I have started working on a layout for myself after helping build the one where I work. I have decided to start with a staging/freight yard. My idea is to have a central single or double track with switches that branch off on each side to form the yard. I am considering building this on a 4’x8’ piece of plywood to give plenty of room for a large yard. From here I can add on as I wish and as Time and Money permit. Would this be possible to build this configuration? Any advice?
The problem you’ll have is that the ladder (sequence of switches) will use up most of your 8’ length (all of it, if your planning on 24 tracks across). You should get a copy of “Track Planning for Realistic Operation” and/or “The Model Railroader’s Guide to Freight Yards” from Kalmbach. Both of these books should give you some good ideas. Depending on what you’re trying for, you’ll probably find that you need to rip the plywood length wise and have a 2’x16’ yard.
Enjoy
Paul
What scale are you in?
If you want a simple yard you might consider 2’ x 8’ rather than 4’ wide. The ladder on my (HO) 7 track yard takes 8’ nearly so you you might need to think about space saving ideas such as 3 way turnouts and steeper ladders.
We need some help here;
What scale?
What will you use it for, fully operational frieght yard or staging?
Do you need engine facilities?
Is there a need for passenger services?
There are many uses but don’t over think this, a fairly simple yard can bring much enjoyment and operational fun.
So this is going to be a staging yard that is also used to classify freight?
The yard. You mean a staging on one side and a classification on the other?
I hope you are talking about Z scale. Our club has a medium size classification yard in HO scale that is 24 feet long, The staging area is closer to 30’ long. You might be able to get an OK size yard in 4’x8’ in N-scale but 2’x16’ would be a much better and respectible yard. I guess it also depends on what you mean by “large”.
A single classification yard with tracks on both sides of the main would just not work unless there is zero traffic on the main while the yard was being worked. On the other hand, if this is just a staging area, having tracks on both sides of the main is no big deal and certainly possible.
Is this intended to be single ended or double ended. That makes a huge difference too.
2x16 hmmm… that’s al ittle narrow a 3x16 would be better because I know of a yard about an hour from my place that’s 14 tracks across.
Where’d you go man?
Wouldn’t that be 3’x10.7’ to keep the square footage the same. hehehehe … Anyway your right, it depends on what he means by large.
I think about 2’x16’ (Or three feet wide max) will be ideal if you have the room. But be warned, a ladder of number 6 switches takes up about 7 feet on my plan and provides me with 5 single ended tracks in addition to my A/D and runaround. All is not lost however as I plan to widen the ladder area for the roundhouse facilities to recoup some of the lost length.
If you want staging to park whole trains then you might want to start the ladder and bend it around the corner to gain max staging length. I know of a layout plan in one of the threads I participated in that did just that to clear room for thier room with a small set of chairs for 4 people.
That thread is here: It happens to be one of my favorites in these forums as it had a good plan.
Hi guys,
Thanks for all the advice. I have been away from the computer for several days. I am planning on working in HO scale as it is large enough to really detail but small enough to work with reasonbly. I had envisioned the yard being double ended so that trains could enter and exit on both ends. I see the point of the main line being too busy if running through the center of the yard. To me that just seems like it would be visually interesting. I have no immediate plans to “run” anything on this yet. I plan on using it as a starting point for the rest of a layout eventually. Should I keep the staging area seperate from the freight yard? I want the frieght yard to be be very prototypical with repair facilities and possibly a round house. I may be thinking a little large on this right now. I guess helping on this layout at work has really given me thr train fever again.
Visually Interesting to have a mainline train running through a yard but I see it as a nightmare. Main shows up, switches thrown, the red sea is parted and it goes through. While everything else waits.
Would it be simplier to have the main line on the edge and the staging/frieght yard filling the rest of the plywood?
If you can get the body tracks and the drill tracks away from the main line so that the switcher can do it’s work breaking down your average train after cutting off the road engine and caboose without interfering with the main, you are good to go.
Hopefully you can curve or otherwise follow the main for a distance equal to your longest storage track so that you can reach into that cut and pull it all. If you have a arrival and departure track between the storage and the main you can build trains without interrupting the main.
For me that is the test of a yard. If I had capacity of 40 cars I would try to build in two more storage tracks to gain 20 more so I have room to work with when big trains or many small ones arrive or depart at once.
Once a yard is unable to accept trains you have a system meltdown.
