time, space and money you could have two separate staging yards there, so you could truly have MP0 be an entirely separate location from MP100.

Instead, in reality you have one location that needs to be both: MP1/MP100. In the end, it’s easiest for me to think of 4-Track Yard as being in another dimension, a sort of black box that can send out both EAST and WEST trains and then magically transform those trains so they are different, if you want them to be, or the same, if that works better, for say, unit trains. 4-track yard is both HERE and THERE at the same time, a sort of quantum yard where anything’s possible.

Essentially, a staging yard on any continuous run layout is what you make of it. For all practical purposes, it has no direct real life function. Rather it is a means to substitute for a number of real life locations. For instance, staging in your case could be an interchange with 2 different RRs (one East and one West of your RR’s location), it can be an interchange with yet 2 or more other lines; and it can serve as a branch or industry on your own RR. For instance, that’s where loaded log cars originate that can go to a

20

Ouch, that kills my comment. I was going to say that just because the layout has a loop in it, doesn’t mean that the operations has to use it.

Almost all the layouts I operate on have a loop, but NONE of them utilize it in the operation. But they do all have passing sidings.