operation and misc. thoughts on bedroom layout

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

New to the forums and was hoping for some thoughts on potential operation for layout. It is in an 10x12 room and set to model one city and on small town in Iowa in the early 50’s. It is single deck with a twelve track doubled ended staging yard below. The city is along two walls will have a full time switcher serving a 5 track industrial yard, large grain elevator, large meat packing plant, and 3 or 4 small industries, and a freight house. All cars will come from though freights and a transfer from a separate staging track. Also I plan to operate a set of locals as turns from staging to the city and back. These will switch the small town which only has a small depot and grain elevator. I have bench work done along with staging and mainlines laid. Questions are

Would it be alright to extend my yard tracks and elevator tracks into a closet if all turnouts are within reach? I know yards should be in easy reach but I think I will need the added room.

Do all small depots have full sidings or do some have short or no sidings at all? Its a space issue to have a long siding in the small town. The city station will have a full siding and platform.

Would express cars and mail cars go to the same freight house as regular lcl cars?

Also would i be right if though freights just l left a cut of cars and picked up what was headed in there direction? The switcher will do everything else.

Thanks for your thoughts and do you think this would give plenty of operations?

2

Welcome to the forums.

Are you in N or HO? Just trying to envision your situation.

Yard tracks can go off stage. I would suggest they go behind a building or under an overpass to look like they continue in the yard. To go into a tunnel in a yard, to me, would look a little strange. A hill might work too.

A small passenger depot does not need a siding. However, a short team track where one or two cars could be unloaded onto trucks or a short loading platform is quite common

Mail cars have to be unloaded by postal employees, so would not be at a regular freight house. Express and LCL cars could be unloaded at the same freight house, however, in a large city, I would think they would have a special place to get unloaded rapidly, where LCL might not get the priority handling. Maybe express on one side, LCL on the other, same building.

Road engines don’t normally do much switching. In steam era they ofter were getting water and/or coal while the switcher took the cars out of the train and added new ones. Diesels might move their own cuts, depending on the lines normal pratice…

Good luck,

3

I am ho scale. The closet has the door removed and was planed just for a deep city scene so the tracks wont be hidden just will have about a 6ft reach to the end of them. The space will extend my city from 12 to 16 ft. The city is 3ft wide and the rest is 2ft, I was planing on no tracks past a 2ft reach. I will have to leave access to the back. I have learned the hard way about inaccessible tracks.

I was hoping to here that about the small depots. I wanted a team track to add a little switching. Only local passenger trains will stop there so I guess the just pause on the main.

I want to keep the small town small so it is not right next to the city. I thought i would be good to have a little something for road crews that just leave a cut of cars for the switcher and go back to staging.

4

Flag stop passenger stations would use the main. A single team track behind the station would be plenty. I stopped at one of those years ago, the team track was well overgrown. If you are going to run short passenger trains you might think about a passing siding at the station, as a place for meets. However, if you only will have one train on the main at a time it wouldn’t be necessary.

If you can have a hill to go behind or a rock cut to go through in such a manner so you can’t see from the city to town, it will make your to locations seem further apart. As long as the caboose is out of site of the town when it reaches the city and visa versa, you will have the illusion of distance.

Good luck,

5

a double ended yard may not be the best choice in that small of a space. Perhaps a stub end yard may work better. It depends on a few factors, are you planning on using the yard for staging trains, what size turnouts are you using and what type of yard ladder will be used.

I have a 6 track L shaped yard which is 22’ long using #6 turnouts in the yard and two #10’s coming off the main. Each yard ladders is 6’ long, so that leaves 10’ straight lengths and of course there are some cross over’s from track to track. So what appeared to be a large or long yard on paper got cut down size wise quite a bit. What was suggested to me and I still may change my yard to it was a mainline running down the center with an east/west stub end yard on either side. That result would now be 16’ long yard track in each direction, you can fit a lot more rolling stock in that 6 feet.

Something to think about any way. other then that you plan sounds interesting and ambitious. Good luck

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Well, you should keep the tracks within arms reach to uncouple cars, but thats your only limiting factor if there are no turnouts, so go ahead.

Stations that have sidings double as freight houses. Most towns have one of the following:

A) Freight house. Most often, railroads dont want to or cant build a siding to an industry, so they pack the stuff away in a freight house, and send the items to the company by truck or carriage.

B) Team Track. These can range from ramps up to the back of a siding (for unloading flatcars) to platforms along the side of the track (for boxcars, both depending on what the industries ship. e.g. tractors [flatcar] vs. feed [boxcar]).

C) A combination Station. Here, as well as serving the function of a station, this little building also serves as a small freight house. This is usually only the case when a town has so little of both traffic that the Railroad doesnt want to pay for two seperate buildings.

Note that these are arranged mostly in the order of what receives the most shipping to the least shipping. And P.S. Not usually long, and not found at big stations.

I cant be sure, but I would think not. I believe they would be worked at the station with the baggage department.

Only in towns that have too much switching for the through to do. Normally any train with a car destined to go into the town would stop and switch it, a matter of 20 minutes in the real world at most. If the moves are too complicated or would take too much time, then the train drops off a cut of cars on a siding or in a small or makeshift yard, and a switcher works the cars, switching them in and out, and leaving the outbound ones on a siding for the next train to pick up.

Well, I hope this helps. -G4

7

The city yard will be stub ended #4 turnouts. It will only be used to help sort inbound / outbound cuts of cars for the city industries. All trains will be through trains so I would think a small yard would be plenty. The staging is double ended and wraps around all 4 walls under the main layout and uses #6 turnouts. This is already down and seems to work good so far. Only downside is the time needed to climb up to the main layout but I can live with that to have the staging yard. It works out so I can run about 20 car trains and meet on the passing siding in the city.

Another thought is this is the early 50’s could steam power make it between main yards without extra coal and water or would the still stop in between to top off? I know the early days they stoped in every town.

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I too have an HO layout in a 10x12 bedroom. I used the closet as a staging yard but left the sliding doors on. This help with the allusion of the trains coming from somewhere else… I can slide the doors to the layout when operating and slide them wherever is needed for set up

9

The little flag stop station I referred to before did not have a water tower. It wouldn’t be necessary to stop at each town for water and coal, as long as they are not too far apart. Engines had to stop for water more often than for coal.

10

I think, in Iowa, any tunnel would look a little strange! (though there is probably at least one, even if not railroad)

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Hi Rl man

Sounds to me like you will have plenty of operation opps, and most of your other questions already being answered I will only add this, It is a hobby and hobbys are meant to be fun and help a person relax. keep in mind that the only person you have to make happy is yourself. Now after having said that GO HAVE FUN!! also remember that somewhere out there; there is a prototype for virtually everything. so don"t let that stop you if something you want to do does"nt seem or feel right. Keep it on the tall skinny stuff. Neil