track placement in a yard

[eightball]

I am trying to find out how far apart tracks should be placed in a yard.thx

[RedSkin]

You could do a search...there was just a topic on this.... and I believe the recommendation was 2 inches on center, or 2 1/2 inches....for HO.

Brad

[UpNorth]

2 1/16 center to center  for yards.

This link may be of interrest to you : http://www.nmra.org/standards/sandrp/s-8.html

[dknelson]

My two cents worth -- buy some cheap track (brass track is almost given away at most swap meets) and experiment based on how you intend to run your yard.  If you intend to use the automatic uncoupling and delayed action of Kadees in your yard that is one thing in terms of spacing - they can be fairly close.  If you use picks and other mechanical tools, or if (gasp) you use your fingers to pick up a car to uncouple it -- something I have seen some of the most famous model railroaders in America do, by the way -- then you may want a wider spacing.   Indeed once fingers are involved, spacing for N might be close to spacing for HO. 

Another issue is height of the yard and how easy it is to see the road names and numbers of cars on tracks farther away from you.  In fact some people use a slight "bleacher seat" effect on their yard tracks for just that reason, but spacing also has a role to play here.

Dave Nelson 

 

[wedudler]

At the prototype you will find as close as 13' ! A bit narrow to walk between.

I've used this for my stub end class tracks. 

Wolfgang 

[wjstix]

Unless you're "rolling your own", the dimensions of the commercial turnouts you use will pretty much determine what the spacing of your ladder tracks are.

If you're building "fiddle" staging (where you pick up the cars by hand, no turnouts used) I've used 6 tracks in a one foot wide shelf with no trouble, though I found it helped to elevate the rear two tracks 1/2" or so.

[Sperandeo]

"Stix" wrote: "Unless you're 'rolling your own,' the dimensions of the commercial turnouts you use will pretty much determine what the spacing of your ladder tracks are."

There's absolutely no reason to accept this. You can trim the straight ends of turnouts in a ladder to move yard tracks closer together, and you can add short lengths of track between turnouts in a ladder to move yard tracks further apart. Simply accepting the dimensions of ready-made turnouts as they come means you deny yourself a great deal of flexibility in track layout.

In the example "Building a yard ladder" on pages 34-37 of my book, "The Model Railroader's Guide to Freight Yards," I show Atlas no. 6 turnouts trimmed to allow tracks to be laid on 14-foot (about 1-15/16") centers. I also show how to save a little space by laying the number 6 turnouts on a no. 5 angle, i.e. 12 degrees instead of 9.5 degrees, a trick that the big railroads use all the time.

With simple tools and a little imagination, you can make ready-to-use track conform to your layout design and not the manufacturer's stereotyped geometry.

so long,

Andy

[delray1967]

Build yourself a sample section of your yard and see what works best for you.  Put flex track (or whatever you're using) on 2 1/4" centers, place it at the height your layout will be and place a few cars on it.  Then try to read the reporting marks, uncouple, and rerail cars on all the tracks.  If you need more tracks, try the 2" spacing.  If you have plenty of room, why not make it 3"?  Will this yard be visible or hidden?  If visible, is it critical that it looks prototypical i.e. closely spaced?  If you're just holding trains there or running through without switching, close is ok, but if you intend on uncoupling cars, make sure there is enough room for rerailing (not just room for your fingers, but also room to see the wheel/rail alignment for rerailing cars as well as appropriate lighting).

[Texas Zepher]

It also depends on how operationally oriented the layout is to be.  Our club used 2.5" centers for track so fingers could get between.  That works for fingers but we have found that is too close when one needs to see the numbers on the side of the car.  It is hard to make up a train when one is constantly having to reach over and tip the car sideways just to see it reporting markes.  We ended up making stickers to put on the tops of the cars so we didn't have to look down between.  It looks yucky & doesn't photograph well but sure does make finding the right car in a sea of high-cube box cars easier.

