I have been working on a small industrial yard design and borrowed some concepts from a Lance Mindheim design that was posted here. The turnouts are No. 4 Atlas CustomLine, track spacing a minimum of 2 inches. The number (e.g. 30R) represent the radius at that point (sectional track will be replaced with flex as needed).
Does this design work for simple operations and short consists (say 2 or 3 freight cars)?
Thanks
Alan
P.S. Need to place the structures here as there is no other spot on the layout.
I am curious, which Lance Mindheim design did you use?
I see a tripple S-curve and way too much track; one switch (and just two tracks) would be enough. You probably don’t need the runaround. If you want to switch these spurs you will interfere with mainline traffic. A yard lead apart from the main and a track to park some cars on would be handy if a lot of main line traffic is running over the outer track.
Certainly no need for the crossover. You can keep the runaround for interests sake in front of the engineering building. Murphy MFG. may need service while cars are being loaded at the lead industries. There’s also no need for the inside runaround.
Oops (think I needed more coffee this morning) it’s from steinjr from a reply to a different thread (http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/169896.aspx?PageIndex=1), he was inspired by Lance M. See upper left of steinjr’s current? plan. He was referencing Lance M in his post, must have assumed it was a modified Lance M. design.
Oh, now I understand - you cut out a few tracks from the middle of my warehouse district (shown in red below), replaced a single crossover with a normal switch, and added another connection (both changes shown as blue lines in drawing below), and added industries all along the tracks.
That part on my layout has nothing to do with Lance Mindheim. The part that was inspired by reading Lance’s book was the barge terminal scene, which was simplified quite a bit after reading Lance’s book.
Unfortunately, in making your selection of what to include, you removed the parts which make the tracks above work - the work space without industries (shown by pink ovals on the plan below) between the main and the part you copied, the length of the team track curving upwards in the figure from the runaround in the figure that is available for running around without disturbing cars at the team track, and the work space between the single crossover and the security warehouse at the end, and instead placing industries along the crossovers and on the short tails.
So, unlike in my design, you have no available space to temporarily store cars while switching, without disturbing cars spotted at industries.
stein, thanks for clarifying that, it’s the pitfall of using an existing design without the thought process that went on behind the scenes.
Paul, I think that first version triple S curve was hiding in the apparent straight section in the the diviging curves off of the first right hand turnout.
I added the run-around as I was concerned with a situation in which the locomotive pulls a car or two into the yard, rather than pushing it in (which is how you design - thank you - would operate?). Otherwise I had a simple design somewhat similar to yours.
Paul’s suggestion is much cleaner, and it can still present challenges since the industries would be “sure spots”. A runaround could be worked in to the “empties or parking” track, since this track would not have any permanent spots - it’s your “work-in-progress” track.
I also agree with Paul’s suggestion of a dedicated switching lead (with no spots) off to the left somehow, so the local working this area won’t foul the main. This is less of an issue if the traffic levels are lower, or if it is OK to route the traffic down the other main if the local is working the yard.
The design isn’t a “yard” its an industrial area. A yard is a place where trains are made up and cars are stored. These are industry tracks for spotted cars for loading and unloading. They are private tracks.
I wouldn’t see why you would have a switching lead for such a small area. With that small of an area the train would leave the part of the train not going to the industries on the main, go in with the few cars that spot, do the work and come back out to the train, and go on its merry way.
It would work as either just two or three single tracks or as second version with both runarounds.
I am not so sure here, it all depends on the density of traffic. Looking at the surrounding tracks you envisioned a second industrial zone at the other side of the backdrop.
Question is if your traffic makes a third track at the blob necessary.
There are also industry support yards, which may or may not have their own switching leads. They are used to assist in switching an area, and may or may not originate/terminate trains. Granted, support yards are more often found at large industries or industrial areas. By labeling this as the “Hartford Industrial Area”, I thought Alan was making this a compressed version of a larger complex. In this case, the “empties or parking” track on Paul’s first suggestion would serve as the support yard’s compressed “body tracks”.
I would suggest Alan think about what trains will be running and when and how often, and see if a local working this area would present a bottleneck to those operations. If so, then make sure there is adequate space on the two mains for a through train to pass the local as it is working. Or add a switching lead, or leave the bottleneck as a challenge.
That’s how the design started to get complex; how not to trap the locomotive at the end of a spur.
I wish. The actual E. Hartford yard is a large (long and wide) affair with spurs leading off of one side to service a large number of industries. I just wanted someplace to show off a number of large track side structures (but keep it somewhat realistic).
Paul, the suggested 2nd industrial area is nice, but I don’t have the space. I mocked up a simple version in WinRail and with avoiding S curves and allowing for 3 45in long ladder spurs, it ended up as 2ft by 10ft in size. Maybe I should build-in the helix the other half wants and create the yard on the lower level. Right…
Thanks for the suggestions, will try to see if I can incorporate them into the allotted space.
Either by only switching those industries only by trains going in one direction on the main.
Or by having a train that comes towards the industry park in the “wrong direction” use a runaround somewhere else on the main to get on the right side of cars to be delivered, so it can shove the inbound cars ahead of it down the industry tracks.
and the industrial zone is connected from a siding, that doubles as a runaround for the way-freight.
Just some drafting in Winrail’s daughter on your footprint led to this:
Red tracks: #8 switches and R min = 30"; unless noted
Grey tracks: #6 switches and R min = 24"
If you can add two inches to the width of the peninsula you don’t even have to cheat with the radii. The red coloured tracks can then have their 30" minimum radius and #8 switches.
By introducing so much local switching your layout is changing it’s character. The grey coloured tracks alone would be a great one person switching pike.
Paul
I thought of that when I created a quick draft of a simple version of your (prior) grey tracks earlier this morning.
I have always planned on the outer (30R) curves for the mainline to allow the 20th Century Limited and AMTRAK passengers cars to look reasonably good going around them; this would be shared with CTX freight. (The inner loop was always thought of as a passing loop). I recognize this creates problems with the “yard” lead in Zone 1.
I just need more width than I have in the current overall design.
Not really. Your local freight waits in the siding (innermost track of loop) until the main is clear, then cuts of it’s cars, run onto the main and move over and grab the outbound cars from the industry zone.
Pull the outbound cars from industry zone onto the main, head up/down main to the end of the double ended siding, back into siding, grab inbound cars, pull forward, back inbound cars into industry zone, pull forward, back outbound cars into double ended siding, run engine around on main, and continue on your way.
It probably can be done in some other order. But having to switch the industry zone from the main just creates more entertainment value - you might have to wait in the siding (or in the industry zone) before you can get out on the main, and you have to hustle to not block the main longer than what you have gotten permission for.
Don’t look on it as a problem - it is an opportunity to do some interesting switching
I don’t think that will work (like the concept) as the intersection between main (outer) loop and inner loop is quite the distance from the split for the industrial area (which now looks like Paul’s suggestion - I think).
Well, it will certainly work to switch the spurs as trailing spurs. How you ensure that the engine is on the correct side of the cars before showing the cars down the spur to the industry zone is up to you.
The two basic ways of doing it is either backing a train down the line to the spur pushing the cars, or making sure it approaches engine first pulling the cars in such a way that the spurs will be trailing.
