John, Since we are phiosophising, I have questions…how do you make up/ breakdown trains? If you have a single track and 0-5-0 switch does that not constitue a yard functionally? I prefer to have several trains in the stages mentioned above so I have an 8 track live staging yard that is double ended with compound ladders, and a 30" long engine escape track at the wall end that will take a 4 unit FT road engine., I do all yard moves with switchers and cycle my caboose track, avoiding 0-5-0 handling of equipment as much as possible. That is just my preference, but I feel it is worthy of inclusion in this thought provoking discussion. Another John
I’m not sure if you’re asking me specifically or just tossing the question out there generally, but I’ll answer anyway…
With respect to the original post, the gist was whether to have a modeled yard or else save the space and do something else with it. Several people also chipped-in to give examples of how trains could be made-up and broken down by the road engine as it picks up and sets out along its run. Also several people indicated that they used a siding track or two for temporary holding or interchange functions in lieu of a formal yard. And the original post assumed there were (or could be) yards in offline staging, although I reckon I really didn’t go into that aspect much. How to handle the ‘offline’ staging aspect is a slightly different topic-- but you’re welcome to bring it up and address it in this thread. I know I would be interested in hearing people’s views on that also.
But, with respect to your specific question-- “If you have a single track and 0-5-0 switch does that not constitue a yard functionally?” I suppose it does conceptually, but I don’t think anybody here has suggested that using the 0-5-0 is a suitable alternative-- I certainly wouldn’t want that as my only option. On my temporary layout (which, by the way-- today is its LAST day!!!) I have a four-track stub-en
Actually, John, for me it is the suitable alternative.
With all of my staging tracks being dead-ended, the trains generally need to be physically removed from the layout in order to free up the locomotives (there are no “escape” tracks). Of course, some cars in these trains will be destined for on-line industries, either in the town adjacent to that particular staging yard, or elsewhere on the layout. For these, the yard will be switched with a locomotive, with the cars distributed appropriately. All others, either empty home road cars or empties or loads destined for “elsewhere” are “switched” off the layout and back in their respective boxes under the layout, using my trusty 0-5-0. This ensures that the same cars aren’t seen continuously and that an interesting cross-section of cars from anywhere in North America is available to maintain the sense of connection to the outside world. Not including passenger and MoW equipment, I have about 150 “home road” freight cars in service, and about 190 “foreign” cars - far too many to be on the layout at one time.
I plan on running trains of about 10 to 12 cars, and, as most trains do switching duties en route, a ten car train starting out at the south end of the layout could arrive (perhaps several operating sessions later) at the north end with an entirely different ten cars. There’s also the possibility that it could roll into the northern town with only its caboose, or with two dozen cars behind the tender. I’m hoping for well-organised operations, but not ones that are too predictable.
While most of my freight cars have added details, reaso
All these long answers and, just for a change, I have a very short one (it is about my philosophy about yards).
I do not like [modelled] yards:- Too much track required, Too much ballast required. Too much pointwork (mostly doing nothing). Too much stock standing idle - and what can you see of most of it? = the roofs. [|(] Too much wiring (even with DCC). Too much space to collect dust. WAY Too much maintenance…
AND FAR TOO LITTLE GOING ON! ([:I] Oops! Sorry I yelled [:O])
I choose hotspots.
Trains stored “out of sight” (that is non modelled area) on very simple/robust track with no ballast or other stuff…
Trains in scenery are rolling… maybe at speed… often at a crawl easing up to a signal / waiting for the road. This is much more “Real Railway” than constantly drilling tracks.
What’s to see in a yard? If it’s so good how come trains mag has a “hotspots” page and not a “yards” page?
I’m biased… but just a different perspective on the “philosophy” aspect of the OP.
[:P]
Au contraire. Yards ARE the hot spots.
An industry is switched maybe once a day.
A mainline location on a reasonable main line might have a dozen trains a day, that’s one train every two hours or more for about 5-10 minutes, headlight to marker light.
A yard can have almost constant activity 24 hours a day.
When do you sleep?
Mark
Heh… Paul, if you’re modeling the M&P, you need to practice selective Decompression… How else could you do homage to a line that took 77 miles to connect cities that are 44 miles apart!
As for yards, I can’t imagine building a layout without one. My layout is under reconstruction, but it will once again house a good sized double ended yard with a full engine terminal. As much as I enjoy the “railfanning” aspect of a layout, there has to be a place to break down the road freights, sort out the locals, and consolidate the outbound cars. That, to me anyway, is what railroading is all about.
