Double End Staging Yard on a Grade?

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

Hi. My current layout has a hidden double end staging yard that is level. I am planning to make a change to the layout that would require the entire staging yard to be on a 2% grade. To keep the grade at a minimum I’d like to have the ladders on both ends of the staging yard on the grade. Thus the grade would start on the single track leading into both ends.

Here’s a simple diagram that I hope helps:

^ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------/ ^

grades start at ‘^’.

My question is will this work, and will it be reliable?

Thanks.

Duane.

2

If you keep it smooth, you can put the staging yard on a grade and have the leads on the grade.

Things to consider are:

  • Will you be able to start a train on the grade?
  • All your staged trains will have to keep an engine on them to keep from rolling away.
  • Any train separation due to knuckle/coupler failure or derailment will cause the rear portion to roll out.
3

In addition to the points Dave made:

  • The transitions to the grade must not be at the turnouts. The turnouts must be completely flat - either level or on a constant grade. This means any track not completely parallel to the line of the grade will have a slight tilt across the track. All diverging paths of turnouts will experience some of this slight tilt, which will automatically disappear as the track curves back to parallel the grade. You cannot get rid of this tilt in the turnouts without making the turnouts derailment prone. The larger the frog #, the less tilt the trains will encounter as they diverge in the turnout.
  • The turnouts in the ladders have to be bullet-proof to avoid trains rolling away as well as derailing. Very, very few prefabricated turnouts are good enough out of the box - they will likely need tweeking to get every part of the turnout flat and within gauge.

my thoughts, your choices

Fred W

4

Cars begin to roll on their own @ ~2% grade. I would cut it in half. Even @ 1% you risk your cars traveling quite far from a simple “bump”

5

Obviously, having any kind of grade in a yard risks having cars roll all over the place. A couple of years ago, they had plans to make home-made derails / wheelstops in MR. I made a handful of them, and they work very well for keeping cars where I want them.

6

Some posters are missing a key point (or don’t understand what is meant here by “staging yard”).

This is to be a staging yard where full trains are parked, not an active switching yard. There would be no loose cars – all would be attached to engines and won’t roll anywhere, even with a “bump”.

Not ideal, but possibly workable. Personally I’d look for alternatives that lessened the grade, if at all possible. This will minimize the collateral damage when there is the unavoidable mishap.

7

Fred, thanks for the comments.

Okay, so my main takeaway from this is to keep the ladders absolutely flat, even if they are on the grade.

Duane.

8

Thanks Dave. Yes I think I would be okay here as I will be parking trains with two engines. The coupler failure is something I didn’t think about, but if one does fail it will probably be a disaster. :slight_smile:

Duane.

9

You are correct, I’m talking about a hidden staging yard.

Thanks for the comments.

Duane.

10

Granted… in your case.

For myself, my staging yard also contains partial trains (the return consist for locos that turn at locations off the layout) and cars that don’t happen to be in use for operations during that session. No law says that only complete trains can be left in a staging yard.