This past Sunday my friend (cjcrescent) from the Birmingham, Al, MRR club, " The Wrecking Crew" http://wreckingcrew.railfan.net/ came over to help me re-design my yard. I had a simple double ladder, but the throat took up most of the space taking away the amount of track needed for the rolling stock.
CJ came up with a design that was a variation of the compound ladder. It will greatly improve the switching and operational functions of the yard. After 11+ straight hours and many aching bones (and 3 pots of coffee), we completed the yard area.
The re-design required an additional 60 feet of track and turnouts. The bare plywood area is for engine servicing facilities (next project) that is for both steam and diesel. You can see the difference in the old yard and the new by the ballasting on the old track. The benchwork area is 12 feet across.
Wow. May I copy it? I have a spot on my Model Railroad where I need a sizable yard, but not alot of area to put it in. The area yours takes up, looks about to be the same space I have.
Looks like Railimages is still having problems. [:(]
Fergie, the round object is the Walthers’ 90 foot turntable. I have thought about the new 130’, but I believe I’ll wait and see how it performs. I haven’t figured out how many cars, but I think it will be plenty----I hope. [:D]
Elliot, I found the turnouts I needed at places from Texas to California [:p]. I didn’t get any bargains, but I couldn’t be choosey. Unfortunately, the yard lead is still a problem because of the location of one mainline.
James,
Your more than welcome to copy what you need. I hope it helps you with ideas. One thing I learned from cjcrescent is that you can shorten the turnouts and inch or so to make a fit. It really helped squeeze more in for the tight areas.
Glad ya didn’t get my smiling face in there. Bergie would accuse of us of peddling “feelthy peektures”.
Knowing that this is not a very big yard, and at least in our part of the world it is very common practice for the main to double as the yard lead. We decided to go that route rather than move about thirty feet or so of main to provide the extra room for a dedicated lead. For a prototype, I just used my hometown of Selma, AL, with the SRR yard & the L&N/GA/WofA yards, (the L&N yard actually curved like this). The main line is used as the lead in both of those yards and even to a great extent the huge Norris Yard up here in Irondale uses part of the mains for the lead. As long as the yardmaster doesn’t delay the mainline thru traffic while he’s making his trains up, using the mains as a lead won’t be a problem. Besides, woe be unto the road engineer who ignores the commands of the yardmaster inside the yard limits.
Nice photos! That’s what I love to see … people building stuff rather than just talking about it!
What’s the radius on the tightest curves of the yard? I ask because coupling on curves can be problematic. A good rule of thumb for yard curves is a radius 5 times the length of your longest typical cars.
For a 40 foot car in HO (6" long) that’s about a 30" radius. For 50 foot cars (7.5") that’s about a 37.5" radius. For 60 foot cars (9" long) that’s a 45" radius. Any tighter than that and you will tend to have coupling problems in a yard.
Unless you are in the steam or steam/diesel transition era, your cars may be too long for your yard-on-a-curve. While they may navigate the curve just fine, you will probably have to manually force the couplers to line up in order to couple the cars when switching your yard.
Joe;
Rex does model steam/diesel transtion. Doesn’t look it but the radius’s are 36" or bigger . The cars, that we tested, 40-50’ are fine. We did install KD magnets, under the track and they almost pull the cars off! To insure uncoupling reliability, they were installed at the straight sections at the top of the throat. All uncoupling will take advantage of KD’s delyed action.
Looking forward to seeing more photos as you progress! And don’t forget to submit photos to MRR. They’re always looking for fresh, new , high quality subjects. Looks like its in your alley!
Thanks Antonio.
Your comments and those from others certainly help with my confidence deficiency in this hobby. I wish I could take all the credit, but cjcrescent with 35 years in the hobby really knows his stuff and was a tremedous help and had great ideas.
The only problem I have now is when I try to spot a car, I get cross-eyed trying to see which turnout is for what track (got to number these things)
I’m glad that I was able to steer you onto some turnouts. I use # 5’s also and after you bought Papa Ben’s out I hope I don’t need any before they are restocked.
That’s a nice yard. My throat is straight but the curves start at the end of a cut down switch and it curves around for 90 degrees, I have 36’ through 45’ freight cars and the Walthers passenger cars and I don’t have any trouble uncoupling on 28" and 30" radius curves. I’m also using the under track magnets.
Before you put that Walthers turntable down look at the one from Custom Model Railroads as I’m in the finishing stages of construction of a 105’ TT.
It is a much nicer TT with a decent price. 90’ & 105’ = $135.00 each. If you’d like to know more E-mail me and go to www.custommodelrailroads.com
I am very pleased with my unit.
(got to number these things)