I have been looking up medium size train yards to find a list of their facilities and cannot find a thing except for Norfolk Altoona Works. I’m interested in the facilities that are used in train yards and before I buy any model railroading books I would like to ask my fellow modelers and train lovers first what shops are located in a stub end train yard?
it depends on the R.R. , and the size of the yard, but I would say locomotive shops i.e. sanding facilities and repair facilites, also mabye a paint booth. Another is the car shops, and a rerely modeled item loco wash facilites.
Manning HAve you tried the MR layout data base. I got alot of ideas from there for my yards. I have two one main yard and a transfer yard. I put a Machine works at the stub end of my yard.
Yes and i have a few n scale and track layout magazines as well.
The reason I am asking is because I have a few steam locomotives (two 2-8-0s,one 4-6-0, and one 4-8-4) that will pull special tour trains and it sits north of the main train yard track, with it own shops so it wouldn’t slow traffic down within the yard. I already planned and design the engine houses next to the passenger coaches (with an attach passenger car shop for any needed repairs). I have a thought of putting a conversion shop (to make it seem like i’m converting some locomotives into another type) and a wheel shop to make wheels for the passenger cars and locomotives. I’m also thinking of a passenger car yard with a conversion shop to convert old passenger cars into my railroad standard passenger cars.
Other than the steam side of my yard, I’m redesigning my yard. I have right now just a 2 stall car shop, an enginehouse for my 4 Long haul diesels (2 SD45s, 2 Dash 8s)s, a switcher shed for my Southern Pacific “tiger” NW2s, and a locomotive shop for the locomotives. I know the dispatcher, control tower, offices, and apartments are apart of the yard, I’m not going to add them to my blueprints for the sole fact I have enough room on the plywood to construct and place them.
It’s quite funny that my trainyard is the hardest when everything else is easier to place.
Railroads today uses the bare minimum infrastructure when it comes to buildings and that depends on if they are really needed and how many and what type of employees is required and is the man hours involved worth the investment? In the majority of the cases yards has been downed sized.
Can any freight car or as in your case passenger car be repaired on site by a rip track?
How close is the nearest shops?
Can fuel be contracted? Can laborers add bagged sand by hand into the locomotives?
You see unless that yard is a 24/7 operation with several trains arriving or departing to justify the costs they won’t be any fancy shops or fancy engine service areas.
Why?
Because of the various shop and craft Union work agreements the cost to operate a small yard with all the trimmings maybe prohibited.
Now your railroad could have a centralized yard that does all the shop work on cars and locomotives.You would have the required shops,stores( railroad speak for a supply building),cranes etc,etc.
The passenger cars will have an adjoining shop at the shop, but will need a switcher to pull it.
The shops in the main trainyard are close together, scale size 10-15 feet apart.
The fuel will be alternative fuels and diesel full out within their respective sheds. Fuel will be haul to the trainyard by tankcars into standing pumps that are attached to the sheds and service station. Sand will be either pumped in from the ceiling within their sheds or at the service station. if they should “run” out of sand a MOW locomotive will pull a sand train to full that locomotive.
My yard is relatively small and i only have a few shops for both steam and diesel. the main industries for my railroad are: mining (coal, limestone, gravel, and sand), lumber, bagged and prefab concrete, bricks, scrap, and two warehouses that are also terminals for trucks to send goods
Hello Mr. LMD,
Most medium sized modern day train yards will have a couple of tracks for servicing engines. Often consisting of a concrete pad, sanding tower, fuel tanks and maybe a small metal building for locomotive servicing. You will probably find a couple of stub ended RIP tracks for bad order cars along with their large hi-rail trucks with attached side booms. One definite structure is a metal or brick sided yard office for the yardmaster and train crews. Be sure to park white SUVs in the parking lot for the Trainmasters or a Road Foreman of Engines. Maintenance of Way usually has their own building and you can often find a chain link fence surrounding some of their supplies. One thing I’ve seen a lot of is old 40’ boxcars with their trucks removed, painted gray and converted into storage buildings. A microwave radio tower with electrical boxes is another item that would probably be on site and it too would be surrounded by a chain link fence. Most have a propane tank nearby. Also near the MOW area you can find stacks of crossties, sections of rail, tie plates and anchors along with metal drums of spikes. Besides their hi-rail trucks you will usually see a backhoe and dumptruck. Maybe a bucket dozier, hi-rail Gradall or small excavator.
Hope this helps!
Tim
NS Locomotive Engineer
I have been looking at Norfolk Altoona or Juniata shops and saw many pictures of locomotives being converted, do you know that if any other railroad other than NS does that because I was thinking of placing some dummy damage non-powered locos at a conversion shop i was thinking of placing and thought it would be realistic because i know many railroads convert many steam, but i havent seen or read many diesel being converted except for NS.
Yes your info helps a lot 
This is a random question, but was there shop or building where you could find diesel cabs sitting outside of the building or were the cabs and other parts stored in the supply house?
You said Modern Yard with steam and diesel. I would say the 1940’s and 1950’s with both types of locos would not be considered modern. Think about that.
