switching yards - yards in series

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

i have yet another question about yards demonstrating my ignorance.

the latest MR has an article describing modern yards showing two yards end-to-end with a hump between them. At least for me, a little light bulb when off when i occurred to me me that arriving trains came into the one yard, were disassembled with their cars pushed over the hump and new trains created in the second yard.

i remain puzzled by the purposes of various yard (and other railroad facilities). But i also wonder if back-to-back yards are/were also used without humps to disassemble/assemble trains. There’s a large railway terminal in Newark, NJ that have multiple yards which i’m wonder may have been used as I described.

2

You are correct, a major hump or flat switching yard might have 6-10 subyards.

Search Google Books for John Albert Droege’s “Yards and Terminals and Their Operations”.

http://books.google.com/books?id=GcQpAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=droege&hl=en&sa=X&ei=clyzUY3YBMXGygGIyoHQCA&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA

He also wrote a book on passenger terminals.

3

Dave is correct now,let’s go to the support yards.These yards was for the locomotive,car repair shops and paint shop plus a caboose yard.

A major terminal that served several divisions would be a very busy place and if modeled and operated correctly one would need a full basement.

4

under a large building - in Z scale

I once measured one of the larger yards on Google maps. It was EIGHT MILES long, and 106 tracks wide at its widest point.

This is why I settled for a very minor yard on a secondary main line - and it’s still a heavily compressed version of its prototype.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

5

that explains some of the layouts i’ve seen that just look to me like one big yard

6

Another situation where you would find multiple yards in the vicinity is where several railroads met, each having their own yard. Each would sort out their own incoming trains, then transfers to the other yards would occur. The sorting yard might deliver sorted cars or the receiving road might bring its cars and take theirs in return. I imagine that all depended on local agreement.

One junction I knew of had roundhouses at two of the yards, maybe all three, I was pretty young. There again it would depend on the type of repairs the road planned on doing at the location, whether they had a full roundhouse or a small, one or two bay engine house.

Have fun,

Richard