Direction of Travel

In Pete's post requesting a layout analysis campp said:

It seems to me that most of the layouts I've seen, at least lately, do travel counter-clockwise. I was beginning to think it was some kind of standard I'd never read.

Have I missed a rule in any of the texts? Is there a defacto standard or convention?

What primary direction of travel do all of you use on your layouts that have continuous loops; clockwise or counter-clockwise?

 

On a single-track line in reality, there would, on average, be equal traffic both ways. Direction conventions only matter when you have double (or more) mains. In that case, it's right-hand vs. left-hand. The only time CW vs. CCW matters is if you're using a dogbone to simulate a double main. In that case, you would normally run CCW, to create right-hand running on the shank.

 

In some cases it would depend on the facing of a stub end yard. My stub end yard sets the normal direction of travel to clockwise. If I am just runnign trains then with two concentric loops I usually have one in each direction.

However for "operations" the train starts clockwise, reverses direction and leaves for Points Unknown counter clockwise.

 

Having it both ways

On a very simple layout, and one probably not designed to follow a specific prototype, it might be easy to keep trains running one direction, have all spurs as trailing-point back-in, single-ended yards designed as back-in. This might be done on a layout on which one uses a yard as a place to store trains, takes trains out of the yard and runs them around the continuous main a time or two or a dozen and sticks them back in the yard.

This might describe a 27" x 34" Berlin/ West Germany layout I built in 1971.

It had two "yard" tracks which connected trailing-point to an outside loop of a double track line which, for right-hand running, would make it counterclockwise. An inner loop was intended to be run as the opposite direction of double track, and wired with reverse polarity to the single pair of wires which powered the layout. Was intended to allow 2 trains to be run in opposite directions at the same time with one power pack. Of course, that would be continuous "show" running, with no operation as such... This was primarily a demonstration
layout to show off the German equipment I picked up on a trip.

Most of the layouts I have designed and built over 40 years have been intended as bi-directional, even if they lacked a reverse loop or turning facilities.

My recently dismantled 3' x 7' East Texas piney woods layout was viewed primarily from the "courthouse square town" side, with the other side of a continuous loop, a staging tracks, hidden behind a tree line.

Trains running clockwise around the loop were going to the left to a viewer, hence westbound by "map direction". (Left is west on most maps.) They were supposedly traveling from the unmodeled town of Lost River near the Texas-Louisiana border, to the Texas mainline, with connections north to the rest of the country.
Trains running counterclockwise were going east, toward Lost River. [Since they were going either to or from Lost River, crews gave the pair of trains the nicknames "Lost" and "Found".]

My 24" x 36" portable Navy blimp base layout accomodates only one switching locomotive and it is always pointed with the front end either in a clockwise direction with relation to the circulation loop, or a counterclockwise direction.

But the switcher is not actually pulling a "train" in either direction (using the operations rulebook definition of "train"). It is only shuttling cars between the base interchange track and a loading or unloading spur. The only time it runs "around" the layout is when it is making a runaround move by traveling around the circulation loop.


On the Island Seaport layout I am currently building, mainline passenger and freight trains run clockwise when running south from the Texas mainland to terminate on the Gulf Coast island city, and counter-clockwise running from the island to the mainland.

Since a large portion of the operation will be yard switching and transfer to the port terminal railroad, those runs will be shuttling back and forth, not "running" either clockwise or counter-clockwise.

 

I have a 2-door layout in a L-shape, with 2 main lines basically following the outer edge. The outside loop runs freight clockwise, while the inner loop runs passenger counterclockwise. At present, there are two separate controls as the two are not interconnected. DCC is in the near future.
However, I recently drew up plans for a five door expansion, for a total of seven. This requires me to win a lottery and buy a large house, or have one, or several, of you send me large sums of cash!
In the expansion there will be connections between the 2 mains, giving me a total run of 10 km, or 6 miles, giving me the ability to use both tracks for both directions.
This is the stuff that dreams are made of!!!!

Dave.

 

Thanks everyone for that great information. Kenneth, beautiful work. Do you have more pictures of the German layout and the trains you picked up in Germany? I've acquired a few German items myself recently. I was sorry to read that you've dismantled East Texas, I'd love to see more of it too.

Triplex caught on to what I think I've been seeing, not only in people's layouts but in layout books. When a two-track main is diagrammed, the left to right is always below the right to left on the page. I guess my mind subconsciously adds the balloons at each end to make it a continuous running layout, which would of course be counter clockwise. If I'd been thinking of inner and outer loops I wouldn't have asked the question.

 

Very interesting. These aren't the answers I was expecting. After having read the Beginners section on the NMRA's website, I thought it was a standard too. Here's what they say is in their Basic Track Plan Section:

The second thing you will want to set up during your wiring is what is called the right hand rule. This simply means that when you view your layout from the power pack and with the direction switch pushed or turned to the right, the engine travels the track in a counterclockwise direction, to your right. Once you have the wires connected between the power pack and the rail to cause this direction of travel the outside rail is the positive (+) rail and the inside rail is the negative (-) rail. All two rail model railroad engines operated on DC (Direct Current) thus the use of the terms positive and negative.
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Thank you Flandry!!! It all makes sense now. But judging by my random sampling of power packs around the house the "switch pushed or turned to the right" isn't adhered to very well by the manufacturers.

Of course, as discussed above, I can see that you'd still want to run an inner loop in the opposite direction to simulate a two-track mainline. Isn't DCC wonderful, you don't have to wire the two loops with opposing polarities.

 

If you run around the room, like I do, this can get confusing. When I look at my track at milepost 0, I'm running counterclockwise, on the left side. Forward is to the left on the outmost track, which, due to the magic of geometry, becomes the inside track at certain points at you climb the levels. Maybe I shouldn't worry about left-side running after all!

Folded dogbones over several levels will bend your eyes quite a bit.

 

My layout is a 25' long, essentially "dog bone" shape, HO scale. It also has two reversing loops imposed over one end of the "bone". Never thought about this, but "clockwise" is WEST bound, "counterclockwise" is EAST bound.

That comes from no convention, but it comes fromt the direction my train has to travel to get to my coal branch based on my track plan. And the geography of where I model means to get to the coal fields a train pretty much as to go west. I can see folks modeling other parts of the nation having to go east to coal fields, or south, or whatever.

So I would think that whether your train runs clockwise or counterclockwise for any given direction is more a function on what "road" you're modeling and "WHERE" your RR depicts.

 

I just use direction signs. West may be left or right depending on the operation. Here is a location sign and a direction sign.

OTOH, it is not always clear which direction if the track doubles back or is folded.

Not an original idea, but I don't remember where I saw it.

 

Two track mainlines normally use righthand running (= CCW on the outside track) unless it's ex-CNW (METRA) which runs lefthanded. If you have CTC, a train can run either direction on either track. Single track doesn't matter (obviously).