Also, scatter a couple stand pipes around the yard for water. Locos needed more stops for water than coal.
A yard would have had maybe few switchers doing a lot of switching duty and would not have to go all the way back to the fuels/water track. Yards would have been quite busy.
Rich
my steam locos are just for tour trains not for hauling freight. also the UP and certain other railroads who have steam and diesel use both on special tours as well.
Yes this is called a heavy repair shop and may have several large buildings to include a diesel motor rebuild shop,a wheel shop and paint shop where locomotives are repainted.These heavy repair shops are massive and have the capacity to rebuild locomotives.
How massive?
A layout could be built and operated as a heavy repair shop!
As a sad side note.Many railroads have closed these shops in some areas and operates a central heavy repair/rebuild centers…I fear as the railroads keep downsizing the number of employees these centers will close and all heavy repair will be done by a locomotive or freight car rebuild contractor.
well for my layout i was thinking of having motor rebuild shop to save time and money on buying new news, i already drew in a wheel shop one for the steam and one for the diesel locomotives since one will be used more than the other. a paint shop i was thinking of attaching to a conversion shop.
i was thinking of having at least 3 “bad” locos waiting to be service on to join my work fleet. I’m sorry to hear that they are downsizing which is just as bad if not up worse than steam shop employees getting fire bc of diesels
Also, the link below is from the Altoona pic gallery and that is where i got my question from since i saw some cabs on the ground
http://www.altoonaworks.info/pics/l-myers/jbs3/120314_12.jpg
[quote user=“Mr. LMD”]
EMD#1:
Hello Mr. LMD,
Most medium sized modern day train yards will have a couple of tracks for servicing engines. Often consisting of a concrete pad, sanding tower, fuel tanks and maybe a small metal building for locomotive servicing. You will probably find a couple of stub ended RIP tracks for bad order cars along with their large hi-rail trucks with attached side booms. One definite structure is a metal or brick sided yard office for the yardmaster and train crews. Be sure to park white SUVs in the parking lot for the Trainmasters or a Road Foreman of Engines. Maintenance of Way usually has their own building and you can often find a chain link fence surrounding some of their supplies. One thing I’ve seen a lot of is old 40’ boxcars with their trucks removed, painted gray and converted into storage buildings. A microwave radio tower with electrical boxes is another item that would probably be on site and it too would be surrounded by a chain link fence. Most have a propane tank nearby. Also near the MOW area you can find stacks of crossties, sections of rail, tie plates and anchors along with metal drums of spikes. Besides their hi-rail trucks you will usually see a backhoe and dumptruck. Maybe a bucket dozier, hi-rail Gradall or small excavator.
Hope this helps!
Tim
NS Locomotive Engineer
I have been looking at Norfolk Altoona or Juniata shops and saw many pictures of locomotives being converted, do you know that if any other railroad other than NS does that because I was thinking of placing some dummy damage non-powered locos at a conversion shop i was thinking of placing and thought it would be realistic because i know many railroads conve
EMD#1
That’s something i want for my trainyard. I was also thinking of doing with the Ringely Brothers do with their passenger cars in they pay old passenger cars and gut them before rebuilding them. That’s what I’m planning on having on my layout to make it unique. I’m thinking, since you said mostly EMD are being rebuilt, i would use a lot of EMDs and some non-EMD.
Have you tried google maps or Bing maps and looking at pics of yards. It can give you some idea of what they have and what you can model. Here is a UP yard in Portland. http://binged.it/KMfXU0 and a smaller BNSF in Vancouver Wa. that has plenty of modeling options with near by industries served by rail. http://binged.it/KMge9z
i look at railroad railyard using google map and cannot find any info about their shops except for Norfolk.
You are not building a train yard, you are building a shop complex.
A train yard, per se, has none of the the things you are trying to model.
Why don’t you just list what you want to model and do so. You are obviously freelancing. Looking at Altoona shops, you are looking at what was one of the largest shop complexes in the world. Another modern huge complex is Jenks Shops in N Little Rock, AR on the UP. One of the problems you are having is your trying to find a prototype for a combination of shops that doesn’t exist. Real railroads don’t put all those things in one place.
For example the UP’s passenger car shops are in Council Bluffs, IA, the major rebuild shop is in N Little Rock, AR, the steam shop is in Cheyenne and car shops are in Palestine, TX and Desoto, MO.
No railroad has a shop that makes wheels. Those are made by steel companies. What railroads might do, is mount them on axles or turn them to reshape worn ones. You would make 1000 times more wheelsets for freight cars than for engines or passenger cars.
A typical smaller yard would have a yard office, a service track with fuel, water and sand and maybe a RIP track.
Only a bigger facility would have a covered service track or RIP track and only a very large facility would have an engine house (which by the way are used to REPAIR engines. If the engine is working it won’t be sitting in the engine house. In 30 years of working for railroads i haven’t found anything other than a tourist line that keeps a switcher in a shed. The vast majority of locomotives spend their entire life sitting outside unless they are broken or being inspected (4x per year).