Also a special issue that came out this month "How to build realistic layouts" 'Freight Yards' delivers "Meat and taters" on these items.
There was a tip inside that book that indicated one can use magnets with destinations on them on a rack indicating which track is classifying for which instead of trying to have lots of tracks for everything.
My yard plan is just 4 tracks, A/D and a drill. That's it. There is a morning train that arrives with freight for Falls Valley, and one other town and it gets broken down.
Dont make the mistake of filling that yard with more cars than your railroad can handle and think of it as actually being empty at times and packed full at others. The best yards continue to function even at the max capacity without interruption of the Mainline or firstclass trains.
And the current MR has a lot of really good info on engine servicing facilities.
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Andy Sperandeo MODEL RAILROADER Magazine
BLinny7 wrote: Sperandeo wrote:Hi Billy,Allow me to recommend my own book, "The Model Railroadr's Guide to Freight Yards." It's available in hobby stores and through the "Shop" section of this Web site.Good luck,Andy now that is the book I need to find .....good info guys thanks alot I am learning alot fast
Sperandeo wrote:Hi Billy,Allow me to recommend my own book, "The Model Railroadr's Guide to Freight Yards." It's available in hobby stores and through the "Shop" section of this Web site.Good luck,Andy
It is a good book. It explains the pupose of each track (or set of tracks) and shows several examples of different model and prototype yards to show how they can go together. It gets onto staging as well. I probably would have left out the section on building a scale track (it is very well done, but I though it was a use of several pages on the actual construction of a very specialized feature, and we a bit out of place). But that's a pretty tiny nit to pick on a book that I have found to be quite useful.
Jeff But it's a dry heat!
Andy I ordered you book last night . THANKS bILLY
Billy,
Your first book for any track planning, including yards, should be "Track Planning for Realistic Operations" by John Armstrong available from Kalmbach. A good second book on yard planning, especially if you are planning a large yard, would be the Special Freight Yard Issue (LDJ-7) of the Layout Design Journal available from the Layout Design Special Interest Group of NMRA. The link to their publications is: http://ldsig.org/pages/journal.html
I know Model Railroader has just released their new "Guide to Freight Yards." I have not read it yet but I am sure it would also be worthwhile.
Good Luck,-RR
Does anybody know of any good books or articles on the internet about building yards in HO scale? I'm brand new at this model railroading so hopefully there is something simple to start with. I am using DC to power layout.
Thanks Billy