Earlier this week I asked you all about how to remove/add track to sections that are already ballasted. You all gave me very good tips, tricks and courage to make the change. I now have some new turnouts and flex to make my changes, but now I am wondering what I should really change. Below are some pics of what is there now, marked up with some question marks and proposed ideas… The yard seems hard to get in and out of and limited… parts of it are really more of industrial spurs… this is only my second layout as the first one was horrible…this one I am trying to do better but this is my first yard…
I know its my layout, and I can do whatever, and there are no right/wrongs (usually) but I am really open to any ideas, concepts… what you would do… etc. I am open to filling th
Maybe you should show us how your layout looks as a whole, and explain how your yard will need to function. Then it is possible to give some advice on how to improve your yard for that purpose.
I probably should of been more complete as I know this is a hard question to answer and as that Blog stated, perhaps unanswerable… Below is a very rough drawing of how this was supposed to go… very simple really…the bottom of the dogbone is supposed to be mountain/farm land…then about the middle of the bone is where the yard starts… the top part of the bone was supposed to be some sort of industry area…thus the one spur… I have not defined the industry nor the buildings… I just wanted to have a small yard to just do some small switching operations to load up cars to “appear” to be taking some items from the industry off to the mountain area and far away lands… part of the yard would be temporary storage as the instustry cars are loaded, then the train would pick up the stored cars and add it to the industry cars… Most of the time this layout would just be running the mainline… I really enjoy the scenery building and watching the trains as opposed to massive switching…its just a small 15’ x 30’ arizona room so I did not have a way of having lots of junctions, and cities, etc… one of the photos you can kind of see how it heads off to the mountain area…
I do have the yard book as well…I got it AFTER what you see is in place… So basically, I have way in and out of the yard… I have a place to stack/classify the cars, and I have the spur into the industry… but the one spur that ends near the engine house that I put “Extend?” in the first photo seems to be hard to use as I can only get cars into that spur from one direction… so I have to foul the main many times to get cars out due to the length. Same with the spur to the industry… so thats when I thought maybe I need a back door to those 2 spurs as I somewhat indicate with my ?mark lines in the photos…
I f You don’t want to redo everything again, even I am a poor designer, her are some suggestions:
Pics n°1: About the"extend", yes do it and join one more turnout to the next parallel track so your yard had one more ladder; anyway it’s better. If you have the place join one more. As far I could see whith the next shot you could join more track ladder to this yard by expanding a little the benchwork in the aisle. About the"main," if I well understand it’s a single track main and I see you have room to join a long siding here; it could help for operation. Put the entry turnout siding as far as possible of the first yard ladder turnout so you have some room to allow train movements in the yard whitout disturbing the main line.
Pics n°2: The sketches you put on this pics are an answer to my proposal about the first pics; you can use all these tracks to extend and to join more ladder track to your yard. About the main my “siding” could extend more farther than this first yard turnout (the one under the word main). The test track could be conciled in the yard but it’s not a good idea, you could also change the place of the main turnout to extand the yard ladder like the proposed (in red) turnouts again to make greater track ladder.
Pics n°3: I don’t know where the test rack is going but if it reach the main again this is a good opportunity to make a good siding; may be you can also place the entry siding turnout before the depot on the picture; the test track could be done by a small industrial spur on the siding running against the tall pine tree.
Pics n°’4: Difficult to see from where this track is coming but anyway if you want this crossover you will lost place on the yard track ladder and may be the run of your mainline didn’t ask fr a cross at this point, but I can’t say more because I didn’t have a w
I would be thinking about extending the spur and connect it back to the other yard tracks. In this manner, you could have an arrival/departure track and 2 classification tracks. Since it would be double ended, it would work for east and west bound trains. The other question is, how much “operation” do you wish to have? Trains need somewhere to go whether it is local (peddler) freights or through traffic. Do you have a time period and location for your model railroad? With respect to the last picture and the question of moving the mainline, I would always opt for the widest radius curves that are possible. I understand that this means a loss of real estate that can be used for other things.
