The following is a drawing & preliminary track placing for my wye.
What I have is wasted space & want to fill it with a small interchange & a few industries to add operations to my layout. I thought I’d try & build a wye to allow my to do both.
Does anyone have suggestions or ideas?
The 1st photo basically follows the same view of the drawing.
The second photo is the opposite view from the wye looking towards the interchange tracks & switch leads for the proposed industry.
The silver car in the lower left of the first photo is a Walthers Horizon car.
The second photo, the empty track is a full 3’ length of flex track to give some help for depth.
The second photo, the 2 silver cars are 85’ Horizon passenger cars
OK, I’ve posted a drawing of my layout.
The mainline of the CPR is a non-proto representation of the D&H inbetween Montreal QC & Albany NY. The CPR runs up a grade to a small yard, loco maintenance, passenger station & a few industries. In the other direction, is a staging yard representing Albany.
The following url, is a 500+ byte pic of the existing track at the wye.
One thing to remember - the unconnected (dead end) leg of your wye is actually a reversing section, just like a reverse loop, and must be handled (electrically) accordingly.
That said, I have seen prototype industries inside the wye - a propane distributor and a small engine facility come to mind. The distributor had one big tank, filled from railway cars, several trucks and a bunch of those residential-size tanks standing in the mud. His whole yard was surrounded by chain link fence, with gates for the siding and the driveway. The engine facility was a wall-less shed barely big enough to cover the GE 44-tonner that was that railroad’s big (read ‘only’) power. There were several smaller sheds for storing lube oil, tools and other things that might grow legs and walk off if left unattended.
I like it Gordon. Very cool looking, and it will probably function well too. Nice use of space.
I don’t recall ever seeing an overall track plan for your layout. How does this little piece fit into the bigger picture? I see the main through track. I was wondering about the towns and industries beyond this, in both directions, from an operational perspective. Would you be using the wye to turn an engine?
it looks very good , my only question is what is the purpose of the ‘yard lead’ ? i could see a purpose for it if it connected to the interchange tracks as well as the 2 industries , but wouldn’t the train crew just use the leg of the wye as the yard lead since it has access to all the local tracks ?
On second thought, I do see a small problem. The CSX, NS, UP interchange track that goes through the diamond has poor access. It is already crossing the main, which means using it blocks mainline traffic. It is going to be a real struggle to get cars in and out of there. The diamond and the limited access, while visually interesting, are not particularly realistic for that application. By redefining the purpose of that track to be another industry, you may have more fun with it.
If you want a true interchange track, why not just have a simple connection to the main?
