I am still laying track and have an opportunity to extend some industrial tracks from the original book plan.
I’m building a terminal/transfer/urban set layout built for Ops/switching for 3 to 4 operators.
The track I’m considering extending (or not) will be under a city/skyscraper area delivering things like
newsprint/paper for a newspaper and a city post office among other hardware concerns.
One one hand, on a small (8’X17’) layout, I’d like to make things a bit difficult to make switching jobs more challenging and last longer, but on the other hand, I’m tempted to extend them to make them hold more cars for on layout staging of a couple of trains (hidden trackage) and to make switching easier or go (possibly) faster.
Any advice/rules of thumb for deciding before I cover things up with upper bench top yards?
Some friends advise keeping one or two tracks short to make things more “interesting” others suggest making them longer to better represent big city industrial trains.
Looked for specific advice in Armstrong’s books but nothing real specific unless I missed it.
If so, go for as long a track (or two) as possible - you’ll appreciate the operational flexibility of the greater length at most times, and if you need to make thing a bit more challenging, just add an additional car here or there to the cut to be delivery (so instead of 2 boxcars of newsprint, the Printing Plant gets three boxcars - gives you an excuse to buy even more boxcar models).
Tony, I realize that pics are always helpful, but the area I’m contemplating isn’t “up” yet. Besides the layout is still just benchwork without the track we’re discussing here laid quite yet. (Next week or two.)
Chutton, I’ve been leaning towards what you’ve suggested. The original track plan had this proposed industrial area out in the open. Now that it’s under a 4X8 sheet of ply, I was thinking I sure won’t need the originally intended structure/scenery area available and longer tracks might be more useful.
I guess adding one or two “too many” cars to the cut would create the same (desired) “problem” as too short a track, giving me the best of both worlds.
. I hadn’t thought in the “inverse” of just adding more cars-essentially shortening the track anyway. The prototypical-ness of having 3 or 4 car length tracks under a big city industry just didn’t feel right at any rate.
In what way are short spurs “more interesting” than long spurs?
If you want to create switching challenges along a track, no matter how long the track is, use “sure spots” - tank cars with acids have to be spotted “just there” in order to be unloaded. Tank cars with fuel oil has to be spotted in this other spot. Box cars to be loaded has to be spotted in this third spot. You may have to move one one of more cars to pull or spot another.
I rarely join these design discussions, but I think Stein’s question at the outset if quite important, and the answer will be quite telling.
What do these fellers think is ‘interesting’ about shorter tracks, and why? If they enjoy having to do a lot of moves to get a consist back in order for the next main line move, or the other way around, heck, you could go gangbusters with a 14 tail on a switchback. Would a revenue-positive railroad accept all that work and wear-and-tear if it was the only circumstance on their lines that kept them close to breaking even? No, they would probably lean on the customer for some help to make the facility less operationally costly. Maybe split the cost for some ties and rails and another turnout…or something.
So, how long should they be? I would go generous, personally. Such tracks have a way of becoming car sponges anyway, so the longer the better. Adding more turnouts to have more of the shorter kind is counter productive in my estimation.
The discussion with my ops buddies I was referring to stems from one particular location on a layout we all operate on in a round robin group. There is a meat packing plant located there as well as some other complex trackage, tunnel entrances/exits nearby, etc.
It’s one of the guy’s favorite switching jobs because one of the sidings was accidentally made a bit short requiring a lot of moves to get all of one’s cars in to the plant only after moving some out, etc. Basically a switching puzzle that wasn’t originally designed or intended to be one.
As an Ops beginner, I got the distinct impression that this was a “favorable” thing on a smaller layout and at least one of the other guys decided to purposely include a “too short” siding on the layout he’s building at present. So…I started thinking about my own plan’s shorter than it has to be siding.
As I said, the original plan was not under a city platform (tabletop) and left room for structures I don’t need or will not have there.
Mmmm - not sure I understands exactly how this switching puzzle works. Obviously having several spots along one track means that you sometimes will have to pull some cars from one spot before you can spot cars at a spot further down the track.
Personally, I find switching instructions like these (from Linda and Dave Sand’s Cedar River Terminal layout on their web page the Sand Castle: http://www.sandsys.org/modelrr/modelbuilt/crt/) more interesting that a short switchback or whatever to force me to shuttle cars in and out one car at a time:
"Winter’s Warehouses: These two buildings each had two tracks leading to three doors. Behind each door was a different business. So each business had two spots–a near one and a far one. The customer could unload the car nearest the door directly but had to unload the other car by going through the near car then across a ramp laid between the cars. This meant that if a railroad crew picked up only the car nearest the building and didn’t have another car for that customer, the cr
Another option is to enforce a temporary length limitation on the siding or spur in question. Block the extra length with anything from ties to excess cars. Then you have the puzzle when you want it, and when you don’t want it, it’s not there. A permanently installed puzzle is just that - you have to solve the switching puzzle every time you use that piece of track.
My shelf layout plan has several “puzzles” built into it for when I choose to use them. The lack of runaround in my lower terminal (essentially a 3 spur yard) forces the use of two locomotives to get a train out. But by tying the ends of 2 of the tracks together with a turntable, I now have a runaround when I want it, or don’t want to use 2 locomotives. But by simply ruling the turntable off limits, the puzzle is back in place.
The complexity which is almost impossible to set up a work-around for is a switchback or set of switchbacks. Several operators on prominent layouts that featured switchbacks said the switchbacks got very old after a while. Others enjoy the switchbacks. We shall see on my layout.
Knowing the industry and how the cars will be moved helps to clarify things. For example, on a large Purina Mill I am going to build (but just mocked up for now) it helped a lot. On the prototype the cars would be spotted by the RR with the first car to be unloaded right above the btw the tracks grate. And then someone from the mill would pull the loaded cars one by one with a cable up to the grate area to be unloaded and then past it. Eventually all cars woul have been unloaded and moved. Then on its next run the local crew would pull the empties and replace them with loaded cars again with the first car to be unloaded right above the grate. Though I would have liked to have more track length and cars, my track is 9 car lengths long–for the five spoted by the RR and then pulled down to the end of the track by the mill with an overlap of one car. So my crew would only pull 5 at a time but the track length because of the methodology has to be 9 car lengths long. Now, if your industry has its own locomotive or trackmobile and another track to move cars without the need of a railroad switch crew, you might be able to get by with less track length but more cars. If you need to know how a particular industy handles cars, there is a railway op group at yahoo and not surprisingly many model railroaders have worked for industries served by the railroad and some as fans have observed car movements.
thanks steinjr, Fred and wabash. I’ll mull your recommendations over. I did think about using a once in awhile blocking of the long track to create a puzzle when wanted. Maybe one of those luck of the draw jobs for a car card system. Very helpful guys. Thanks.
Don’t rule out more than one industry on the same track. This was common at industries that weren’t worked very often or when most on the same track weren’t. I have seen as many as three on the same track. Sometimes the switch crew would have to respot cars to get new cars in or empties out but it happened. I’m not a big fan of puzzle switching manuevers as they aren’t very prototypical. On the prototype (especially in the old days) if the crew got in a pickle like a swtich facing the wrong way and no nearby run around track, they’d do a flying switch manuver, for example. Then there were poling poles and pockets but I don’t know any railroaders, including a 95 years old veteran friend that ever used them.
