This may be an seemingly old question but here it is: Is there any set way that a railroad would set up an engine terminal? (In my case, this terminal would handle both steam [3 2-6-0s] and a diesel [S-4] engine.) I was trying to do a plan on how to fit everything needed on three tracks. (The track to the far left is for the gondolas for the Walthers cinder conveyor & ash pit only. I am also using a Life-Like Coaling Tower, Atlas Water Tank and a Walthers Sanding Towers & Drying House.) The plan is to use the light blue and the white tracks in the diagram. Any ideas anyone can provide would be welcomed as I am completely stumped. 
What exactly is it that you are stumped about?
Are you looking for a more efficient track plan?
Rich
What I am looking for is a more efficient building plan so that the engines don’t have to go all over creation to get serviced. In other words, to use a retail term, to get all the shopping done in one place. If that does change the track plan somewhat, I would be open to that. But the colored tracks on the end of the service track stay in some form as they are storage tracks for the steam engines. The Inspection Pit would need to be on there somewhere as well.
There isn’t really a set formula, but in general railroads would try to set it up so that engines coming off of trains could dump their ashes and proceed directly to the enginehouse, or engines coming out of the enginehouse could take on fuel or water directly on their way to the yard or station where they’d couple up to their train.
If I’m reading your trackplan right, an engine coming off a train would have to go from the station to a track to dump ashes, then backtrack to the station and switch onto another line to go to the enginehouse. If possible a real railroad would have this all be in line for greater efficiency.
Use the white track for your supplies, coal hoppers to load coal tower, sand to the sand house. Adjust the structures so that the sand house delivery point to the locomotives and the coal chute to load the loco bunkers fit on the track that leads to the inspection pit. I would also add a pipe for water delivery to your track, the water tower could be anywhere near by. A fuel crane for the diesel would need to be near by as well as a fuel tank and possibly a different sand delivery pipe. The ash conveyor can have the pit on the main track and the single ended track can hold the cinder car. Continuing on past the inspection pit a turn out and a two stall engine house could be added so the Steamers can be lubricated and have minor repairs done. N&W called these structures Lubritoriums (sp) and they were quite efficient in getting the locomotives ready for service.
With out dong anything but adjusting your spacing possibly and adding a turn out you could have quite a service area in a very small space. The turn out and the two bays would give you a location where the occasional longer term issue could be resolved with your locomotive fleet and you could still do the minor servicing of your remaining locomotives. The engine house would also be a place where critical spares could be kept for your fleet. so you could now have destinations for spare parts, coal, sand, oil for diesel engine as well as lubricants and a track that would originate ashes that would need to be dumped.
Seems to me your compact track plan just generated several more car loads of freight as well as a place to service your locos. Also other than the hopper for coal and the ash pit the sand house and fuel oil track could be shared as it seems unlikely that both would require a car of supplies at the same time.
Well, let’s face it.
Engine servicing facilities take up a ton of real estate as you are finding out.
It is entirely reasonable that you want to have an ash pit, a two track coaling tower, sanding towers and drying house, and an inspection pit.
And, don’t forget that you will want some provision for adding water to your steamers.
The problem with your setup, as I am sure you have already concluded, is that you can only service one locomotive at a time, since each serviced locomotive needs to back out of the facility to make room for another.
What you need, if you have the room, is an escape track to permit serviced locomotives to get out of the way and back into action, making room for other locomotives to be serviced.
Rich
I like J.Rob’s suggestion of putting the coal and sand delivery, along with the cinder car, all on the same track. You could also include a spot on the same track for a tank car to bring in diesel fuel. Your siding (in white) to the right of the coaling tower could do all of this if you lengthened it. I’d place the ash dump at the bumper end, then the sandhouse, the tank car unloading station (the tank itself can be placed anywhere or even be left unmodelled) and the coal supply closest to the turnout. You’ll need water for your steamers, too, but you can put standpipes (available from Tichy or Walthers) anywhere, with the supply tank (with or without its own spout) placed some distance away, where more space is available
With the addition of a turnout at the end of the track which you’ve labelled as “Ash Pit”, you’d have the run-around suggested by Rich. Put the ash pit itself on the through track, closer to the hoist.
