Well this is my thoughts for my yard. It a combination minor interchange and classification yard. There will be plenty of throught freights. In the upper right you see two tracks. The connected track goes via tunnel to the California Western Branch line. The stubbed line is the main coming from San Francisco Staging.
In the upper right of the yard is the main line going to Eureka.
The horizontal blue line is a back drop. The vertical blue line is a seam in the landscape mesh.
In theory, if you look ant the right side of the main-line you have a classification yard. On the left side of the yard is a place where motive power can be switched without pulling into the yard, or a car of two can be dropped for local or set out for the through freights. This yard is at about the center of the Northwestern Pacific being 170 miles from SF and 130 from Eureka. The year is 1917. Logging is the major industry in the area.
What I don’t like.
IT doesn’t feel complete. The caboose track is near the edge, but that can be fixed. A pole goes through the one of the tracks on the town side of the backdrop. The passenger station I have located in the small siding at the top of the drawing. The spur off the back is for passenger car storage. It is just too cramped. Approx size of what is shown 5’ x 14’ HO scale.
Hmm, looks pretty good to me. Look like you have all the pieces, A/D track, access to the servicing facilities, switcher pocket, caboose track… Maybe if you angled the yard a bit and lopped off the lower right corner of the benchwork at a similar angle so you can still reach in. Does the town need to be seperated by a backdrop? That would open things up a bit more - instead of a solid backdrop divider, how about the actual town - streets, buildings, houses, etc.?
The backdrop right now forms the base for the upper level. I suppose I could suspend it. In the proto there is no horseshoe bend in the track obviously, but I like the idea. I’d have to build lots of structures though. Can’t think of a better way to drive the cost per foot. I will think about it. I haven’t put in any industrial spurs yet.
Oh yeah, I intended a crossover on the right side of the two lower AD tracks.
I would suggest not having the the engine facilities break off the class tracks. I would put the engine terminal inside the loop. You might even want to reverse the lead and put it on the bottom with the class tracks parallel to the mains.
I also don’t understand the runaround on the bottom class track or the double crossover at the top.
I am not connected to a printer so I will have to study it some more and make additional comments later. I am looking at ho you will get a cut to switch or an outbound train from the class yard to one of the long tracks.
I have envisioned the roundhouse at the end of the layout ever since thought of building it. It’s funny how when you get your mind set, you don’t think of the obvious. Great idea.
I don’t understand what you mean by reversing the lead here.
I also don’t understand the runaround on the bottom class track or the double crossover at the top.
Could be more interesting if it wasn’t parallel to the edge of the benchwork.
Perhaps I don’t understand the “right and left” but doesn’t this motive power switching route cross directly over the drill track?
I see the locomotive storage and repair round house but where are the servicing facilities? Sand, ash pit, coaling (wooding), water.
Well a 1917 logging railroad probably only has 50’ passenger equipment so it shouldn’t be as cramped as one normally thinks of mainline passenger yards with 1920’s 80’ equipment.
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Other things…
Like dehusman, I don’t understand what the short run around track in the center of the bottom track is for? In fact I don’t understand the purpose of that entire bottom track.
The ladder on the inside (right hand side as one arrives from Eureka?) seems to waste lots of space and be a series of “S” curves to get to the far track. A straight normal ladder might be more boring but I think more effective.
The two tracks going to San Francisco and the Branch. Why not eliminate the turnout to the branch, connect the branch track to where the SF is now, and extend the inside loop around to be the main departing to SF?
As to the suggestion to put the turntable inside the loop, That would save a lot of space but how many pictures of model railroads do you see with a loop of track going around the round house? Answer - tons, that is the oldest trick in the book, but to me it ruins the round house sce
Maybe, but the way I layed out the space, if the backdrop wasn’t parallel, there would be an unreachable area. Also, the way I had it envisoned, was that it had an upper level.
Yes, and over the main as well. I hope and expect, this yard is a long way from complete. I’m greener than a lilly pad under a frogs belly when it comes to yard design.
I imagined them along the shorter track coming from the roundhouse.
