I did some searching around in the Archives, and I did find an article by Roy F. Dohn, pages 46-48, in the June 1968 issue. The article is loaded with formulas on number of rolling, how much a yard should hold, how many cars being switched, all kinds of formulas.
Not sure if that's what your looking for.
There is a lot to search, and it takes lots of time.
As others have, I developed my own traffic because I knew what industries I would have on my layout, and how often switching ops would be needed.
Then of course, there's more cars for run through trains.
I don't think it's that hard to figure out how much rolling stock your going to need.
Mike.
My You Tube
IRONROOSTERThe general rule of thumb I have seen is to add up the capacity of all your yards and sidings. Add in the number of average number of cars per train that operate at the same time. Add in staging capacity. Divide the total by 2. And that's the optimum number....
I skipped that rule completely, as I wanted enough home road cars (freelanced) to be the predominant ones in most trains, then added all sorts of interesting cars with prototype roadnames to allow me to replicate, more-or-less, the trains I saw in my hometown, which were literally from almost every common-carrier railroad in North America.
In the photo below, all of the boxes are for rolling stock...most have one car, but a lot have two and many of them hold four. There are others, not shown, stored under the layout, and the ones under construction or only on my list of stuff-to-build are in my shop...
I did sell-off a couple hundred cars which were too modern when I backdated my layout, though, which helped to pay for what's in the photo.
Wayne
The general rule of thumb I have seen is to add up the capacity of all your yards and sidings. Add in the number of average number of cars per train that operate at the same time. Add in staging capacity. Divide the total by 2. And that's the optimum number.
Of course this formula is really only a starting point. A lot depends on what kind of operations you're planning. For example if you run mainline trains from one staging yard to another with no switching along the way, you'll probably want more. If you're operating a shortline, you may want less.
And then there's the mix. If you like running long coal drags you'll want a lot of hoppers. If your shortline has no coal dealers then maybe no hoppers. And so forth.
Paul
I figured mine out myself.
.
I added the capacity of all staging tracks, storage drawers, and half the yard and industries. I came up with 165 freight cars needed.
I now have over 200, and I am building more... so... I say why bother. You will just end up with too many anyway... we all do.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
to the forum. Initial posts are moderated, so it may have taken a while for this post to appear.
I don't know how anyone could calculate that because yards, staging track, mainline and sidings are all different lengths, but I will give your post a bump.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Does anyone remember a article in a past MR that discussed the best number of freight cars for smooth operations based on specifics of your own layout?
I seem to remember that you put into a formula information about your layout's track and it would suggest a number of freight cars for smooth operations... not too many, but yet enough.
Looking for author name, issue number or title etc.
Thanks. Ron