If you think a yard is a waste of space, you might consider working with slot cars.
I remember the first time I included a small three track yard in a layout, I had more fun running the switcher back and forth shuffling cars than I did “running trains” around the loop. Later, I discovered that by having my yard off to the side, and tying it to the loopty loop with a wye track, I could run the train out in either direction, and return to the yard without a reversing move.
This in and of itself made the layout more fun to operate, and added to the number of trains I could run, even though the layout was very small, and featured a single track main line with one passing siding.
And the yard doesn’t have to be terribly complex, as several posters
I’ve operated on yardless layouts as well as layouts where the yards could just as well have been staging as far as I was concerned, and immensely enjoyed the experiences. I enjoy operating way/local freight trains switching industries along the right-of-way. Make me a yardmaster and I’m an unhappy child. A layout without a yard isn’t necessarily operating trains in an endless circle.
Mark
Lee,
Excellent write up and explination of what a good functioning yard should be. I agree with you, the yard is the life blood of the railroad. On my layout the yard operations will be similar to yours, classifying freight cars, and sorting a cut of cars to serve the local industries.
Just my opinion of course…
Sure, I don’t disagree with you. I guess I interpreted the question slightly differently and wasn’t thinking about simply taking the cars off the layout and putting them back in their boxes. Probably for most people that is a typical “operation”. I read the question as if there was no staging whatsoever (or else just the one track extending), which may have been a misreading on my part, in which case the “0-5-0” handling is the “yard switching”. And the issue of on/off the layout and back into the boxes didn’t occur to me.
I wonder, just for the record, if it takes two hands, is that a pair of MU’d 0-5-0’s, or is it Ten-coupled power??? [:D]
John
Lee,
Nice write-up about your yards!
What’s the story with your ‘B’ unit (slug) in the picture? That really looks cool. Did you model that yourself?
John
I may have a very small HO layout {3.5 feet by 5.1 feet}, but I DO have a small spur yard inside the inner oval. It is a 4 track spur yard. It serves all three purposes you mention above: 1} it is for storage of RR cars {though it certainly won’t hold all the cars I have}; 2} It acts as a beginning yard to construct trains to go out to the “main lines”; and 3} it acts as the yard at the ending point of a “run”. It is my storage and staging combined into one. It does break the rule of fouling the main as the inner oval is “secondary main line” or small “sub line”, but I can’t help that. The outside oval is the real “main line”, so it doesn’t bother me. I construct the trian for the outside oval then construct the train for the inner oval secondary.
I also have one long fake
- Do you have a yard on your layout? Do you have more than one yard on your layout? Do you have a yard that “doubles” as two yards-- i.e., pretends to be both ends of the run? If so, would you tell us about your yard? What type of yard is it? How does it operate? Is it just a “storage spot” for cars, or does it have a purpose in your layout’s operations? I have several - Three major yards for storage and making up trains - Kansas City,Barstow and Cleburne. I have minor yards to store through trains,split trains,etc - Los Angeles,San Bernardino, Kingman,Texarkana,Sweetwater. LA,Cleburne,Texarkana and Kansas City are stub yards. The largest yard is Kansas City. About 8 ft wide by 40ft long. Rick
- Do you have a yard on your layout?
-Technically speaking, my entire current layout is a yard, as it is all within yard limits. That said, it is not a classification yard. Instead, the layout represents a small industrial yard in West Portsmouth, Virginia. The local (and any other trains) originates in staging, and make its way onto the layout. it then switches the customers, and returns to staging.
-The decision to eliminate a visible classification yard was made due to the amount of available space. I wanted to maximize the number and types of available customers. Devoting space to a classification yard would have limited the space available for customers. There are storage tracks on the layout, and cars from these tracks, along with cars brought over by the local, are used to spot the customers.
-Staging is not extensive… again, this is a small industrial yard, not the main terminal. One track is all that is needed now, a second may be added. Any additional needs can be handled via 0-5-0, using the staging as a fiddle yard.
I’m guessing that uncoupling is not done manually. [;)][(-D]
Wayne
My former layout had — and the new one under construction will have — three yards altogether: an off-layout staging yard, a small marshalling yard, and a ‘private’ yard for the steel mill.
I made the staging yard double-ended to allow for continuous running when desired. It is [hopefully] the only place where any 0-5-0 switching is performed. The visible yards have clearly-defined purposes - every car passing thru them has another origin/destination somewhere else on the layout.
