My first question is: Do you intend to take photos of your trains on your layout? If so, it doesn't really matter how 'many' cars are actually there... because the camera won't see them all. On my own home layout (11 x 12 x 9 u-shape) I can run up to 40 cars... but that's limiting car length to 40 & 50 footers; anything longer and... well you get the idea. But as has already been mentioned: Rule #1 - It's your railroad Rule #2 - Questions? See Rule #1. :tb-cool:
Trying to answer your question seriously and with some thought... 1- How many cars will your sidings hold for your industries? 2-double that, and that is how many cars your railroad should hold. If your sidings will hold 20 cars, your railroad will hold 40 cars. 20 in the sidings, and 20 going to or coming from the sidings.
Well, I have 22 85' cars in my Rock Island passenger consist. The problem is, my layout is small door layout, so if I wanted to run the whole consist on my layout, the DL-109 would be tailgating the business/observation car.. Is that so wrong? lol
On my past ISLs(ISL=Industrial Switching Layout) I like to vary my work..Some days the "local" would arrive with 12 cars while other days the local may not have any...Not to worry..The crew would pickup any outbounds and if needed spot cars from the overflow track(s)* I would use around 30 cars including the spotted cars and the overflow cars. *A overflow track(s) is a track where cars are held because there is no room for them on the industry's track due to the cars already spotted is in the process of being unloaded or loaded...
I - feel - the issue here is one of visual and psychological aesthetics. Basically avoid crowding the layout. This can be visually if everywhere you look the spurs and passing sidings are occupied. Psychologically it can be if you try to move a train or car and there is another train in the way it could be stressful and not fun any more. I can't speak for the prototype. These levels will vary a little from one person to the next. On the "Grey and Grandure" my yard used to always be full. Then I realized it made creating new trains almost impossible. Vissually it was great to me. On a psychological level it became frustrating. Now one long yard track is alway empty (except for photo ops or when used for staging trains).
Grey One,Good point about not "wabashing" a yard..I like to have my yard at 70-80% capacity with at least 1 open track.
Go the otherway. 1 - How many cars can your sidings hold? 2 - How many cars can your yards hold. 3 - Take this number and cut it in HALF. 4 - Adjust overall number by one mainline length train - because you have one train on the mainline at all times, switching or haulling. This gives you Clear destinations for arrivals and clear space in your yards to removes the cars already in the industries.
Number of cars on layout Try this one on for size. There are about 1.2 million freight cars in North America. 100 cars is very close to one mile in length, so there are 12,000 miles of freight cars running over ~200,000 miles of track. On that basis there are only 6 cars per mile of track. So, whatever you have is too many...or in other words, it is entirely up to you!
Avoid clogging yards and sidings. Remember that this statement applies to classification yards, not to staging yards. Well, to a lesser extent. A classification yard, as often stated, shouldn't be anywhere near full most of the time. Since a staging yard doesn't have to be switched, it can be nearly full, but it's advisable to always leave a track open.
Triplex said:Avoid clogging yards and sidings.. ------------------- In real life both happens..Should it be modeled? Only if you have trains that will be leaving from the yard(s).I can "wabash" a yard and have things flowing smoothly in a manner of few minutes.Of course I fully believe in have 70-80% capacity which should leave you headroom to work with.. As far as industry sidings those should vary from no cars to as many as the siding will hold to the derail...Nothing is cut and dry in true prototypical operation.
Ha! This all sounds very novel. Lets be real. These things soon take over like ivy. You will soon find yourself burried up to your basement in rolling stock of all kinds!!! That one extra boxcar will soon dominate your life!!!!! Help me I'm melting.... I'm melting...
Well, there are a lot of ways to figure this question out so I'll add my 2 cents. My layout is double track with no additional passing siding (and no hidden staging), 1 interchange track, 2 yards (1 small and 1 large) and 14 industries. Plus there are service tracks. Each main can support 2 trains, 3 if they're smaller. I define a "car" as a 50 footer since I switch eras between modern and the 70's/80's, and a stack car is counted by wells. My layout's "stated car capacity" for lack of a better term is based on the following: -Yards at full capacity (except the service tracks since we're talking about cars) -all sidings full, including the interchange -Three average length trains (now there's another good post) on each main This yields about a 500 car capacity so I still have trouble explaining to my wife why I have thousands of freight cars and can't get rid of any. But for operating, I just cut the number to one train per main and leave the interchange track and switching lead empty. It seems to work out OK unless all the trains try to get in a yard at the same time. Then I have 2 trains waiting to enter a yard. That never happens on the prototye, right? ;-) Dave Ferrari
Exactly. Congestion occurs in real life. However, don't put so many cars on your layout that there's always congestion.
I live near the Roseville yard and I am constantly amazed at the turnover there. Some days the yard is choked with cars and other days, not many at all... Lately the traffic has been on the lower side. The economy I suppose.
Wow! Thanks for all the replies! As I said in the original post, I removed some and am having much more fun now. I can "breathe"; the cars can move. Great ideas on how to make this determination. I especially like the article that seanm and mystere pointed out. Thanks again, folks.
I ran the calculatations from the article on my new layut. Sure takes a while even having the layout in XtrkCad I was SHOCKED at how many cars my layout can handle. Looks like I need to buy some new stock!
Uh oh, That sounds remarkably like what I hear when going for a home loan. "Based on our calculations, you can afford to borrow much more!" :msmile:Enjoy what you have calculated to be right, taking your wants and needs into account. Of course, I'm sitting next to my loop with an Amtrak consist, that if I convert a few more MHCs,switch from an HHP-8 to a few E8s and adjust a few MTL coupler lengths I may be able to couple my loco to the back of my observation car! So much for actually benefiting from a thread. It is a soothing sound though, and quite the distraction from paying bills.
Then why do i have more cars then i'll ever need? These darn mfgs. keep coming with cars that i can't resist, that's it the mfgs. are at fault. So it's really not my fault, heck i only buy them. The mfgs. keep making them and they are like the Borg--it's futile to resist. Oh heck, i'm just having way to much fun to give them up, i hope you are to. Dave
At the time it was Fleet.... Funny they got bought and now the new bank (Bank of America) isnt doing so well. Considering my buying, funny it was Fleet. As far as the Borg, my wife just told me, I will resist
