New track plan # 2

[nomad]

Stein, I don't call that hijacking my thread. I call it making it better. Very interesting information

Loren

[steinjr]

Just to continue discussing staging, interchange and yard work, here is a rough sketch and description of one (of many - pick one you like, not one I like) way of doing this in your room, using roughly the setup you have:

A big L along the left and top walls, with an industrial peninsula/island somewhere down from about 1/4 or 1/3rd in from the left end of the top wall.



Say you had three double ended hidden staging tracks down along the left wall, behind some kind of removable viewblock or viewblock with removable parts for access to the staging tracks - a low backdrop with fields and clouds, industrial buildings, a mountain side, a hill, a forest or whatever grabs your fancy. The uppermost exit to hidden staging represents "towards the junction with the class 1 railroad". The lowermost exit to staging represents "towards the rest of the rural branch line".

Along the top wall you have "junction city" - a city with a yard, and engine terminal and a couple of local industries. Buildings, roads, grass etc as you like it - small town, bigger inner city, whatever. Same with era - my examples show early diesels, 40 foot cars and cabooses (because I need the cars and engines to test lengths and clearances on my design - plan is designed for train lengths of up to eight 40 foot car trains plus a GP7/RS3 and a caboose), but you pick your place and time.

Along the left wall, in front of the low backdrop/viewblock to staging, you have the start of your rural branch. Scenic as you like - fields, forests, hills, river crossing, whatever grabs your fancy. Add one or two rail served industries or none, a passing track or none - whatever you like. The branch line will not have a way of turning trains, because it will continue off the modelled layout into staging (where "the rest of the branch line" is). If you want a train to come from the branch line towards the yard in Junction city, you stage a train with the engine down on one of the hidden staging tracks before you start your session.

The industial island I have not done any drawing on - you just pick whatever you like for the island industries.

I have tried to sketch out one possible layout for junction city - it is loosely based on David Popp's Waterbury yard on his Naugatuck Valley RR layout.

Let's play through one possible operating session to how things might interact - again - just an example - you may like totally different things from what I like, and you are the boss of what goes on your layout - these are mostly to illustrate the concepts:

Cars on the diagrams are color coded according to what is their initial destination:
- Light green cars are bound for Junction City local industries
- Orange cars are bound for interchange with the class 1 road
- Olive green cars are bound for island industries
- Yellow cars are bound for the rural branch line
- Engines are brown, cabooses are red



The morning train from the foreign class 1 road has pulled in on the Yard arrival/departure track with a train consisting of:
- Foreign road engine (brown)
- Two cars for junction town industries (light green)
- Three cars for Island industries (dark green)
- Three cars for rural branch line (yellow)
- Caboose (red)

The train may have started the session already in the A/D track ("having just arrived"), have started the session on the visible layout, holding just to the left of the RR crossing in Junction City, inbound for the yard, or started the session in hidden staging, and you line the turnouts and bring it in from staging to the yard i Junction city - your choice.



The foreign road power cuts loose and runs down the engine escape track. The engine escape track can also be used as a second A/D track if the first A/D track is full - at the cost of trapping the road engine until the yard switcher has removed the caboose and the cars so the road engine can escape. But better than having to leave the inbound train in town blocking the RR crossing, isn't it ? The engine escape track can also be used as an extra classification track while sorting cars.

The yard switcher comes out and grabs caboose off end of arrived cut of cars



Below the engine escape track is three classification tracks. Longest (topmost) can hold ten or eleven 40-foot cars. Shortest (second from bottom) can hold seven or eight 40-foot cars.

Lowermost track in yard is used for access to the lower end of the caboose track and to the engine terminal. It would be possible to have one or two spots at the far right of this track used as "RIP" (Repair in Place) track, where cars can be put for minor repairs. You can simulate whether a car needs to go there e.g. by pulling a card at random from a deck of cards before a train departs - if you get a jack, one of the cars (picked by pulling a second card - ace: first car, deuce: second card etc) needs repairs, and must be moved to the RIP track to remain there for rest of the session. The foreign road power goes to the engine service track at bottom left of yard by way of this access track.

Yard switcher stoves caboose at top of caboose track. Caboose track on the diagonal along the yard ladder. Cabooses on trains that arrive in the yard will be on the leftmost end of the train, so you will want get your switcher on the left end of the caboose to grab it. So we typically want to push arriving cabooses into the caboose track from the left (top) end.

Cabooses for trains departing the yard will need to go on the right end of the train, so you want your yard switcher to be to the right of the caboose to be able to tack it on - so we pull cabooses for outbound trains from the right/lowermost end of the caboose track.

