How big of a yard?

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

I want to know how big of a yard i can have on 3 by 8 board. Pics of the yard i have now are at http://ztrainman.tripod.com/ Also what types of buildings would be good for my layout. I’m modeling NS , CN and CSX in 1997. Thanks.

2

If you follow the advice in this thread → http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=41793 you will space your tracks at roughly 2" apart. If you start 2" from each edge, you can fit 17 tracks across 3 feet. Once you allow for a ladder at one end, your longest tracks will be something like 6-7 feet, with the shortest being something like 3-4 feet. If it’s a double ended yard, you will have less room. (As a comparison, at our modular club, we have two portable yards that are about 24’ long with 7-8 tracks plus double main line).

If you are creating this yard just for staging, you can gain more room by building a sector plate instead of a ladder (also saves $$$ on turnouts [;)]) or treating the whole “yard” like a transfer table and mounting it on drawer slides.

Andrew

3

A lot of it depends on the switches you use and whether you have straight or compound ladder. If you use #6 switches it takes 1 foot of run to get to another track. If you run the connection to the rest of the layout down the middle of the 3 ft width you can but mirror image ladders on each side and double the number of tracks for the same length of lead.
Put a #3 wye as the first switch and then pair of #6 switches. You now have 4 tracks in 21".
The next step is compound ladder. Make the first switch a #3 wye. On the left leg put a left hand #6 and on the right leg put a righthand #6. Then you can go to all right hand switches on the left side and all left hand switches on the right side. You now have 8 tracks in 33-36" Adding another layer of switches on tho there can easily get you the full 16 tracks in 45-48".

Dave H.

4 
Hi Dave,

Not trying to be "difficult" here but I'm going nuts trying to fit in the most length of staging I can, and so I need to make the throat on a curve as the room for staging is L-shaped. The long wall is 14 feet, the short part of the L, where the throat turnouts start is three feet. This point is fed by a double track offf of a wye. The width (depth?) of the area for staging is three feet.

I've been playing around on paper and it kinda looks like the double track should come into the staging area in the middle of the width, with half the staging going to the left, and the other half going to the right, similar to what you've stated above, but on a curve! The problem I'm having in trying to figure this out is because the throat part the staging yard apparently needs to be made up, at least partially it seems, of curved turnouts (ideally Peco for me). My goal here is to make the actual staging tracks AS LONG AS POSSIBLE, but don't know how to figure out the ideal throat configuration, especially on a curve and trying not
5

Don’t think I can help you, in 30 years of model railroading, I have never used a commercial curved turnout. I’ve handlaid some, but never commercial. Have you looked at doing a pinwheel ladder?

Get a left and right hand switch. Photocopy them. Make a couple dozen copies. On your layout area tape some brown paper. Draw lines on two inch centers on part of the paper. Cut out the paper switches and lay them out on the paper to try out different alignments. If you find one you like, tape/rubber cement the paper switches to the brown paper. You now have full size plans. Buy the switches you need to complete the project.

Dave H.

6

Paul,

If your staging yard throat is accessible (i.e. not operated remotely) and you want the most room possible, give up on the turnouts altogether. Use a sector plate to route trains in and out. This does away with the throat, all the turnouts, and gives you much more room - makes every track as long as possible.

Here’s a picture of a setup a friend of mine uses for his staging. Works really well, and it is on a curve as well…

http://www.ovar.ca/Mitchell/Staging_Switch-2.jpg
(About his layout - http://www.ovar.ca/Mitchell/john_mitchell.htm)

Andrew

7

It is now a 2 by 8 .

8

masonjar: do you per chance know what is the distance between the levels on john mitchell’s layout? say from the top of the rails on the bottom level to the bottom of the upper level fascia?

9

I have an 8’x16’ layout with a 4’x8’ access space in the middle and two of the sides are 2’ wide and i have a double track main and 8 yard tracks in the 2’ space. The track centers are spaced 2" apart. I hope this will help you out.

10

Thanks for the good info, Dave. I’ve got Andy’s book on yards, too, I’ll need to go over again.

I have some peco’s and curved ones, too, from the old layout. Don’t know why I didn’t come up with the idea to make photocopies but I’m glad you did!

My need to squeeze as much length as possible from the yard tracks is because a couple of my intended trains are fairly long and I want to keep compromising on their length to a minimum.

11

Andrew,

Hmm, I’ll have to give this some thought. I’ve printed out the photo at the link you gave for reference. Yes, the throat area IS accessible. In fact, it is immediately to the right of where I am putting the dispatcher as I was intending for him to manually line up the staging turnouts and keeping an eye out for any derailments. If the sector plate is do-able, this would be a natural.

Thanks for the suggestion!