Was kicking around an idea that may ultimately be a lesson in futility but a thought came to mind. Do railroads typically place an industry spur off a runaround track? My plan right now includes industries to the north and south of the main and a runaround south of the main. In placing industries the south should the spurs be before or after the runaround diverging off the main is it acceptable to have them off the runaround? I'm thinking maintenance of the switch off the main would be easier as runarounds may have less ballast and sometimes lighter rail than the main.
A runaround track, commonly known as a "siding", itself could host many customers. It might depend upon your time frame. Such as cattle pens and ramp, grain elevator/feed store, fuel (bulk oil, coal) distributor, loading platform, lumber yard, grocery warehouse, etc, etc. From there, you might have a "house track" stacked onto the siding. This was essentially a much shorter siding, often used for company cars, m-o-w, camp cars, machinery, etc. And then you could have spurs from the siding, or the main track and even at times the house track across that main from the siding.
Yes it would work placing spurs off a runaround track. One way to get rid of a runaround track is to put an industry on it . Once cars are spotted they cannot be moved until the industry is finished with them negating their use as a runaround. Of course there are double ended spurs to pull or spot cars in either direction but they still make unpredictable runaround tracks. I hesitate to use the word siding as a siding in a railroad rulebook and timetable is meant for meeting and passing trains. Randy
Not always is there a spur track for the industry attached to a runaround track. There is a particular location on a line I thought about building that would have to pull the cars from the industry in one direction but then spot the cars back in the industry in the other direction. On the Seattle & North Coast RR they would pull the cars out of the lumber mill at Tukeys on their way to Port Angeles. The siding was in a slight hill so they would simply release the brakes from the cars in the siding and coast them into the train on the mainline. When the train was heading back eastbound to Port Townsend the crew would then spot the cars in the mill at Tukeys and the work there was then complete. Hope that makes sense. Ryan
Just a small addition concerning Tukey's. It was not considered to be a siding by the S&NC. In their timetable instructions specifically called it out as "cannot meet or pass". Of the thirteen "stations" in their timetable, trains could only meet or pass at Port Townsend, Sequim, Agnew and Port Angeles.
A double ended spur. The best example I can think of is a spot on the old SOO line South of Fond du lac. Spur 126 was an industry track that was double ended so cars could be switched in either direction. Empty cars going in Westbound and loads coming out East. A stub spur can only be serviced in one direction. Again a "siding" is for meeting and passing trains. The scenario above describes a gravity drop. Flying switches and drops were a real timesaver when either a runaround track wasn't available or too far away to use quickly. Randy
I had just been looking at some Googlemaps satellite images of my layout's prototype area which is the SP/WP paired track between Winnemucca and Carlin, Nevada. Basically a double track line and a busy one. I was surprised to find that most of the spurs on this line don't have a run around track between the spur and the main line. The ones that I've seen are all trailing point spurs.
I had a chance to diagram what I was thinking. Assume you have 3 industries on an industrial track or branch line as in pic 1. What makes the most "sense" to me and what I see the most (pic 2) is having all spurs off of the "main" with the exception of a complicated industry where there are multiple switches. What I'm pondering is how often pic 3 occurs. If anybody has a real-world example of that let me know.
Like model railroaders, real railroads would jump at the chance to use any piece of track for multiple purposes. Unlike model railroaders, real railroads seldom got to place the industries to suit their convenience. Until the Santa Fe started placing industrial parks on their lines, that is.
