Trying to come up with a yard design for my layout. I only have 30"x96" area. I have a Volmer roundhouse and a Walthers 90" turntabe which take up a wedge aprox. 14"x 18"x 30". This dimention includes the roundhouse, turntable and the conecting tracks. I also need a service track for steam, a run around, rip track and of course the yard tracks which includes the departure track. I have played with this awhile but just not happy with my design. Thought maybe some imput would open me up to alturnitive plans.
HO scale? 8 feet long doesn’t leave much room, probably not feasible to make a double-ended yard. What operating scheme do you want your yard to support? Is your road an out-and-back?
As noted, 8 feet in length does not offer a lot of options in HO. Here’s an 8-foot-long yard from a custom project. It would actually need to be a little longer to accommodate the tail track for the runaround
The turntable is PECO’s roughly 1-foot-diameter version and turnouts are mostly PECO C75 “Mediums” with one “Small” in the engine service area. Minimum radius in the yard is 24 inches; 20 inches in the engine terminal. The water tank is from Walthers, the compact coaling tower from JV models, the ashpit is scratchbuilt, the enginehouse was the client’s existing scratchbuilt model, but many commercial models will fit. The station was the client’s AMB Type 23 SP station with a modified freight platform/dock.
Edit: This is not intended to be a standalone layout, just an example of a small yard from a larger layout to give an idea of what could be done with eight feet for the yard itself. The layout this design came from extended in each direction.
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Nice design, 18" radius would be fine, rest of my layout (like my last layout) is this, run mainly 40’ or less cars in HO scale. Run small steam and very early diesels.
I use #4 switches and have a double crossover and threeways I could use along with curved. Track is Shinohara code 70. Seven car train would be my limit in most cases.
I don’t have a layout that small, but if I did I would really try to focus it on my main interests in the hobby. The layout above would probably be great for someone who likes to build and show cars, but doing actual switching would be difficult as there is very little space to back up from the yards. In my case, I like building and collecting locos, so I would put more storage space for them and leave space for maintenance buildings. If buildings were my thing, I would leave more space for an industrial district.
Simon
What I posted is not intended to be a standalone layout, but just the yard portion of a larger layout which extends in either direction.
THis is just an extention of a larger layout, only 7x11 though. I also have an interchange with the world via a carfloat, a Walthers carfloat made in two sections instead of three. There are accually going to be three carfloats that I can exchange on a fold up area that butts up to a carefloat apron on the main layout. As far as the yard goes 5 actual yard tracks would be fine, though was hoping for more as I have a very large collection that I put together for my last layout which was 15x30 with carfloat interchange and two yards. What I am really looking for is inspiration as there are conflicts between wants an space and trying to get a happey medium.
If anyone wants to see the basic layout plan, it is very similar to the San Juan Central but the crossover is at the other side and the center swithing area is a very small yard with some switching added too (lot of space there once the crossover was moved. Also of note this layout is standard gauge HO and 18" radius curves. Also the setting is the 1930’s urban areas instead of the mountains.
You know just talking to you guys has made me look at alternative plans
If you can find it - it’s been out of print for a few years now – try to get ahold of Andy Sperandeo’s book for Kalmbach on yards and yard design. There is also stuff on yard design in john Armstrong’s evergeen Track Planning for Realistic Opeation, but Sperandeo gets more specific and in some ways, perhaps more practical.
Dave Nelson
Hey no worries Cuyama.
I found Amstongs book, all but useless. Lots of proto type and stuff for large layouts but not usefull on small.
The info’s all there - how much space the ladder takes, how wide the yard would be for X number of tracks, how long each track would be. The various tables cover everythign from a #4 on up. The very first edition, which I don’t have, may not have the Atlas Custom Line #4 (which is really a #4 1/2) listed, but the second and third editions, I have both, does have it listed.
It’s not a track plan book. Neither is Andy Sperandeo’s yard design book. Both explain why certain tracks are placed where they are in a yard and what purpose they server, adn why you would want them, and how to selectively compress.
You may be trying to stuff 10 pounds of fertilizer in a 5 pound bag here. To hold a 6 or 7 car train, the SHORTEST track has to be almost 4 feet long. that makes the entire ladder somewhere around 5-6 feet long. Before we’ve added any sort of A/D track, caboose track, or a throughfare track to get locos to the service area. Not to mention the size of the service area, plus turntable and roundhouse. Double ending the yard is flat out not possible in your space.
–Randy
Oh I hear you about double ended, never had that much space. 4’ will hold 8 40’ cars. I can fit in a 4 track yard with a total of about 15 to 16’ or about 30 cars. Able to switch two cars max at a time. Downsizing sucks when it comes to model railroading. On the plus size a 150’+ mainline would have never become super detailed but the new but 35’ might because only about 24’ is in the open.
Yes, that’s 4’ of track AFTER the turnout - plus then the ladder length to link all 4 tracks. WHich gives you a lot more than a total of 16’ of track - the SHORTEST track would be 4’. Unless you mean making the longest track 4’ - the shortest then even using #4 turnouts, which are pretty sharp even for 40’ cars, unless they are Atlas, the shortest track will be maybe 2 1/2 feet long, total yard length maybe 12 to 13 feet of track, in a bit under 5’ of total length.
I thought I had a lot of space, with a 22’ wall to locate my yard. Think again, even making it single ended.
–Randy
That sounds tedious, to be honest. I’d personally try to find an alternative that allowed for switching more cars at once, even if it meant reducing the number and/or length of the yard tracks.
That is what would happen, I would lose 4 cars in the yard for every car on the tail. Average train on this layout will be between 5 and 7 cars.
Put a long passing siding off the main down the whole length. The first turnout should be as close to the rest of the layout as possible. The last turnout, at the end of the yard stubs, needs to be back far enough to allow engine escape. That also becomes your A/D track. To the left of the yard ladder, you have the turntable and roundhouse, the main and this long siding run in front of it. Past there, one more turnout leads to the yard ladder. You now have a switch lead long enough for more than just 2 cars at a time.
You may have to leave out something to get all those things in the available space. Simplified service tracks, no RIP track, or only a 2 or 3 track yard instead of 4. The width is enough to have more than 4 tracks wide - if you add a 5th, it would be fairly short, but the far end could be the RIP track and if it connected to the ladder via another turnout instead of just running off the end of the last turnout, the other end could extend back towards the turntable and be the service track.
–Randy
Seems to me it would be worth rethinking the overall layout design – what you have so far seems to be constraining the yard unreasonably given your goals for train length and yard capacity.
Without seeing the full track plan, it’s impossible to give useful suggestions.
Good luck with your layout.