The caboose track also sort of forms a natural queue of trains - the next train to depart will be the one whose caboose is at the rightmost/lowermost end of the caboose track.

Up to you if you want to model that each crew has their regular caboose (so you might have to dig out a specific caboose if the order the trains will depart in changes), or whether cabooses are assigned on a "first come, first served" basis.



Switcher grabs a cut of cars and classifies inbound cars for the island and rural branch. Up to you how much sorting you want to do of each block of cars - whether you e.g. would want to presort cars for island industries so they are in the right order to be dropped off as you go down the island main track track.


Switcher grabs inbound cars for local industries and delivers them.

I picture industry A as some kind of industry that recieves two to four loaded cars in a day and empties two cars per half session. When they release the cars after having unloaded them, the cars need to be taken to the cleanout track (just below industry B) for half a session of cleaning out before they are shipped back towards the class 1 railroad.

Industry B is pictured as some kind of industry which receives empty cars and then load them. It has room for five cars at it's loading dock. It receives five empty cars at night, load the three leftmost cars before lunch and two rightmost cars in the afternoon.

Again - you pick your industries and flavors - this is just to visualize that an industry can receive loaded cars and empty them, receive empty cars and load them, receive loaded cars, empty them and reload them, receive empty or full cars they are not yet ready to hand and all kinds of funny stuff.


Switcher brings back cars from industries outbound for the class 1 railroad (or possibly for the island or the rural branch). Some cars are empty, some cars are full.


Switcher pulls the cut of cars for the island industries and starts building "the Island Turn" by putting the cars on the A/D track.


Engine for the island turn grabs is hooked up to the front of the train, while the switcher gets the caboose for the outbound train from the leftmost/lowermost end of the caboose track.


Switcher adds caboose to outbound island turn


Island job departs, switcher starts preparing the outbound rural branch turn. If you have two operators one takes the Island Turn and the second takes the yard work. If you have one operator, you run the jobs sequentially - either finish the next yard job steps first or run the Island job first.


Switcher puts the cut for the rural branch on the A/D track. Road power for the rural branch moves up and is hitched to the front of the cut, switcher then goes for the caboose at the bottom of thecaboose track.


Foreign road power departs with interchange cars for foreign road. It will end up trapped in a hidden staging track. On the parallel hidden staging waits the evening train with interchange cars from the class 1 - to appear later - see overview picture further down in this post:


The switcher performs local switching
- The two unloaded cars from industry A is moved to the cleanout track
- The three loaded cars from industry B is brought back to the yard
- Two cars are left at industry B for loading (not ready yet)

The three loaded cars from industry B will be outbound for the class1 evening train, along with any outbound cars from the island industries.


Then the switcher crew takes their lunch break
The overview shows:
- yard has three cars outbound for evening interchange job with the class 1
- two cars being cleaned out - can be outbound evening interchange or next morning (session) interchange
- two cars being loaded by industry B - might be ready for evening interchange, might have to wait for next morning (session) interchange
- Island turn ready for local switching
- Rural turn ready for local switching and then will continue "up the line" into staging (for the rest of this session)
- Morning train for class 1 is just stayingin the staging track closest to aisle
- Afternoon train from class1 is waiting to appear

You (or one or more operators) now do e.g:
- run the Rural turn (which will not reappear this session), end up in staging
- run the island turn, pull cars and set out cars, return outbound cars from island industries to the yard, where they will be classified by destination: to the rural branch, to the class 1 railroad or to the junction town industries.
- another train arrives from foreign road (or with your engine) with evening interchange from the foreign road

Smile,
Stein

[Russ Bellinis]

What I have seen commonly done since the caboose was eliminated from most trains is for the train to be made up in a local yard with the switcher in the middle of the train. Cars to be delivered to facing point spurs will be in front of the engine and those for trailing point spurs behind the engine. When the switch crew gets to a spur to drop cars, they just push them in if it is facing point or back in if it is trailing point. I'm not sure that was a legal way to travel even short distances 50 years ago. I also don't know how well using two switchers with one kept on a siding in an industrial park would work back in the days of steam considering how long it took to steam up a locomotive from cold and the fact that they probably would not leave a steam engine sitting out in a public location with steam up without having someone standing by the engine. I'm just not sure how they would handle something like that situation.

[nomad]

Stein, I am rushed for time right now, but I like what you came up with. Staging entering and leaving on separate tracks really appeals to me. And putting that loop on the bottom would be no problem. I will read the rest when I have time. Thanks for all your help !

