I think I understand…but to get it fully, I guess I need to see a picture. Can one of yall give me an example?
Suppose that you want to set off a car in your upper right hand siding. Right now, your engince can pull the car in, but not be able to get the engine out without backing the car out.
With a runaround you can pull the train onto the track right next to the red track I drew in on the left. You diconnect the train at the coupler directly in front of the car you want to drop off. The front part of the train pulls a head and backs int the siding and back onto the main to position itself in the back of the train. The engine then moves forward pushing the car into the side where it can disconect, thereby leaving the car.
It then pulls the train back on to the main adjacent the siding, disconnects the engine from the rear of the train. The engine (and cars) then runs around and positions itself in front of the train and reconnects.
The same type action happens near the yard. Then engine drops of the train on the main and uses the siding to get behind the train. It can then drop the cars (classifies them) in the appropriate classification track. If they are all mixed up, this will result in the train backing out and changing tracks quite a bit to get them sorted.
GOT IT! Thanks, Chip.
GearDrivenSteam,
Are you going to have an opening or access in the center to reach all of the areas of your layout if you need to? Also, you have a number of “S” curves that could reak havoc on longer cars and locomotives. (“S” curves are notorious for causing derailments.) As Chip pointed out earlier, think what both you AND your layout are trying to accomplish in the designing process. In other words, "What is the reason I have my track going in this direction and why?
GDS, don’t be discouraged by all the input. I been working on my layout now for over a year and still haven’t come up with a final design yet.
Tom
Absolutely. It’s going to be an around the room shelf design, no matter which plan I decide on. I’ll also cut access holes anywhere I need um.
Full size image: http://www.paultemplar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/0n30layout/aa11.jpg
For inspiration, check out Paul Templar’s site.
I know. It’s awesome. It makes me sick. LOL.
Did you know he runs a Railroading Forum? There is a forum on Logging and Mining. A lot of good resources and you can ask Paul questions. His handle is Shamus.
http://www.all-model-railroading.co.uk/forum/index.php
Geeze, Chip, you ARE getting serious about this…[:O][^]
Crandell,
I know it seems like I flap my yap with little or no knowledge of what is coming out, but I do know how to listen.
Chip, I really appreciate you. You always treat me like I’m not stupid. Maybe one day, I won’t be. LOL. Thankya.
When I first logged on here there was a guy named Jetrock that really helped me out. I mean when it came to trains I was a fence post. He was helping me design a yard and at the time I was thinking about a small around the room layout --11.5 x 11.6 but one side was only 6.5 so it was lopsided.
Anyway, I could not figure out what a yard lead was. People kept directing me to sites that showed yards, but they always cut off the long end of the lead, so I thought the lead was something else. I kept designing yards the way I thought they wanted, but because the lead was wrong, the yard just wouldn’t work.
Jetrock tried his best to explain and others chimed in basically telling me that I was so dumb I’d never get it. Finally, Jetrock gave up that I would ever get how a yard worked–but he helped in other ways until I finally had an Ah-ha moment.
Now I don’t know if Jetrock ever got past how fence post dumb I was, but he has been an incredible help with research and keeping me on track with my logging operation. I owe him a lot.
I don’t know what a lead is either.
I’m sure there others that can give a better explaination.
A yard lead is a track other than the main that is as long or longer than the longest classification track. It allows a switcher to pull a train completely out of the yard so that it can classify the cars. The yard below has double ended and has a yard lead in each direction. They are numbered 1 and 2
By having a long yard lead, the switcher can move around long trains without “fouling” the main.
i agee with youre first replier,mabe if there was just a little less track