I was faced with a similar problem trying to squeeze an engine servicing facility between a double tracked mainline and the aisle and had only 16" with which to work. I managed to include an engine shed/shop, coal and sand tower, a turntable, car shop, oil house, and outdoor crane. Unfortunately, there was no logical place to include an ash pit.
Wayne
Wayne, that does seem to work out rather well, especially within that 16".
Apologies for not posting sooner. I was visiting family that came through on the way home from Christmas for the weekend in a locale with dial-up internet and my laptop doesn’t like connecting that way. Given that my plan, with having the steam storage on the same track, one engine at a time seems to make since. Second, the section of line depicted including the yard on the left hand side of the plan is designed for holding a tourist railroad that uses the three 2-6-0s to pull 6 MDC 34’ Overtons (the original MDC ones not the new Athearn ones). As such, the comment about handling lots of freight isn’t relevant. The yard will have a car shop on it for storage and repair of the Overton cars. I was intending the white track as the delivery track anyway with it being adjusted when items actually get laid out to get the proper spacing with the light blue siding holding the ash cars so they can stay put as I don’t think that a day’s ash with this configuration would fill a gondola car. (Those cars being Accurail 41’ AAR Steel Gondolas.) The green section of track is the restaurant/station for said tourist line and the mid-point of the trip. The maroon track is a reverse loop given that the trains park with the tail end at the “bottom” of the yard and to turn to go the proper direction from that track. The only thing the diesel does is to handle switching and maintenance duties (such as the coal, ash, sand etc.). And I did forgot about fueling the diesel so thank you for reminding me of that one.
Depending on the length of the run and quality of the coal (poor coal usually makes more ash) a 2-6-0 in tourist train service would probably make a pick-up truck load or two of ash a day. It would take quite a while to fill a gondola.
A lot of railroads just have a local fuel oil dealer bring a tank truck around to refuel the diesels.
Some locations buy bagged sand and manhandle it up onto the engines-not a fun job, but it gets the engines sanded.
These are all good suggestions if your space is at a premium. Another space-saver was used on some CNR branchlines in southern Ontario. For this, coal was shipped-in in gondolas, The locomotive’s tender would be spotted alongside, then a crane, equipped with a clamshell bucket, would transfer coal directly from the gondola into the tender’s bunker. If you have room, the gondola could be left, until emptied, wherever you’ve spotted it, or, if it’s needed elsewhere, the balance of the coal could be transferred to the ground.
Jordan Products makes a nice kit for a tracked steam-powered crane (In the link, scroll past the steam shovel - the crane is a little farther down the page) and [url=http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=custom%20finishing%20clamshell%20bucket%20instructions&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CEAQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.discounttrainsonline.com%2FCustom-Finishing-Construction-Accessories-12-Yard-Capacity-Clamshell-Bucket%2Fitem247-7282.html&ei=z1ICT7DXGaju0gHI0bi4CA&usg=AFQjCNH3pSu-lKK7819WZS-3cEwjJgLdBQ&cad=rja]Cust
While the coal gondola idea is a good one. I already have the hopper cars to deliver the coal to my railroad. (They are a pair of Con-Cor Greenville ex-NP Hoppers with some renumbering based on prototype hoppers I would see often on the track outside some windows at my high school.) Given the length of the line, I have a second coaling station on the other end of the line. I feel that it justifies having the hopper cars.
I already have the Walthers Sanding Towers kit as well. (I am one of these people that feels that it is better to get the items you want when you can get them. Otherwise, you can’t get them or have a challenging time getting in the future. It can also sometimes be more expensive. 
)
As to the suggestions on to redesign the track arrangement, would the following be more in line with what has been suggested?