I’m playing with the idea of building a staging area for my trains, but I’m short of space and I’m not sure if I’m going to keep the space I have. I originally designed it with a runaround to leave the staging area after pulling the train in, but it took up too much space so now I’m thinking of backing the trains in. I really haven’t had much luck backing N-Scale trains and almost always something happens. So I was just wondering if I’m the only one or is there a trick to it.
If the cars are weighted fairly close to each other, with no exceptionally heavier cars on the rear of the consist, there is no sharp curvature involved, and one is dealing with some nice straight sections of flex track, and all the wheel sets are free rolling, should go like a charm. Also one can do a simple switching move by splitting the consist into two or three shorter sections and then backing each section in.
Johnny, By accident, I have a very-small down-grade on the first half of my HO yard. I have not fixed it because it makes backing in long trains a lot easier. Bob
Yes....if everything is very much ideal, you'll have no trouble at all Throw a light car, a little bump in the rail, a sloppy wheelset....well, it's a good excuse to tune up your fleet, right?
Breaking down John's Posting: Condition 1) If the cars are weighted fairly close to each other Condition 2) With no exceptionally heavier cars on the rear of the consist Condition 3) There is no sharp curvature involved Condition 4) One is dealing with some nice straight sections of flex track Condition 5) All the wheel sets are free rolling Good luck with that. I have tried repeatedly to do this with: Condition 1) Unit trains of Atlas beer can tank cars - Yes Condition 2) With no exceptionally heavier cars on the rear of the consist - Yes Condition 3) There is no sharp curvature involved, Oooops, 90degree curve is a very bad idea. Sigh Condition 4) One is dealing with some nice straight sections of flex track, Does Kato track count? Sigh Condition 5) All the wheel sets are free rolling - Um, er, probably not. Condition 6) You are not backing through more than one turnout. To fix my problem I am planning to use a yard goat to come down and drag the consist into the yard. After that I will use - GHA, (giant hand action), to fix my train. I might even rearrange my layout to include a reverse loop. Arrrrgh! In short, John summed it up nicely. Sigh.
Oh my, that could be very helpful! Addendum: I am also thinking about using 'cassettes'. 1) Driven the train onto a cassette, (some place off the main) 2) Pick up cassette 3) Drop it in place in the staging yard. My trains will only be about 4.5' at the longest.
Well unfortunately I'm going to have to have a 90 deg turn and a turnout because the room is to too short. But Bob might have something here. I could lower the back side so that gravity will be on my side.
Hmm, I started a cassette many years ago and I never completely finished it because it wasn't long enough. I'll have to look for it because it did have the track already on it. That might be another alternative.
Like the 1:1...back up S L O W !! I switch/backup cuts of 4-5 cars. I have backed em thru a double crossover...into the yard switch and then into the ladder. I have an AD track and break em up there. A long string of cars...hold your breath till its backed in there...lol :teeth:
I back 30-45 car trains up into both my yards, going threw several medium turnouts, but I do it real slow, usually don't have any problems!
WOW! well I was only thinking of 6ft however many cars that is. Below was my original design which required a helix to move the trains up to the yard. I did build the helix but it’s so big and it is a real tight fit. I don’t like the room it’s in and I don’t know if I can modify it to work someplace else. The new staging was going to be on wheels so that I could pull it out from underneath and raise it up to the layout height. I may be making a big mistake so I’m going to think about this for a while before I actually start building it.
You folks missed my last comment. To break the consist up into shorter sections and then back each section into the staging. An excuse to buy a small switcher if one already doesn't have one. And on the slight downgrade one has to be careful that the consist doesn't get up a head of steam and smacked the end of track bumper too hard thus a derailment. And there my felines come into play. They regularly will shed a whisker or two. Trim the whisker down and plant in the middle of the track, just flexible enough to allow the cars to pass over when under power, but strong enough to act as a car retarders either slowing or holding cars in place on a slope.
Thanks John, I've never heard of the whisker trick before. Sounds interesting, but I have to say that I have 5 indoor cats and I have never seen a "shed whisker". I'll have to ask the wife if she has ever seen one because shes always vacuuming.
They usually manage to break them off probably rough housing and they grow back. I found one just the other day on the foot of our bed. Probably came from the big guy who is a 20 pound Tom. I first read of the use for them to hold cars on a grade in I believe a Model Railroader article years ago. Since they taper to a fine point I guess it depends on where you trim them to get the flexibility to pass over them while the train is under power but the strength to hold several cars on a slight grade.
Let me echo a couple of earlier posts. Both of my staging tracks are about 25 car lengths long. (about 7') To back into them I have have to back through a 15" radius curve, and 4 different switches. Go s-l-o-w and no problems. This is with a full coal train or any type mixed freight you can imagine.
First I want to thank everyone for their responses. It really has helped. I’ve been thinking about the all times I’ve backed into a siding which aren’t very long and I believe it’s mostly certain cars that give me the most trouble. I’m going to start practicing backing and weed out the problem cars. I know for sure that at least one set of older Bachmann passenger cars have a problem. I added weight to them thinking it would help getting through some turnouts, but I might have added too much. I also changed the couplers to MT, but maybe I need to change the trucks as well. If it turns out to be a lot of cars then I may go back to my original plan and modify the table to rise up and down instead of using the helix. I’m just getting tired of building things only to find it doesn’t fit in the room.
I had a Kato Unitrack layout on a (very lumpy) rug where I needed to back trains off the main into a storage area under a tea cart. On the main here was a straigh section, followed by a 19" radius 15° curve entering a #4 turnout set for straight-through (the main follwed the curved path), followed by a straight section, followed by a series of #4 turnouts for yard tracks. The last turout was a wye, with the other side goiing back to the curved main, entering on the straight path of another #4 turnout. At first, I had problems with dead spots, but no derails. Adding feeders when I built the wye made it very reliable at low speeds. My biggest problem was shimming the sides of the Unitrack pieces to keep things level on the lumpy carpet. Cars were a complete mixture of Atlas, Bachmann, Microscale, Roundhouse, etc., but nothing over 60 scale feet. Trains were not over 3 real feet long.
The Bachmann passenger cars are notorious for the amount of drag and resistance with their trucks. One of the main culprits is the axle wipers on the lit cars. They have good weight but the trucks have so much resistance that pulling a consist of them creates a lot of drag and the same would be in reverse. There have been a number of ways to correct this, some posted on this board. My quick fix has been to just remove the pickup strips and have unlit cars.
Thanks John I'm going to do some searching around on this because I bought another set of old Bachmann cars and haven't even ran them on the track yet, because they don't have MT couplers
John, Can you find the posts about improving the pickups on Bachmann "shorty" passenger cars? About an hour reading non-related posts found with "advanced search" did not produce one for me. Steve
