I have built the portable staging yard for my Indiana Railroad (West End-Illinois) and wonder what the best configuration is. It will feed both ends of my railroad and will be movable if I decide to take over the 35' x 16' basement room where my smaller 14'x11' layout is today. I am going to have 8-12 tracks on a 12' x 2' 2" table and I have a 42" square area on the end of that for a return loop. I have been looking for examples and wonder if someone might point me to them as I have had little luck doing searches here and in the Layout Design forum? Is it better to have the tracks split 4-6 on each side of the two through tracks or would an elongated diamond shape with the throat coming off one end of the return loop work better? I also want two crossovers so that I can feed traffic back the way if I want to in the future. HoosierDadIndy
If I am understanding you correctly, it sounds like what I did for my yard when we built it for the modules. I recently revamped it so I could use in my layout. For the module use it was designed for storage only. The overall size is 16' long by 4' wide and 28" in the middle. The original plan had a single track that entered the yard from one end which split into 9 stub tracks. On the second modification, I double ended the first 8 tracks and added a return loop which connected with the 9th track that I used for an Arrival/Departure track. This was also wired as a reverse loop. When a train returned to the mainlines on the modules it went through a scissors Wye. This gave us the option for direction of travel and the choice of either mainline via a crossover. On the third revision, I added a small yard on the side that can be seen in the first picture of the first link. In 97 I increased the width so it would have two yards with 8 tracks each and added a second by-pass track with crossovers. Recently though, I have revamped it again. This time I separated the yard ladder at the throat of the yard into two separate ladders. This ended the need for a reverse loop and gave me two run through yards. I kept the 9th track wired for a reverse loop in the event that I ever needed to turn a train. Now I have two separate yards that fold back over on themselves and are still connected with the loop on the end. The front yard acts a fiddle or classification yard, and the rear yard is for open staging. This link shows the yard setup with the modules with the single yard throat http://www.bendtrack.com/pyard.htm This link is the my blog that shows how I modified the yard throat for the layout. http://thelittlerockline.blogspot.com/ Hope this helps? Allen...
Hoosier Dad Indy, I have to ask, did writing the question clarify the issue for you? Many is the time I have started on the first page of a new thread. By the time I have outlined, explained, and listed the possible options I have answered the question for myself. I ask this question because I can't follow your question other than it seems to have something to do with track length and configuration. Just a suggestion, try rewording it and organizing your thoughts in terms of: Issues Options Pros Cons Good luck and have a wonderful year.
Here's and Idea if your limmited on space or not why not try this run a track somewhere convenent off the edge of you layout and get a 6-8' board place track on it and run you trains on it. Then pick up the board with the train and place/hang on a convenent wall for a desplay. Then when you ready to run you train again take of the wall and run the train back on the layout again. This option will give you more room to enlarge your layout rather than storing trains.
Allen -- Thanks for the post and links. That design may come in handy for me ... eventually. Hoosier -- Whatever you end up doing, keep us posted, please. Good luck! Jim