Loren

[nomad]

Dang Stein, reading this I am ready to build the yard and staging right now just to operate it
I have read everything I could find on operations but seeing it explained like this really sounds exciting. That is what I call operating !
Another article I always liked is Byron Henderson's " A little love for the yard ".
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://home.earthlink.net/~mrsvc/id19.html">http://home.earthlink.net/~mrsvc/id19.html</a><!-- m -->

Anyhow, looking at the plan, I would be tempted to shorten the top table 2 ft and put a curve there and finish the loop. I didn't do a loop before because I was short on funds, but right now I could afford it. Oh, and the left table is open on the bottom, so it could come down 2 ft.
On another thread you said you stink at track planning. Well, I think you do pretty good :!:

Loren

[steinjr]

Dang Stein, reading this I am ready to build the yard and staging right now just to operate it
I have read everything I could find on operations but seeing it explained like this really sounds exciting. That is what I call operating !
Another article I always liked is Byron Henderson's " A little love for the yard ".
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://home.earthlink.net/~mrsvc/id19.html">http://home.earthlink.net/~mrsvc/id19.html</a><!-- m -->

I am also a fan of Byron. He thinks and writes clearly, and has interesting stuff to say.

I've read articles by Byron both on his web page (and blog), in the LDSIG (Layout Design Special Interest Group) forum on <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ldsig">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ldsig</a><!-- m -->, on the Kalmbach trains forums, and quite a few of his published articles - in the Layout Design Journal (comes with a membership in LDSIG), in Model Railroader, in the annual Model Railroad Planning, and I believe he had one in the first issue of Joe Fugate's new ezine, too. Had to go back and check - yep - he did a story on the Hoboken Shore Railroad in MRH 2009-Q1.

Anyhow, looking at the plan, I would be tempted to shorten the top table 2 ft and put a curve there and finish the loop. I didn't do a loop before because I was short on funds, but right now I could afford it. Oh, and the left table is open on the bottom, so it could come down 2 ft.
On another thread you said you stink at track planning. Well, I think you do pretty good :!:

Thank you. But feel free to cannibalize it totally, tear it apart and build something new with the remnants - I just wanted to illustrate a couple of concepts (like some ways of using staging to feed into the operations on the visible layout).

Smile,
Stein

[nomad]

This one I am really happy with. It has about everything I like. The island is now three major industries. Live stock pens, a slaughterhouse and icing platforms. Staging is still above the yard.
Thanks for the yard concept Stein, It's great !
What do you think?

Loren

[steinjr]

Let's see - here is a track schematic for your plan, with tracks labelled:



First - I like the way it looks! It really conveys the feeling that this is a longish unhurried run.

Some things you may already have considered:

1) Track P - will work great as an interchange track - you have inbound cars from the other road left there before the session starts. Yard switcher goes left, backs up into track P, grabs cars, pulls left onto main, backs rightwards into yard, classifies cars.

Session ends with outbound cars stashed at the interchange track. Fiddling (rearranging the cars) is done between sessions.

Not so sure it will work equally well a staging track, from whence you will bring in a whole train and where a whole train will depart to. You only have one track - so nowhere to hide more than one train. So scratch simulating quite a bit of traffic before you have to stop the session and fiddle.

And since track P branches off the main in the same direction as the yard branches off the main, you will have to "saw" going both ways - either back up towards the left from staging onto the main before driving rightwards into the yard, or drive leftwards from staging onto the main and then back up rightwards into the yard, and something similar when your foreign road train is departing the yard for staging.

It can be used as staging, but maybe not quite as flexible as running multiple staging tracks down along the left wall.


2) Run from yard to peninsula down the left wall, curve around, up left wall and into peninsula.

I am a little ambivalent about this run. On one hand, you get a very nice long run for your trains - gives a feeling of a train really going somewhere. This is a great scenic feature, and really gives a lot of look and feel !

On the other hand you more or less lose the opportunity to run several switching jobs simultaneously - having one person switch the industries on the peninsula from the right side, while another switch along the left wall from the pit between the left wall and the peninsula.

As set up now all industries on this run would basically be switched from the pit between the left wall and the peninsula and most action will happen at the lower end of that pit - not really a lot of space room for more than one operator at a time there, without people bumping into each other.

Also, design length for trains were initially 10 cars, and you can only run around about 12-13 cars out on the peninsula. But with all the industries around the pit between the left wall and the peninsula, 10-12 cars won't take you very far.