[Pruitt]

Spacing is also prototype-dependent, to some extent. The CB&Q had a standard yard track specing of 15', or 2 1/16" in HO. Other raolroads may have used slightly different standard spacing.

[Dayliner]

Why do folks need to see the reporting marks and number of a car on a classification track?  Why don't you just pull the whole cut out onto the drill track where you can see them, and sort them from there?

[dknelson]

Why do folks need to see the reporting marks and number of a car on a classification track?  Why don't you just pull the whole cut out onto the drill track where you can see them, and sort them from there?

That works if your operation is sorting an incoming train.  But if the cars are yarded but not preblocked - then what.  That depends in a lot of factors including how you define your yard jobs and how disciplined the yard operator is when arriving trains are broken down and yarded.  If you have a five track yard and the yard is well stuffed with cars, and your orders are to switch out three cars to make up the morning local and those cars could be on, say, two or three tracks of your five track yard, you don't want to be pulling out cuts just to see if the car(s) you need happen to be in that cut. 

Listen to a scanner at a busy yard and you'd be surprised to hear how often they find themselves playing the "find the car" game.   And they don't do it by pulling cuts of cars past a guy with a clipboard. 

Dave Nelson

[mobilman44]

Hi,

Having "been there, done that", may I say.......  lay some track using different spacings and find what works best for YOU.  Do this not only for the looks and clearances of your rolling stock, but for your ability to get in and uncouple or rerail - especially using your O-5-O switcher.  Whatever the prototypes use is fine for them, but you really need to find what is best for you and your situation.

Trust me, I learned the hard way!

Mobilman44

[wjstix]

"Stix" wrote: "Unless you're 'rolling your own,' the dimensions of the commercial turnouts you use will pretty much determine what the spacing of your ladder tracks are."

There's absolutely no reason to accept this. You can trim the straight ends of turnouts in a ladder to move yard tracks closer together, and you can add short lengths of track between turnouts in a ladder to move yard tracks further apart. Simply accepting the dimensions of ready-made turnouts as they come means you deny yourself a great deal of flexibility in track layout.

In the example "Building a yard ladder" on pages 34-37 of my book, "The Model Railroader's Guide to Freight Yards," I show Atlas no. 6 turnouts trimmed to allow tracks to be laid on 14-foot (about 1-15/16") centers. I also show how to save a little space by laying the number 6 turnouts on a no. 5 angle, i.e. 12 degrees instead of 9.5 degrees, a trick that the big railroads use all the time.

With simple tools and a little imagination, you can make ready-to-use track conform to your layout design and not the manufacturer's stereotyped geometry.

so long,

Andy

That's all true, unless of course you're using Kato or Bachmann track-with-roadbed. Plus I'm not sure a lot of newer folks are going to be comfortable cutting up turnout leads.

BTW I do have your book and refer to it often!!

[delray1967]

Shouldn't there be reporting marks on the ends of the cars, at the top?  Guess that is one more project to add to the 'list'.  lol  What about car cards?  You should have one for each car on each track, so sorting through the cards for the reporting marks then count how many cars in from the end and on which track should be the car you're looking for, right?  I don't operate with anyone so I'm just thinking out loud.

[arkansasrailfan]

I had Kato Unitrack(N scale), and I would like to say that the track quality is great, but you are greatly restricted to what you can do. When I started to get extremly serious, I relalized that my track was not up to my standards.

[cregil]

... I'm not sure a lot of newer folks are going to be comfortable cutting up turnout leads...

 

Trimming track to fit is a newer folk skill.  Don’t be intimidated.

On my previous layout, I had set my yard spacing and when laying the track, of course, the turnouts said, "Oh no, you're not!" I grabbed my Dremel and a cut-off wheel and came back with the reply, "Oh... Yes I am."

I won.  It was easy. 

 

Oh, and when the turnouts’ inherent spacing (in my case from the main) required a gap to fill that was too small, I trimmed each divergent track the same way, just enough to bring about a larger gap that could then be filled with a manageable piece of flex track.

Crews