Marc, I did post a trackplan as it stands now… along with what is going on… I just read these two articles and I think my problem is the cherry picking problem and also that the industry spur is part of the yard… so the “test track” is what I think would be more aptly described as a run-a-round? Also by reading these articles…my frustration is congestion… I have to stop the main to do just about anything in the yard due to length… the train is too long to use all of the yard… so I have to stop the main and switch things out to the main then continue… I am the only operator so i do not have sessions or waybils or any of that advanced stuff, im just keeping it simple…
It is a bit hard to grasp what you are trying to explain, but does the schematics below show how your old yard area is, and a reasonable approximation of what you are considering for your new yard area ?
I probably should of just posted these drawings as opposed to the pictures lol…but here in GREEN are the proposed changes that I was trying to indicate in the photos where I have the ?marks and the “Extend?” indicaitons…
Craig, as to Time period, 1970’s Southern Pacific and UP… I grew up in Reno, Nevada, and in the 70’s right through the middle of town right near the Casinos’s where I worked as a bus boy, they had a similar small track yard… I think they call it the Spurline then and now… (now they actually have the tracks lowered below the street level due to people getting run over. But my Scenery is going to be more desert as I live in Phoenix and I want to have it look similar to how it does just heading out of phoenix up toward Wickenburg… so my "industry is something the trains are helping feed…and my destination is off to Wickenburg essentially. So not TOOO much operation…just swing in sometimes… drop off a car or two at the industry…or to the engine house to be fixed…and then off to my points unknown, aka Wickenburg…
No. What you posted with proposed changes drawn in green seems to be something like this:
Rather than this, which was my first attempt to interpret your pictures:
And the purpose of the yard was to either hold a few cars to be taken to the only industry on the entire layout (a so far not chosen industry), or to place cars to be be repaired in the “engine house” which the yard tracks run straight through?
Then I would not worry too much about the yard. You will have more room to store rolling stock if the yard is a stub end as opposed to a through yard. Sounds like a lot of fun. Since it sounds like more RUNNING trains than prototype running. So go with the wider radius tracks.
Well after reading more of the Yard book and some of the suggestions in this thread…it seems that I really need more of a Drill Track…AND a way to jump off of the A/D track…(note the small green turnout where it says Yard). Here in Red is existing and Green is proposed… I am also proposing in Black more of a staging/drill extention…
Connect the 2 green tracks-you need only one drill track. Also, connect that pair to the A/D track to give yourself additional flexibility. Another small suggestion: move the engine house out of the yard and either put it at the end of a stub-spur off the yard or lose it altogether. Its location interferes with yard operations.
Dante, I do have the 2 green tracks connected you should see a small green turnout there…or do you mean where they connect to the black staging area?
YES definately on the engine house…I was going to put it at the end of the green stubbs…
I also think I need this new drill green line… the main issue is my ladder is not very long… so I should drill it back up in between the 2 main line runs as shown below?
What you need is not a dedicated A/D track or a drill track. What you have there is not even close to being a big classification yard with lots of traffic, where it is important to be able to clear the main fast.The rest of your layout seems to only support one train running at a time.
What you have is a single industry. Two if you count the car repair shop. All you need is a couple or three stub ended tracks and a double ended siding to run around trains, if you sometimes want to vary traffic on your layout by having the hamster run around the wheel in the opposite direction.
Stien, so I almost have what you suggest already, I just need to extend the track that I labeled early on as “Extend?” (currently deadending near the engine shop)…and adding one turnout on that extention … so what is now my industry track becomes the holding track…
the extention track will become the industry track
the turnout becomes the workshop track.
you have simplified it nicely! I think I was having issues trying to make what I had be more complex and something it was not…Again, I have not done this before, and that is why I am asking lol. I think you clicked the lightbulb on that was not screwed in very tight in my brain. Why cant you all just come over to my house and help! lol You all are so great and talented and experienced! I am in awe.
Btw - I expect you realize this already - but you don’t have to put the workshop on a short track next to the industry - you could easily sneak the workshop track behind the rail served industry, and have the workshop (and possibly some other stuff in the lower right hand corner of your loop, possibly branching into a couple of tracks.
Something like this:
Also, if you make the double ended siding longer (all around the loop), it can hold a longer train while you run another train. You can keep your old turnout on the mainline and just put a turnout at the rightmost end of the old double ended siding to make it a crossover there, and you have a fairly flexible siding arrangement. For example something like this:
If you want to be able to switch with one train while another train loops, you could always make the switching lead longer, so you can switch without going out on the leftmost main line:
