A recent thread at another forum got me to thinking about the design and usage of the yard on my small layout. I thought I'd share my design and operations with you here. There seems to be two extremes to yard design: those people who think you can toss five parallel tracks together and have a working yard, and those poeple who agonize over having a track dedicated for every concievable function. There is, thankfully, a middle ground available. I've always thought that a yard design can't be finalized (Not that anything on our layouts is ever final... ) until one has an idea of how the layout is going to be operated. Once one at least has a rudimentary idea of what layout ops are going to be like, then yard design can procede. And of course, a yard doesn't have to be a giant tangle of tracks and turnouts. Just so long as one has an idea of what track will be used for, and how many cars need to fit on it, the design can be worked out. My yard, imagineered to be located in Ironton, Ohio, is designed to serve the most basic of tasks. The yard classifies both inbound and outbound cars, services run-through trains, and provides a place for the storage of equipment on the layout. Easy enough, eh? Operations start in the morning, when cars left on the interchanges overnight are retrieved by the yard switcher and placed on Track 2 for classification. After these cars are classified, road jobs on the Ironton Terminal (to Ironton) and Ironton Northern (to Gallipolis) are dispatched to set out new cars and gather cars ready for interchange. The Ironton switcher classifies these new arrivals in the yard while the two daily Amtrak trains and the run-through coal train to the Grand Valley run. After this, a second round of road trains will take care of the switching in Ironton and Gallipolis. Upon their return to the yard, the switch crew will classify these new cars and make a run to the interchange tracks. ********** Now, I'll give a little more detail view of the yard operations. The yard switcher leaves the engine service track and pulls the cars from the DT&I and N&W interchanges onto Track 2 in the Arrival/Departure Yard. These cars are sorted in the Classification yard, with cars bound for Ironton going on Track 3 and cars bound for Gallipolis on Tracks 4 & 5. The yard job will pull the cars bound for Gallipolis to Track 2 where the Ironton Northern road power will tie on for the rest of the trip. After that, the yard engine will make pickups and setouts in Ironton itself. The yard job will then classify its own inbound cars, as well as those brought back by the Ironton Northern's road job, using the same tracks as previously mentioned. Amtrak's southbound passenger train will unload in Ironton, on Track 1, before continuing over the Ironton Terminal trackage into Kentucky. It will make a return trip northbound after a few hours, repeating its station stop in Ironton. While all this is going on, a northbound coal train will come off the Ironton Terminal, run around its train in the Arrival/Departure Yard, and go up the DT&I connection, bound for powerplants located on the Grand Valley Railroad in Michigan. Once the Ironton Terminal switcher is done with its classification work, the crew will spot the cars on Track 2, for pickup by the Ironton Northern road job. After this, the crew's final task is to set cars out on the DT&I and N&W interchanges before tying down for the night in the engine service area. ********** Any thoughts on this? I'll post photos of the layout soon, so you can see how it works out in real life (Or at least in N scale... ).
Cool stuff! You'll need a yard lead or drill track so you don't foul the main while switching. The Ten Commandments of Model Railroad Yard Design is an often mentioned place to gain info. Here it is: www.housatonicrr.com/yard_des.html
Brian, I realize you are trying to get a lot into a smaller space and that is to be commended. If I were to copy your plan, I would (if I had the space and could) add an arrival/departure track, which is how I see track 2 funtioning in your illustration. Based on your diagram, one could add an arrival/departure track to the top of the track- on the other side of track one (where the word Amtrak is), but in so doing one would be committing a sin occassionally: "thou shalt not foul the Main." [ 28. January 2003, 21:03: Message edited by: rsn48 ]
I realize that a switching lead is imparative in a busy yard on a large layout. On my layout, however, there is neither room nor the need for one. Since my layout isn't large enough to have more than two trains in motion at once, and on different sides of the layout, at that, such trackage would be wasted. When I'm designing layouts for others, or just for fun, I do make provisions for more workable yards with more trackage. Since this is my own layout, I'm more inclined to "keep it simple, stupid" and live with the shortcomings. Thanks for the input! I'm looking forward to hearing more!
It's not how busy the yard, but how busy the main line that matters. I've seen yard leads that double as passing sidings as well as yard leads that are really part of a lightly traveled branch line. Generally, a yard on a busy mainline will be a busy yard - but now always. The real issue is the amount of mainline traffic - if you are only running two trains then it's not that important - but if you have a loop plan - you might want to think about adding a lead - then you can switch the yard while the Amtrak train makes laps...
Well, there is simply no room for one on my layout, and as I've already said, I'm willing to accept a few shortcomings with my own layout for the sake of simplicity.
BrianS, I haven't seen your track plan and space available, but here is a thought for you. There are some buildings that have large roll-up doors so box cars can be rolled inside out of the rain and cold to allow loading and unloading of fragile cargo. I worked at a printing company that had one. We were the last building on the block, and the other four buildings all had the same arrangement, and all on the same track. At night, the switching crew would sometimes, open all the doors, pull our "full" car out through the buildings, and set an empty back for us, close our doors, re-set the other cars, and so on, leaving or taking cars as needed. This was scheduled for every Saturday night, so everyone could be ready. You "could" mount a turnout that entered the side of a building, and ran parallel through several buildings that could act as a "yard track" known only to you. Also, a yard track could run around behind buildings even if you had to cut a notch to clear a box car. Visitors seldom notice a hole in the side of buildings, and this would allow you to have more cars available, even though they may be hidden from normal sight. False front buildings, trees, and fences are another way to hide "scrunched up" trackage. We sometimes just have to make some sacrifices to enjoy our railroad. I had to mount a mirror to see cars parked on three yard tracks that were behind some buildings and totally out of sight, but I did have the yard capacity I needed. The top of the mirror could tilt out away from the wall so I could see the cars to couple up. By pulling a string, I could make the mirror go back flat against the wall, where the mirror made it look as if my layout was larger than it was. Think about it, be resourceful, there is usually a way, and remember, most people don't notice something like that unless you point it out.
