I’m in the middle of designing the yard for my new layout and am confused about where to put the caboose track. I’ve been advised to make it double-ended so you can assign cabooses on a FIFO basis. Is this possible with a yard that has only one switch lead? I can see how the switcher can push cabooses into the caboose track on a FIFO basis but how does it get them out? Does it have to runaround to the other side of the yard?
If someone has an example schematic that would be great. Thanks.
I did a search on the MR online track plan database, and found 4 pages of track plans (76 plans) with yards; you might find some examples here
http://mrr.trains.com/trackplans-search.aspx?size=&scale=&type=&issue=&keywords=yard
I hope he’s a subscriber. That’s subscriber content only. It won’t let him look at the plans or download them.
Do a google image search for caboose track for some ideas. Some recommendations are to put it parallel to the ladder track with a turnout onto the drill track at one end and on to the last classification track at the other end.
Enjoy
Paul
LION does not have cabeese. Depends on your era.
In times of yore the Caboose was personally assigned to a conductor/crew. It only came out to play when that crew was on the road.
Some cabeese might be assigned to the same yard as the crew, it must go back with them or on another train returning to that yard.
LION suspects that there was a service track for cabeese similar to locomotives. Somebody had to clean the toilets, resupply supplies, check batteries and radios, and other accouterments. Someone else had to was the beast inside and out.
These are things that you could model. So how does it all work? Depends on your system, its rules and is union agreements.A Pool Caboose stays with the train, just gets a new crew.
How does a freight train come in? The LION does not even know. A train arrives, the crew cuts off the locomotive, and it drifts on over to the service area. Some other engine will have to come and retrieve the caboose (after all it could be a mile behind the locomotives) and take it to the caboose place for service, and then put it on a holding track.
When a crew arrives they get their locomotive, they go and find their caboose, they put it on the end of their train, and then run around to the other end, blow the whistle… [toot] [toot]
LION suspects that you would model that anyway you could given your geography and work rules. After all the shape of your table controls all things, doesn’t it?
Besides, LIONS do not do freight trains. There is no FOOD on them.
This is the recommendation that has me confused since I’ve seen it in Kalmbach’s “Freight Yards” book. If the track is double-ended and parallel to the ladder with the drill having access to it, what does the double ending achieve? If the switcher ran up the ladder to the far end of the caboose track and picked up the caboose to be FIFO, wouldn’t it be on the wrong side of the caboose for tacking it on to a train in a arrival/departure track?
Related to that, would the switcher pull a string of cabooses from the caboose track in order to tack the one on the far end of the string on to a train? Or would this be prohibited by work rules/safety rules?
Here is an example from the layout I “am building.” Warning- I am not far along, and I do not know from experience how well it works.
My trunkline yard is on the left side of the plan. This is NOT a through yard somewhere along the middle of a line. It is a yard in an island seaport-- the end of the line.
The caboose track here is near the upper left corner of the central/ inside “operating and viewing” area. As another writer mentioned, it is parallel to the yard ladder and double-ended, so a switcher can work it from either end.
Since this is not a “through” yard, all cabooses will be pulled from the end of incoming trains, which will be towrd the bottom end of the yard on the plan. Further, when trains are being made up, they will be pulled from the caboose track to be placed on nthe end of the train toward the top of the plan.
This yard is designed with a lead at each end. At the upper end of the plan, the freight lead parallels the passenger platform tracks, and the freight lead is also the lead to the team track and freight house track. However, when used for those purposes, it will be used in the opposite direction from when it is being used to switch the yard classification tracks.
At the lower end of the plan, I drew a crossover so that the freight lead can clear the main track. (However, the yard switcher will need to stay clear of the crossover when a passenger train is entering or leaving the yard area going to or from the station…)
No, it ain’t perfect. Some compromises that make for not completely efficient operation. But I think I can squeeze it in.
Not exactly what you were looking for, but maybe it will give you some ideas.
With my railroad experience the caboose track/servicing was usually near the shop track…
In the later years cabooses was pooled-the road crews slept at the railroad YMCA near the yards as their caboose was cleaned and service and used as needed.Some older caboose may be assigned to local,transfer or work train service only.
In smaller city yards the caboose track was usually near the engine tracks for easy servicing.
In smaller towns that hosted a local crew the caboose was usually spoted near the engine or on a yard track out of the way.
Lion, I hope you’re not planning on any travel to the Zanesville, OH area in the immediate future…
Under the caboose… badumbum (I got a million of em)
Speaking from the standpoint of the prototype, prior to pool cabooses, a caboose that came in on an eastbound train, would go out on a westbound train and vice versa.
A real yard has runner tracks that are kept clear so that a switch engine from on end can get to teh other end, So if the caboose track was on the east end of the yard, the west end switcher would come through the runner, grab the first out caboose, drag it back to the other end of the yard and put it on the west end of the outbound track. FIFO.
If you have a single lead and a single ended class yard the double ended track doesn’t do much for you.