If I had a Reading T1 4-8-4 show up with 24 cars and a caboose That will require a 14 foot A/D track or two 7 foot tracks to yard it. The drill probably can be aboout 6 feet or so as it is usually about the length of the longest body track minus the ladder.
If you can compound the ladder and ban road engines from the smaller switches you are going to gain even more capacity. But dont go too small, that 89’ Auto parts boxcar will topple over trying to negotiate a number 4 and scrape the first three cars in the neighboring track.
On paper I just used all of the 16 feet availible to me, I will not have much of a escape track or a very long drill but the yard will be self contained and away from the main. Anything longer or bigger threatens to become what I call a “Franken-Yard” which might take too much space and be too lumbering to deal with three planned towns worth of locals.
As a side note, I have talked about the yard several times, I have been arm-chairing this year fine tuning the yard and running what if scenarios. The facility will be built this year by christmas or early next year (Rejoice You hobby distributors! LOL) It is one thing to doodle
[quote user=“Safety Valve”]
If you can get the body tracks and the drill tracks away from the main line so that the switcher can do it’s work breaking down your average train after cutting off the road engine and caboose without interfering with the main, you are good to go.
Hopefully you can curve or otherwise follow the main for a distance equal to your longest storage track so that you can reach into that cut and pull it all. If you have a arrival and departure track between the storage and the main you can build trains without interrupting the main.
For me that is the test of a yard. If I had capacity of 40 cars I would try to build in two more storage tracks to gain 20 more so I have room to work with when big trains or many small ones arrive or depart at once.
Once a yard is unable to accept trains you have a system meltdown.
If I had a Reading T1 4-8-4 show up with 24 cars and a caboose That will require a 14 foot A/D track or two 7 foot tracks to yard it. The drill probably can be aboout 6 feet or so as it is usually about the length of the longest body track minus the ladder.
If you can compound the ladder and ban road engines from the smaller switches you are going to gain even more capacity. But dont go too small, that 89’ Auto parts boxcar will topple over trying to negotiate a number 4 and scrape the first three cars in the neighboring track.
On paper I just used all of the 16 feet availible to me, I will not have much of a escape track or a very long drill but the yard will be self contained and away from the main. Anything longer or bigger threatens to become what I call a “Franken-Yard” which might take too much space and be too lumbering to deal with three planned towns worth of locals.
As a side note, I have talked about the yard several times, I have been arm-chairing this year fine tuning the yard and running what if scenarios. The facility will be built this year by christmas or early next year (Rejoice You hobby distributors! LOL
My bad.
I will draw a diagram and post it today sometime.
I knew I used too many words =)
This link has a website that has suggestions for planning. More useful is a diagram that is well done.
By all means read the two books referenced above. A good way to shorten the space a ladder needs is to compound the ladder turnouts, just like a lot of the big guys do. Actually you can do a good job of classifying with 6 tracks if you make them do double duty. Don’t forget to leave room for the drill track as a tail of the A/D track. Another hint: If you put your ladder tracks before the crossover from the main to the A/D, instead of after, you can get a little longer yard too. Enjoy the learning curve. jc5729 John Colley, Port Townsend, WA
That is going to be very hard in HO in only 8 feet.
That depends on what the staging is going to be used for. How are you distingishing the two? Generally a staging area is a bunch of tracks where trains complete with locomotives & caboose are pre-made ready to roll into an operating session, and also a place where trains roll out of an operating session. If there is no current operating plan, it is hard to know what sort of staging (if any) is needed, let alone where to put it.
Ok, prototypically yards come in many flavors. There are interchange yards, storage yards, classifications yards, even “coach” yards for passenger equipment, etc. Functionally a classification yard (the most common thing people mean when they say yard) has nothing to do with repair facilities or locomotive facilities (ie. round house). They can and are often close together, but nothing says they have to be. Here in Denver the Rio Grande roundhouse and locomotive shops are almost 4 miles away from their North Yard. On the other hand the CB&Q roundhouse is only 1/4 mile away and across the main. I don’t know where either of their freight repair facilities are. The most common repair facility found in a yard is called a RIP track. RIP stands for Repair In Place. And well - entire books have been written on the subject of yards & shops.
My staging yard is 12 feet long and it feels too short. I built in a modular format, though, so I’ll be adding another six to then feet in the centre.