The marshalling yard is also double-ended for ease of operation. Its primary purpose is to receive cars destined for local industries, assemble/dissect peddler freights, and sort returned (outgoing) cars according to East- or Westbound off-layout destinations. It also hosts a locomotive servicing facility.
My steel mill yard consists of 4 stub-ended tracks plus two runaround tracks. Its primary purpose is to serve as a central gathering place for the cars on the various spurs within the mill. Occasionally, whole trains are received there; but most of the time small cuts of cars are delivered by the peddler freight from the marshalling yard. Otherwise the in-plant switcher is shuffling cars between the yard and the various loading/unloading points.
A visitor once commented that my marshalling yard was almost empty after a recent op session. This is because I try to follow Craig Bisgeier’s guidelines for yard design</
This depends on the definition of “yard”… and, as we’ve discussed elsewhere, the type of yard. It also depends on the size. Again,as we’ve discussed elsewhere, a lot of small yards don’t merit their own switcher… and will therefore only be switched by the train engines that work the yard once or twice a day… or a week.
A busy auto industry may be constantly switched by both its own and train engines all day and night… commonly with many repeat moves. I could suggest a heap of other industries… some of which are seasonal.
Somewhere like Blue Island has pretty frequent traffic… which has the added interest that sometimes things are quiet and trains just roll through while at other times things get backed up and trains have to take their turn.
For my own preference one great advantage of the hotspot is that there is little or no on-scene coupling/uncoupling to be done unless one chooses to do it. In my own scheme I am incorporating a small amount of rail served industry so that I can do the odd bit of switching when I feel like it. This also has the advantage of having to be slotted between trains on the move.
One question I would have regarding modelling large(ish) yards:- How many people manage to have more than one loco/lash-up active at one time?
I’m pretty much a lone wolf with occasional visitors so for me much yard activity would pretty well mean the suspension of any other traffic. A hotspot can be worked with trains following in a string - alternating opposing trains (or strings) - putting some trains “in clear” t
That’s where under the rail magnets and Kadee couplers come in handy. Seriously,the KC/Argentine yard is to store trains-mostly full length passenger trains. It has 32 tracks.There is a certain WOW!-factor to it. There are passenger trains from the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway (Frisco), Santa Fe, the Burlington Route, Milwaukee Road, Rock Island, Union Pacific, Chicago Great Western, Gulf, Mobile & Ohio, Kansas City Southern, Missouri Pacific, and the Wabash Railroad.Lots of scenic work remains to be done. Most of the actual switching goes on in the smaller yards. Rick
[quote user=“Dave-the-Train”]
This depends on the definition of “yard”… and, as we’ve discussed elsewhere, the type of yard. It also depends on the size. Again,as we’ve discussed elsewhere, a lot of small yards don’t merit their own switcher… and will therefore only be switched by the train engines that work the yard once or twice a day… or a week.
One question I would have regarding modelling large(ish) yards:- How many people manage to have more than one loco/lash-up active at one time?
I’ve nothing at all against anyone else having as much or as many yards as they like… I’m just attempting to extend the philosophical debate. This is partly because I think that the orthodoxy is very much that layouts have yards and yards “have to be switched”. I think that this can lead newcomers into a trap. Yes there can be yards… but there don’t have to be.
These two points seem to suggest that main line track stands empty most of the time and that cars are constantly being shifted about in yards.
I’m sure that Dave, among others, has previously pointed out (on many occasions) that cars have to stand still at their spot for loading/unloading and/or that full or empty cars on the move go into yards, stand until they get switched into a loading position or into the next t
Dave-the-Train:I’m sure that Dave, among others, has previously pointed out (on many occasions) that cars have to stand still at their spot for loading/unloading and/or that full or empty cars on the move go into yards, stand until they get switched into a loading position or into the next train they will be forwarded in and then they satnd until the locos hook on and take them out of the yard. The result is that cars spend most of their time in yards “dwelling”… unless you have something like a balloon track unloading coal or the auto industry mentioned above.
I dunno but,cars could sit for real days/weeks between op sessions compared to 18-32 hour dwell time a real car can sit in a yard or 2 days at a industry.
As far as main lines those can sit idle for hours and then have a hot 3-4 hour period and sit quiet for several more hours…I have been trackside for 3 hours and see nothing but,2 rails and nothing louder then crickets on some days I will see 12 trains during that same time frame.I can go to Fostoria and see a train every few minutes but,there will be a lull when nothing runs.
I can go to Bellevue or Willard yard and usually is something moving.Of course both are major terminals.
On the other hand the average layout yard isn’t large enough to have a yard crew 24/7 or a large engine facility.