Yard as a Layout

[steinjr]

That was prototype not model.

Of course it was. Which is why I used the phrase "scale feet".

I am a fan at looking at the real railroads for inspiration for model railroads. But I am also at all times aware of the fact that when I draw up a track plan for a model railroad, I am not actually working on a real railroad - I am working on a enormously over-simplified model of a few cherry-picked aspects of a complex reality, and my model will have to be designed within parameters a real railroad doesn't have to think about (like arm reach across several tracks from the aisles).

Track planning for a model railroad is about compromise. About balance. About understanding when to apply selective compression and when to use compressive selections. About imagination. About deciding what you want to emphasize for a specific design, and what you are willing to trade away.

If we are going to discuss the pros and cons of some specific design, and come with suggestions for how to improve it, then let us try to be aware of the fact that while the real railroads serve as our inspiration, what we have to deal with is still a model railroad.

8 000 -12 000 scale foot trains are not very relevant for most model railroads, since most of us will never have the space for a layout big enough to sensibly run (as in having staging, yards, sidings etc big enough to handle the train) 100-200 car trains.

That's around 396' plus locomotive -a very short train for such a big old yard.

Not really. It is not a very big yard - body track capacity (at about 75% full) is about thirty-five or so 40-foot cars. Or about four times the size of a "large" (for this yard) incoming train. If the yard instead of seven single ended 400 foot tracks had had three double ended 800 foot tracks, you likely would not have called it a "such a big old yard". It is a pretty dinky little yard.

The defining characteristic about Woodsriver (realistic or not) is the wye, the two single ended A/D tracks, and that traffic to the industries and engine terminal has to go via the yard lead - which has to be taken into account when switching that yard, and it gives the yard it's personality, for good or bad.

Of course, if you want to, you can very easily build or break down trains about twice the size of the A/D track - by using both A/D tracks for that one train. Or you can stop a larger train on the main, back a smaller cut of cars into the yard, leave them there, grab another cut of outbound cars, pull back onto the main, add the rest of your train and head on.

Or you can connect the upper end of the yard switching lead back to the main somewhere off the edge of the uppermost mainline module shown, so you can take trains directly into or out of any of the body tracks (loco first or loco pushing cars ahead of it). Of course, in that case any yard switcher will have to duck out of the way while you are arriving or departing over the switching lead.

Or you could sacrifice 20-30% of the length of arriving trains (which already are very short) in order to get an engine escape, if you feel an engine escape is necessary for your enjoyment of the layout:





I am not very tempted to do the last thing - to me the engine escape is not worth what it would cost.

FWIW, I agree that the placement of the engine terminal and the local industries tends to overload the design. In Dolkos' original design, he choose to emphasize the engine terminal at the cost of making the industries too hard to reach. So the industries over time got less use.

One possible option would be to drop the local industries, and just focus on doing the engine terminal. Another is to relocate the engine terminal - maybe to one of the two 2x4 foot mainline sections. Or a third would be to make yard section wider and switch the industries from the other side of the table - maybe change the table from a 30" deep section to a double set of 2 foot deep sections, forming a 4 foot deep table when assembled, if there will be space to walk around it.

Possibly more alternatives I don't see at the present time. It all boils down to what the goals of the design is. Which I don't actually know at the present time - I was just asked if Woodsriver could be crammed into a setup consisting of two 2x4 foot sections for the mainline and a 30" deep sectional table for the yard.

Feel free to suggest changes and improvements for Andrew's club yard, if you see things that could be improved.

Grin,
Stein