My prior layout was primarily clockwise. With a very good reason.
That made the single ended yard lead trailing point, as well as the industrial spurs mostly trailing point. (Save one.)
I had one run-around, and placed the single facing point spur right near it.
New layout will be determined.
This thread is still going? [*-)] As someone said, in another forum, with equally poor spelling skills as this one.
Holly Molly
I hadn’t seen this topic before either, but I’ve been sitting here, chuckling over some of the responses. I personally don’t think it matters, especially on our model railroads, which are tiny compared to the prototype–there simply isn’t a preferred direction. I suppose if you have a double main, there are conventions about which of the two tracks you should be on, depending on the direction. But how do you define direction in a model railroad. Most of them basically run around a room, so you could arbitarily define clockwise as north and counterclockwise as south, for example.
I was initially bemused by the observation regarding prototype operations: “North on the westernmost line and south on the easternmost line…” At first, I thought that trains in the West weren’t allowed to travel south (e.g., I can go from LA to SF, but not from SF to LA). Then I realized the point: For a double main, the westernmost (left-hand as you face north) track is traveled north and the easternmost (right-hand track as you face north) track is traveled south. I think that’s right, although my brain is being damaged by thinking about how this would work for a train traveling north and then turning east: e.g., would the east-bound train have to switch from the left-hand to the right-hand rail? But in the context of our tiny model railroads, I don’t think it matters. It’s your railroad, so you can adopt any conventions you want!
I’m in the midst of building mine, and I hadn’t really thought about this sort of convention. I have two reversing loops, so I can run trains in either direction. I don’t have much double-main, so I doubt if will matter for me, but now that someone has raised the issue, I’ll give some though to which direction ought to be north and which ought to be south, etc.
LOL
I once dated a girl named Holly Molly.
Little Richard wrote a song about her, Good Golly Miss Molly.
Rich
I run trains clockwise on my 4 by 8 layout, rarely do trains go counterclockwise. It’s a single track line, so there’s nothing going both directions at once.
Coreolis effect.
Maybe that is what the original poster needs to know.
I was involved with three girls in a row named Holly, and in Nashville I lived on Holly Street.
My car had a Motorcraft carbeurator.
-Kevin
I once worked with a guy named Fred Jolly. It would be interesting if Holly Molly married him - - - Holly Molly Jolly.
Rich
However, if you follow sports or horse racing, it’s counterclockwise! For some reason, when I exercise, I walk the track counterclockwise, and so do most of the other people there. I don’t know why.
i think its mother nature same goes for when we are at store flea market etc …people tend to stay to the right ( maybe because of how we drive)
a few years back when I was member of local YMCA they had indoor walking track…MWF Sun…one direction TuThSat the other
lots of things are done CCW or in some cases Left to Right
This is something I’ve never heard before!
For me, as the OP mentioned, I switch directions ever so often to reduce the wear and tear on wheels, but also just for variety. Usually when I can the consist of my train or the locomotive or whatever, I’ll flip direction just because.
Still, I think I naturally run the train counter clockwise… I have no idea why…
Strangely, the layout my Grandpa has that I first ran model trains on usually runs couter clockwise too, because that is how the switches where arranged for the yard to be trailing point.
That would be reported as as the Molly-Jolly wedding. You would probably have a bunch of ravers show up thinking it was a party, then the police would shut it down.
[(-D]
-Kevin
The only oval loop railroad I had was the first N scale layout I built in high school.
Now that I think about it, the inner loop always ran clockwise because of the direction of the tunouts in the yard. The outer loop just has a passing track. I usually had it set up with one train running each direction.
-Kevin
I’m sure some people thought that I was joking when I wrote that, but I was being sincere. With all due respect to Fred, how do you get a last name like Jolly? [:^)]
Rich
From his father/grandfather/etc,
LOL, but of course.
But, I’m guessing his forefathers used a much longer name like Jollczwksky and wound up having it shortened at Ellis Island which was often the case.
Rich
When i am using clockwork locos, I run them so that I can insert the winding key from the near side. In almost all cases that means locos face to the left, so on an oval they will run clockwise.
Mike
If it’s hurting your brain, you may be overthinking. (And you actually have the directions backwards.)
The convention for “double-track” (without CTC) was to have each track designated for travel in one direction only. Therefore if a line is considered to be an east-west line, one track will be “westward” and one track will be “eastward”. The common convention was “right-hand running”, which meant normal direction of travel was to be operating on the right hand track.
Just think of it as exactly the same as driving your car on any 2-lane street in North America not marked as “One Way”. Drive in the right lane, not the left (oncoming traffic).
However Chicago & North Western was an exception to this, having some lines that were “left-hand running” with trains operating on the left-hand track (like driving in England).
If these tracks were signalled with [passive] ABS (automatic block signals), signals would only be provided in the direction of travel for each track.
There are very few examples remaining of these sorts of double track lines; most have been upgraded with full bi-directional CTC signalling on all tracks, and are now “2 [or more] main track” lines - which IS semantically different from “double track” as described above.
If a double track line crosses and/or joins with another line, switches and crossovers will be provided at the junction t
It’s almost difficult to believe that this thread is still on-going, although it’s at least wandered a bit into some more interesting conversations.
I’m still wondering, though, who the heck runs their trains in only one direction? A railroad goes somewhere, then comes back from that place, not circles around to the same place over and over again. [swg]
Wayne
Wayne, I think that is the difference betwen “toy” trains and “model” trains.
Ron
Amen to that Wayne. Every layout that I have built includes a track arrangment to reverse the direction of trains and return them back where they came from.
Rich