Correct, UNLESS the outbound track is a double ended and you are adding the caboose after the train s built. then you would run up the lead, put the caboose out from the west end, shove down the east lead, run to the west end of the departure track and tack the caboose on the west end of the outbound westbound train. Or pull the caboose from the east end of the caboose track, shove it in the outbound track first and then build the outbound train on top of the caboose. Or build the train in the departure track, pull the caboose out of the west end of the caboose track and as the train departs, tack the caboose on the rear of the train.
[quote]
Related to that, would the switcher pull a string of cabooses from the caboose track in
Lion, I hope you’re not planning on any travel to the Zanesville, OH area in the immediate future…
Mine’s double ended, and located between the engine house and the Arrival/Departure tracks. It’s easy to pluck the caboose from the tail of an arriving train and park it for servicing, and to pull a fresh one for the next train out. It’s long enough to hold about 8 cabooses.
Here’s a closer look.
Lee
When cabooses were being serviced, the caboose track would be blue-flagged. Before the blue flag or flags if the track had a switch at each end were removed the car knockers would have to clear the whole track, so having to pull some or all of the cabs to dig one out wasn’t a big deal.
Under some agreements a road crew could handle their own cab to and from the caboose track, including digging it out from behind other cabs.
Even after road cabooses were pooled, some agreements called for crews with assigned cabs (e.g. work trains, local freights, etc.) to service (but not repair) their own cabs. At least from my observation, it was pretty common for the car knockers to do the assigned cabs along with the pool cars if they had time. It pays to be nice to the car knockers[;)]
Put it where the car toads go to work, they’re the ones that have to service 'em. And make it DOUBLE-ENDED or you are sunk.
(This is not my feedback: I happen to have a forty-year UP trainman in my gallery right now!)
[quote user=“dehusman”]
whitman500:
This is the recommendation that has me confused since I’ve seen it in Kalmbach’s “Freight Yards” book. If the track is double-ended and parallel to the ladder with the drill having access to it, what does the double ending achieve?
Under the caboose… badumbum (I got a million of em)
Speaking from the standpoint of the prototype, prior to pool cabooses, a caboose that came in on an eastbound train, would go out on a westbound train and vice versa.
A real yard has runner tracks that are kept clear so that a switch engine from on end can get to teh other end, So if the caboose track was on the east end of the yard, the west end switcher would come through the runner, grab the first out caboose, drag it back to the other end of the yard and put it on the west end of the outbound track. FIFO.
If you have a single lead and a single ended class yard the double ended track doesn’t do much for you.
If the switcher ran up the ladder to the far end of the caboose track and picked up the caboose to be FIFO, wouldn’t it be on the wrong side of the caboose for tacking it on to a train in a arrival/departure track?
Correct, UNLESS the outbound track is a double ended and you are adding the caboose after the train s built. then you would run up the lead, put the caboose out from the west end, shove down the east lead, run to the west end of the departure track and tack the caboose on the west end of the outbound westbound train. Or pull the caboose from the east end of the caboose track, shove it in the outbound track first and then build the outbound train on top of the caboose. Or build the train in the departure track, pull the cabo
In the yards I worked at the caboose track was not blue flagged since workers were not performing work on the caboose itself. Servicing the caboose was done by clerks.
The cabin switch jobs I worked on the PRR the service tracks was Blue Flag because you had men working on or around the equipment.The men would be two laborers for cleaning,a carman(inspection/light repair) and attendant-he resupplied the caboose…These men worked under the car shop supervisor.
The outbound ready and inbound cabin tracks wasn’t blued flagged.
I can only speak to one particular yard, Enid Okla 10th St yard, where I worked summers in the late 50’s as an summer car clerk (big wheat rush days), however, my dad was a switch engineer at Enid from the end of WW!! until he retired in the late 60s, so I can speak to that yard and the Santa Fe. I worked June through end of August, then quit and back to college.
There was a single ended track off the main next to the engine tracks west of the yard for the waycars. At that time the way cars were assigned to certain trains. Ex. local 81 arrived from Purcell/Oklahoma City and the train was terminated. The waycar was put on the waycar track, and the crew either stayed at a hotel or slept and lived on the waycar. There was another waycar at Enid for the local from Enid to Kiowa. The servicing on the waycars at that point in time and at that location was done by the rear end brakie and or the conductor. I remember working the night yard clerk job and having to walk over the the waycar for the Kiowa local 2 hours ahead of the call time to wake up the crew sleeping in the waycar. That gave them time to clean up, run to the all night cafe and get food and be ready for their train to be made up. Oh, and get ice from the icehouse for the water cooler on the waycar.
During the wheat rush, many trains came and went through Enid, but most of them brought loads or empties for the elvators and continued on their way. The waycar track was long enough to hold several waycars for the wheat extras, and they were not assigned waycars. That is the best I can recollect today. I model the Santa Fe in Oklahoma in 1989, which still meant a lot of grain trains, but no way cars. However, I fell in love with the Centralia Santa Fe waycars so my trains mostly have waycars. One advantage is I know when a train comes off hidden trackage / helix that if the waycar ain’t there, the train ain’t all there either.
Oh, waycar is the te