But no law saying that you have to switch all industries on each run. Real railroads aren't too fond of going back and forth along the same line several times to get more cars, but you can always run the switching by taking the first 10 cars from the yard out, switch some industries, come back to drop off the cars you picked up from the first batch of industries, and then go back out with cars for the next batch of industries.

Also, I suppose you could always mirror the industries on the peninsula if you wanted to provide for working the peninsula from the right side of it, but the lead for switching the peninsula would still be the same track that is needed as a lead to switch industries F, G, H, J and K. If you wanted to support switching these (peninsula and industries on the left) as separate jobs, I think you might want to both mirror the trackage on the peninsula, and add a yard lead for the peninsula industry support yard, curving around parallell with the main around the curve at the top of the pit.

If one operator is what you are planning for, not a big problem.

3) Industry L - you will need to do coupling and uncoupling between the industry and the wall. It might be a better use of this space to drop this industry track and use the space for a double ended siding (or possibly two) along the wall - either intended as staging or as a passing track/runaround track if you want to run several switching jobs at the same time.

4) Pensinsula industry support yard area - looks good, but I maybe would consider adding one extra single ended track below E in the track schematic (along the pit as it is, towards the right if you mirror the plan for the peninsula), to provide somewhere to stash some cars to give you a little extra work space while you are switching.

Hope you don't feel I am kicking your plan - I really like the way it looks, and if it works the way you want it to work (if you want an interchange track instead of staging, one switching job at a time instead of two), then you have a pretty neat design there!

Smile,
Stein

[MasonJar]

Wow... lots of work going on! I love the "virtual" operations step-by-step! Very cool

One comment I have is to maybe swap the yard and the section against the wall. It really looks as if the yard is designed to be operated from one side, so why not put it against the wall. That would almost double the possibilities for operation if the penninsula with the loop was populated with double sided industries (à la Art Curren).

Andrew

[steinjr]

Wow... lots of work going on! I love the "virtual" operations step-by-step! Very cool

One comment I have is to maybe swap the yard and the section against the wall. It really looks as if the yard is designed to be operated from one side, so why not put it against the wall. That would almost double the possibilities for operation if the penninsula with the loop was populated with double sided industries (à la Art Curren).

Andrew

Mm - by "the yard" you mean the industry yard on the peninsula, right ? Not the one along the upper wall ?

It would be an excellent idea to put that over by the left wall, and put the turnback blob on the peninsula instead. That way you could also follow your train from the main yard (upper right) down around the peninsula, up along the pit on that side and down to the end station along the left wall.

Peninsula could be made wider and be double sided - or jutting out into the room at a different angle (e.g. down towards the lower right hand corner).

Smile,
Stein

[MasonJar]

by "the yard" you mean the industry yard on the peninsula, right ? Not the one along the upper wall ?

It would be an excellent idea to put that over by the left wall, and put the turnback blob on the peninsula instead. That way you could also follow your train from the main yard (upper right) down around the peninsula, up along the pit on that side and down to the end station along the left wall.

Peninsula could be made wider and be double sided - or jutting out into the room at a different angle (e.g. down towards the lower right hand corner).

Smile,
Stein

Yup - swap the two "vertical" pieces. There might need to be a few allowances (as you note) for turn radii, but I think that might make things more "interactive". As it is, the return loop along the wall is kind of hidden and not overly useful. However, if that is the intent and hiding the train for a while is part of the operational plan (to simulate distance/time/etc), then so be it...

Andrew

[nomad]

Ok, here's a quick and dirty fix. About all I have time for right now ( more doctors appointments ) All I did was swap the two peninsulas and flipped them.
Stein, operations will be 99% solo on this layout.
I can not go any further out into the garage, my wife parks her car in there, hence the loop design. One of my big worries is the layout getting banged by the car doors.
I took out one industry above the yard and added a staging track along with the interchange/fiddle track. I might be able to move the yard to the left and increase the runaround length, thus increasing the train length ?

Loren

[steinjr]

Ok, here's a quick and dirty fix. About all I have time for right now ( more doctors appointments ) All I did was swap the two peninsulas and flipped them.

Looking good!

Smile,
Stein

[MasonJar]

Nice! So does it still fit with the operations you envisage?

Andrew

[nomad]

Nice! So does it still fit with the operations you envisage?

Andrew

Yes it does. The left peninsula could be a country type setting because of the live stock, and the center peninsula a run down industrial area. I am thinking I might be able to raise the main yard and make the two curved tracks going to the peninsulas over and under to enhance the scenery a little bit. I am also thinking that it is a long run for the reefers from the icing platforms, so the industry track at the upper left could be icing platforms to re ice the reefers before they go to staging.
Sound OK ?

Loren