So I have been giving my yard some thought and since that is the last part I will actually build, I thought I might play around a bit after updating the plan with the outer loop as it has been laid.
I’m trying to answer as many of my own questions as I can by using the 10 commandments of yard design, I think this design is better, but maybe not the final one, but a step in the right direction.
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I don’t think it fouls the main, I don’t do much switching, but I do want to learn and while I’m playing with that I’d like to run two trains in opposite directions, I can do that and switch without my train stopping for the yard hack.
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I have a dedicated lead
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As far as not fouling the yard lead, I have a stub pocket for eastbound incoming engines, and a long run around to get twestbounds back to the facility without fouling.
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I have an a/d track and a train length run around that can double as a second a/d track
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caboose track got it
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runaround, got it
7 I can reach it all
- Aux tracks, I thought to put my service tracks off the right of the turntable, maybe use the rear two yard tracks as a rip/ bad order area and have the tracks terminate at either a car shop or locate the roundhouse machine shop in such a way that the rear can act as car shop.
9 This will be the difficult part because for me the yard will be a place of storage, but I get the point, about overcrowding, don’t bring in more than you can steadily put out.
10 A lot of making it easy to run is still in the planning stage, so its important to get it right
Immediate reaction: seems like a too big yard for your layout. Craig Bisgeier’s ten point checklist is mainly intended to remind people of things to consider in order to build an efficient flat switching yard, so the yard won’t turn out to be a limiting bottleneck on a layout with quite a bit of traffic.
Your layout seems mainly designed to let trains do display running around and around in two parallel loops, maybe with a little local switching (two industry spurs on outer loop, two-three on inner loop). No obvious staging, not obviously modeling of a RR junction, no obvious intent to do a lot of interchange with other railroads. How many different destinations will you need to be able to sort cars into when building a train ?
Layout seems designed for maybe one or two operators at a time. Are you really expecting train traffic to be so heavy that you for efficiency’s sake need to be able to e.g. have one operator take a train into one A/D track or out of one A/D track while another operator is switching the yard, in order to be able to clear the inner main line fast, in order to allow other trains to pass by the yard on the inner main without being slowed down by a train waiting to enter the yard ?
I would recommend thinking a little more about how you intend to use your yard in normal operations, and maybe scale back quite a bit.
Also, even though it has the elements on Craig’s check list, the A/D tracks and engine/caboose handling is organized in such a way that handling trains will be (IMO) pretty clumsy.
Here is a schematic of your design where I have tried to give all tracks a name (I might have guess your intention wrong on a couple of the tracks):
For the purpose of discussing the design, I will use the words "w
Dear CEO
i would go for another list. I numbered the tracks from the botom up and counted ten tracks You can compare your ten commandments with my list. Your design had the followinging tracks:
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track 1&2: main
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track 3: a&d and turntable lead (only 2 foot long, very short indeed for a&d)
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track 4/7: classification tracks
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track 8/9: aux tracks (RIP, …) or storage
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track 10: cabooses on the (too) short run around.
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two yardleads that are stub ended(can’t be used by a train leaving the yard.)
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a proper enging service area seems missing
To lengthen the a&d track you could build the left throat around the corner. It comes down to use part of the lower yard lead combined with track 3 for a&d. I assume you are not really building trains, just cutting off a block of cars for local switching or adding the switched cars to a train. So you don’t need that much classification tracks. Now my list:
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track 1&2: main
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track 3 : a&d
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track 4/5 : classification
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track 6/7 : aux tracks
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track 8/9 : engine service area and TT-leads
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track10 : cabooses ( on a longer runaround)
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storage can be done everywhere a along the line, in real life there often is a nonused siding somewhere.
I’m glad I posted this. You have both given me excellent food for thought. I’m considering adopting your yard idea Stein, it gives me a lot of what I need (stoage and an workable yard to learn some basic switching in)
Paulus, as usual you have pulled apart what I miss due to over exposure… A trait I posess in excess and often mistake for abrasion in others (touche’) LOL… I would love to hear or read rather your thoughts on laying out small towns… I have tons of research and resources and references to other threads and a very good book from the MR library… What I need is a substance over form, no nonsense, just the facts pep talk…
Thank you both for the help…
You are welcome to use anything you like and change or discard anything you don’t like - it was just meant as an illustration of some concepts.
A yard can be a pretty simple affair, or a fairly elaborate affair.
Here is one example of a model railroad yard design, based on a real yard in Vermont:
Description of the yard and operations can be found in this thread: http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/133413/1498413.aspx.
My own layout just has (or will have, once I finish the rebuilding) a very small two track industry support yard off a double ended siding with a pocket:
But I still plan to run three switching jobs and a transfer run out of this tiny little yard:
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The Yard Transfer job transfers up to 8 cars and a caboose between the Main Yard (a hidden staging track) and the River Industry Yard.
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The Barge job takes inbound cars from the industry yard down to the Barge Terminal (bottom of layout), pick up outbounds from the barge terminal, sets out inbounds, and returns outbounds to the River Industry Yard
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The Warehouse job takes inbound cars from the industry yard up to the Warehouse District (upper wall, left of road overpass), picks up outbound cars, sets out inbound cars and returns outbound cars to the industry yard.
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The Mill job takes inbound cars from the industry yard to th
CEO, keep in mind Stein has a very cleverly disigned pike. The trains his yard handles are short transfercuts coming in from a (near by)divisionpoint yard; the yard is off the pike, in staging.
You seem to like longer trains on a double tracked main. I live close to Bussum, a nice small town of 40000 with a station with a small yard. Problem is 5 trains every hour of the day, both east and west. So switching the teamtracks, freigthouse and the three local industry’s had to be done completely independent of mainline operations.To day even 12 trains E and W every hour.
Just a few miles down the road is Hilversum, apart from being a far bigger town, it has a junction too. More tracks, more urban buildings but it was not a division point. It had a small TT for powering passenger trains on the branch. Ten miles even further was Amersfoort, something like Tony’s Koesters Frankfurt. A division point yard with a large TT and being on a crossing a lot of classification going on.
You have to make clear what kind of yard you’r aiming for; what kind of trains are to be dealt with. In Bussum a TT is out of place. And just as on Stein’s layout only short wayfreights did the jobs. In Hilversum cuts of cars were taken out of the "main"freights, for local industry’s and the branch. While the mains followed their route, the Bussum wayfreight did the actual switching; when it finally arrived in town.
And even a model has it’s “limitations”, when working with a two man crew on a double tracked mainline it’s quite possible the second main is free for switchjobs. I thought you wanted to model a Hilversum like situation, where longer "main"freights are involved.
When you’r going for a small