Passenger stations are put where the people are. Yards are placed where the necessary land can be had at minimum cost. If the town was there first, the station was put as near to the established downtown area as possible and the yard was put out where Farmer Jones had a non-productive pasture or cornfield. If the town was established by the railroad coming through, the station was probably right at the midpoint of the thoroughfare tracks half way between the yard limit signs.
Major city passenger terminals were and are very seldom near any significant freight facilities. That downtown real estate is just too expensive!
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
It is more a function of how big the city and terminal are. As examples:
The SP in Oakland used to end at what was called "the mole". This was a pier where passengers would board a ferry to cross to San Francicso. In addition there was an Oakland station that is directloy across from the freight yard and currently used by Amtrak,
Altoona Pennsylvania station was basiclly downtown and had a shed about three cars long directly across the tracks from the PRR engineering and construction main shops area.
In Philadelphia there are no freight yards in sight of either PRR station.
Small towns - it is totaly a function of where it can be located and the amount of flkat land available as well as what industries need swicthing.
No reason why it has to be on the aisle side of your railroad. Kind of makes more sense to have your through trains go behind the yard rather than the other way round.
Where the yard is in relationship to the depot doesn't matter. The depot is near a town or other place where the public can get to it. The yard is near the big flat spot the railroad uses. They can be miles away or right next to each other. the depot can be in the middle of the ayrd or on either end or not at all. The depot could be 10 miles away. About the only requirement is that except for terminals the depot will be next to the main track.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Thanks for the advice on the yard & TT placement, and I do have the Armstrong book- will flip through it again this weekend.
Another, and maybe it's really at the hear of what I'm getting at, is where would it be ok to place a passenger station in relation to a yard?
For example, if we have a pit-style layout, it makes sens to have the yard close to the center of the pit so one can fiddle with the cars. This would place a station 'behind" the yard in relation to the observer\operator. Seems like one could end up with a cluttery look.
On the other hand, reaching across 24" to fiddle with a yard in the back would be tough for me, let alone the little guy.
I'd assume that given a length of the layout, if one put the TT on one end, it would make more sense for the passenger station to be somewhere on the other end (away) from the TT & roundhouse (with the yard being somewhere in between)?
Questions questions. I'm sure you're getting tired of us by now!