The plan is to build a HO pre-WWII layout that would be a straight 16’ long, by no more than 2’ wide. It’s still a year away from start and I am a beginner to trains (but not modeling) so excuse me for any ignorance I may exhibit. I’d like solo operationing sessions of an hour or so. Scenery (including non railroad buildings) is as import as operations.
I am trying to decide if I want to include a yard. I am not planning on more than 4 or 5 industries, and hoping to find some that need multiple spots.
If a branchline receives cars from the main line, would they sort them in the yard before heading off to drop them off (which would make a yard useful), or would they take them as they are and make extra switching moves when they get to the industries? Would a shortline be any different?
If the trains aren’t sorted in the yard, would there be any reason to have a yard on a layout this size?
I’ll appreciate any all input and suggestions. I’m trying to get the basics straight before I start planning the actual layout.
Welcome to model railroading. Operations can be highly entertaining, especially with friends participating.
Since you will be limited in space, a yard at one end of the layout would serve both as staging and an active switching yard. The yardmaster would be responsible for assembling trains in the yard. This includes blocking cars together to make them easier for a road crew to deliver the various industries along the line. If you have a main line and a branch line, you could run two trains using two road crews. A yardmaster and two road crews gives you at least 3 operators. Of course, you can still do it all yourself.
When preparing your track plan, you would want to include a “run-around” track in the yard to allow the switching loco to access both ends of a train. Likewise, you would need to include a run-around track on both the main and branch lines to allow the locos to access both ends of each train for switching purposes and to turn the train before heading back to the yard. This is especially important if your industries have both facing and trailing point turnout access. For clarity, a facing point turnout is one a train can run straight into without stopping, while a trailing point turnout requires the train to travel just past the turnout, then back into the spur or siding.
I’d suggest studying the various track plans available on this website as well as asking for more suggestions form this forum. There are a lot of very experienced model railroaders on this forum and, at least collectively, we’ve seen it all. Also remember that there are no dumb questions here. We’ve all had great success as well as abysmal failures. Use our knowledge to help yourself avoid the latter.
They do organize the cars before leaving so the fewest number of moves are needed on the line.
A yard does not need to be very large It can be only two or three tracks all of 3 feet long Just needs to be big enough to handle the number of cars running through it on any given “day” Others will expand on this. There are many good switching layout plans out there for something of the size you have. Operations can easily run well past an hour.
I am seeing lots of people starting to utilize a separate rolling table with a yard on it. They have it under the existing layout stored and bring it out and position it connected the the branch or main only when they run trains, this allows more use of limited space. Something to think of.
What you’re describing sounds like what I had for several years when I first started my current layout. The first part I built was about 15’ by 16" built on shelfs. There are/were several industries there, each receiving 1-2 cars. I had a ‘mainline’ running near the middle, with a runaround track that would handle 8-9 cars, so an engine could serve trailing and facing point spurs. Since like you I’m ‘solo’ and only wanted to do an hour or so at a time, it worked out pretty well.
Anyway, you certainly could have a small yard, that would add some time and ‘operating interest’ that you may or may not want. Otherwise, you could just have one track somewhere on the layout that is an interchange track. A switcher would take the cars left there and switch them out for the cars at the industries, and then put those cars on the interchange track for the ‘other railroad’ to pick up. Note that it could be a connection to the same railroad you’re modelling, a mainline freight drops off cars at night and you switch them out during the day. The interchange track is kinda like a one-track fiddle yard.
That would be a good excuse for an ‘assigned switcher’ or two - maybe a two stall enginehouse and a small engine service are for coal / water / sand. Of course the coal and sand would come in via rail at the interchange - the engine facility is in effect an industry to be served.
You could do something similar with something like a swing-up track addition to the end of the layout, say 3-4 feet long with one or two tracks. When you’re going to operate the layout, you swing up the add-on section and put cars on it. At the end, you take cars left there back off and put it down (it could be some other connection, but something temporary anyway.)
You could also do it as a mainline running through the whole layout from end to end, with maybe a double-ended side track in the middle somewhere. A mainline freight comes thru at night and sets
The caboose doesn’t have to be on the back of the train many railroads would make pickups and tack them on the back until they could sort things. Particularly when they were working on the main and had to keep going to not restrict other trains.
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Same thing for picking up cars and tacking them on the front either from the start for set out or pickup
If I were building a 2x16 shelf layout set in the pre WWII years, I would take a good look at the Strasburg RR of Pennsylvania. It uses a stub ended track to interchange with the big RR. The trains run tender first on one leg of the run and, the run-around is in Leaman Place, where it interchanges. All of this is visble on the webcams of “Virtual Railfan” on Youtube, and you can follow the line on Google Earth.
Since this end of the RR is where much of the action (interchange and run-around) takes place, if you really want an engine house, fuel, and water facilities, they could also be minimal and, located off the run-around. With even a three foot run-around, you’ve used lot of real estate on that 2x16. Your choice of industries should be based on what region of the nation and railroad that interests you most. Also consider your favorite car types, when choosing the industries for this layout. Will this be an spur serving a collection of smokestack industries in the gritty part of town or, will it be rural, and agricultural, meandering through the meadows and woods? During the era you have chosen, the boxcar was king. Everything seemed to move in boxcars and, coal was the fuel of homes as well as industry so, boxcars and hoppers will be most prevalent almost anywhere you choose.
And yes, they’re still running preserved steam in 2022!
One other thing a yard does is hold “extra” or off spot cars. An industry loads 2 boxcars a day, the railroad might send down 5 empties at once, they will hold 3 in the yard and spot 2. A day later they might send down a couple more. Same with loads. If the mine loads 3 cars at a time but the industry only uses 1 at a time, they might send down 3, 2 sit in the yard and one gets spotted, then the next day another and the last on the thrid day, then another 3 loads show up.
Point of clarification. A branch line and a short line are not necessarily the same thing. A branch (line) is a secondary route of a railroad, but its all the same railroad. A short line is a small independent railroad.
If you model a line that switches your branch and the “main line” railroad is the same as the railroad that operates the branch, then it is just a branch.
If you model a line that switches your branch and it is a small railroad, and the “main line” railroad is a different, bigger railroad, then you are modeling a short line.
If you model a line that switches your branch and it is a small railroad, and the “main line” railroad is the same small railroad, but a more heavily trafficed line, then you are modeling a branch of a short line.
If the branch and the main line are two different railroads then you are modeling an “interchange”, if they are the same railroad then you are modeling a “junction”.
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…would they sort them in the yard before heading off to drop them off (which would make a yard useful), or would they take them as they are and make extra switchin
I have built switching layouts and I find it helpful to have a small area to hold cars.
Obviously the busier the layout the more cars need to be held.
If the local or “big train” drops off a cut of cars on a siding (interchange), then your switcher will want to get them off of the siding before the next big train has to drop off its cars. The timing of that might not align with when the industries need the cars, so the railroad would need a place to park the cars for possibly a couple of days.
And if the cut of cars that are dropped off are not in order of how the switcher wants them (unlikely) then the switcher will want to spend time sorting the cars for the time they are taken to industry, likely build the train just before it departs for the industries. It may