I’d like to echo Elliot’s comment about trial and error.
Get some track on the floor; raise it; add some switches and rolls a variety of cars thru until you get the correct height and distance.
One thing I’ll add is that real hump yards are sort of bowl shaped in that the end of the hump yard is sloped slightly back up so the cars don’t roll out of the yard.
Instead of the retarders, perhaps you could very slightly angle the end of the yard up so the cars don’t keep going; esp. when one slams in to couple. But not sloped too much that they roll too far back.
I would recommend using very good couplers or possibly even switching to kadee.
The hump yard could be done; but stressing again the trial and error aspect.
I would love to see your progress; as so many have brought up this topic but so far no one has ever posted photos and most have probably given up.
Just persevere and have fun is what I say; and go for it!
What might be the eaiest way to slow a car is a regular Lionel uncoupler magnet. It might be able to grab a car and stop it dead. I certainly want to keep this as simple as possible.
Agree that a mockup is the way to go to determine slope, switch roll through, and yard rollout. Scale cars with diecast trucks seem almost like a mandatory. Two or three car units may also help in some situations such as reaching the ends of the yard tracks.
John: You might want to think about using air brush (model size) nozzles and tubing on your air retarding system.
I don’t have room for a hump on my current layout but if time permits after the holidays, I’ll do a small mockup with a couple of Kadee magnets to see if they put out enough magnetic force to slow down a car rolling down a slope. Just curious.
Actually Dave, switching to Kadee couplers may increase the need for “crash control”. Our oversized, heavy duty, Lionel style knuckles are designed to take a beating as they were made with kids in mind. The worst thing that could really happen if cars hit too hard is you might break a knuckle. That is generally a low cost repair, perhaps even cheaper than a new Kadee. If you really wanted to simplify the change out proceedure, instead of putting in a new rivet, just use a piece of wire with the ends bent to hold the knuckle in place.
Real railroads break knuckles all the time. Spares, as well as common brake parts, are carried as standard equipment on all locos. Tool boxes are often located under the cab windows just above the truck, but it depends on the model.
Thanks Poppyl, actually the house was designed and built with the idea of a large trainroom specificly in mind. It was also a strong motivating factor in the decision that my ex wife would not get the house in our divorce. I had to give her half the value of the house ($250,000), essentially buying her a different house, in order to keep it.
Keeping the dream alive, has put me in a tight financial situation, but eventually that will ease. In the meantime I can work on construction, at a slow pace, with a very limited budget.
Hopefully this information will temper your envy slightly. It ain’t all fun and games, wish it was though.[swg]
I mentioned Kadee magnets for a couple of reasons. First, you could place several within a given length of track which, if they work, would allow you to vary the degree of “slowdown” by the number of magnets you activate. Second, using the Lionel magnet you would achieve your degree of “slowdown” by how long you applied voltage to the magnet. I’ve found quite by accident that if the voltage is applied for too long a period, you can fry the mechanism. I’m thinking that the Kadee approach would be less prone to this sort of accident but as I said earlier, I have no real world experience with it yet. Just speculation on my part at this point.
Beef, a hump yard is a classification yard that uses gravity to move the cars onto the various tracks. When a train arrives, the cars are sorted by destination, by pushing them up a hill called a hump, and allowing them to roll down, while switching them onto the appropriate tracks, thus creating new trains.
In the first photo, the engines are pushing the cars over the hump.
In the second photo, note the white tank car in the distance (left center). It is actually passing through a retarder, which is used to control the crash speed when it hits the line of standing cars already on the track.