As to the issue of whether the engines used oil or coal or wood burning locos. I just haven’t found out. I know that the logging roads used wood frequently, but a lot of them imported coal. The NW was a jointly owned susiderary of the SP and ATSF. I’m not sure what influence that has on what they burned. I’m pretty sure oil was a common fuel in the period.
Chip… oil,oil,oil for fuel! SP owned lines were transitioning by the turn of the century, espically those located in fire prone areas or in those operating near forest perserves.
Just thought i’d pass that along.
Also, fire sprinkler tank cars were mandatory during the summer months to quelch right-of-way fires caused by brakeshoes or journel lubriciants subject to heat during periods of extreme braking.
What I meant by “reversing the lead” is that you have all the switches on your switcing lead on the “diagonal” track running down the middle of the yard. Imagine if you will, all the switches in the same track as the one the caboose track breaks off of, and all the yard tracks run parallel to the main. That way the switches are all right near the edge of the layout making it way easier to see the lead car in each track and to reach in to uncouple cars when you switch. (Ergonomics).
If you lost the roudnhouse you could slide the whole yard to the right on the main and give yourself room to put some crossover switches just before the 180 degr curve. Remove the multiple crossovers from the tracks adjacent to the yard and make them into straight set out or arrival/departure tracks. Keep on track on the curve as a lead and the other as a main . The ultimate goal is to beable to make a straight pull out of the s/o or a/d tracks back onto the lead. Make the lead tie into the main on the other side of the curve. Then put in several separate tracks for the passenger terminal.
Put the roundhouse in the loop, but curve the backdrop behind it so it points to the corner of the layout (from above the backdrop will look like a hockey stick). Use a road overpass to disguise it passing through or past the end of the backdrop. If done “artfully” it won’t be a roundhouse in a loop, its a roundhouse in a curve and you won’t see the other side of the loop.
Remember paper and pencil is cheap. Electrons are cheaper. Sketch away.
Here’s my latest thoughts based on your feedback. There’s more I could have added more but I ran out of awake.
It’s certainly prettier, but I can’t figure out how to get the engines from the A/D to the roundhouse. Or where to put the passenger terminal, although I can think of a couple of options for that.
Bringing the switches to the edge was a gret idea. I was planning hand throws.
I have to resist the urge to ask if you’re going to serve that track plan with red sauce or an alfredo…I know, I know, it’s a yard, but it seems like there’s an awful lot of track just sort of jammed in there in order to have a really really really big yard. I know you want to have lots of capacity, but that sort of design is the kind of thing I’d use to suggest a super-busy Class 1 yard in Chicago or Kansas City, not a sleepy backwater logging railroad held together with baling wire and string like the NWP. Especially if you’re going to have two other major yards on the layout.
It sounds like you already feel like it is just too cramped–go with that feeling! Open things up to allow the majestic scenery I’m sure you want to model to take up a little space. And, heck, your current yard designs beat the pants off of the plans you used to post for the Hogwarts layout only a year or so ago…
Actually, this yard is it. Eureka and San Franscisco are statging. Actually, I’m not looking for this to have super capacity, rather I want it to serve the purpose of efficiently handling the traffic of 4-6 people operating the model railroad.
I had the dangest time figuing out what a yard lead was. Every diagram I looked at was always stubbed off and the author assumed you knew what he was talking about. So I’d draw them like I saw them, and of course, it drove people crazy. Drove me crazy.
Santa Fe at Galveston, Texas had a tight radius reverse loop around the roundhouse apparently to turn passenger consists and locomotives. Shown on a circa 1980(?) CLIC (car-location-industry-spot) track map.
I don’t understand this compulsive need common among a vast segement of modlers to cram every available space with structures. A highlight of the NWP was the rural scenery and small hamlets dotting the right-of-way that existed purely to serve the lumber and railroad industrie.
The more I observe certain design concepts of this hobby , makes me appreciate those into narrow guage modeling who have retained, practice and stress the concept of allowing scenery to dominate a layout.
I got you covered. The yard you see is back in the corner. The entire front–everything you see is going to be redwoods. I think that qualifies for scenery dominating a layout. Even so, I plan to prune the tracks a bit on the yard.
