The scene is a major mainline traveling through high remote country that links via a spur track to a small RR company for exchange of supplies & goods from the major RR to the small RR and vice versa.
Anyone have info on a similar real world situation like this?
What you want is an interchange.
Ideal situation, would have a longish siding off the class one RR (double ended track) Then there would be two shorter sidings breaking off the long siding (both double ended) The shorter sidings would end one and a half engine lengths from one end of the long siding and one switch length from the other end of the big siding. The shortline would connect to the siding on the switch length end.
One short siding (I'll call short 2)would be for cars going to the shortline. The other short siding (I'll call it short 1) would be for cars going to the class one. The long siding is a runaround. The shortline pulls down to the interchange. They pull through the to the short 1 track, cutting the caboose off in the long siding and leaving the cars in the short 1 track. The engine comes out into the long siding, then runs back to the caboose, gets the caboose, pulls to the other end of the long siding and shoves the caboose up onto short 2 track. The engine goes back to the long siding, runs to the other end, gets on short 2, pumps up the airs, gets an air test and goes back up onto the shortline.
The main line train comes along and picks up its cars out of short 2.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
The Montana RR shorthline interchanging with the both the Milwaukee and the Northern Pacific in Lombard, Montana.
Rough drawing of the arrangement at Franz, ON, where the Canadian Pacific crosses the Algoma Central Railway. This is pretty much in the middle of nowhere in northern Ontario. A lot of trees, rocks and water and not much else except for the diamond and interchange tracks. CP and AC both have passing sidings at this location plus the interchange tracks alongside the CP siding.
On google maps satellite imagery:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Franz,+Ontario,+Canada&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=40.324283,106.787109&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Franz,+Algoma+District,+Ontario,+Canada&ll=48.464556,-84.41165&spn=0.004126,0.013036&t=h&z=17
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
Actually interchange yards is usually reserved for larger railroads that interchange several large cuts of cars in a 24 hour period in a major city.
A interchange point between a major carrier and short line can be one or two tracks in size depending on traffic volume..
In some cases it may be done in a small outlaying yard belonging to the larger carrier with the short line leasing 3 or 4 tracks for their "yard"..
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
"Brakie"
Suppose the small shortline operation in a remote area, had a portion of some product or commodity that was needed by the society at large. Would the major carrier then build an interchange at the location of the shortline, or would some compromise of track laying for the interchange (and yard?) between the shortline & major RR come to pass? It's all about supply and demand I would think.
In my layout concept, the major RR mainline is nearby the shortline anyway, so therre is some agreement to have an interchange there, out in the sticks, high in the mountains due to the value of the freight commodity that the shortline offers.
With modern short lines the connecting carrier may have sold/lease the line to a short line operator or a Port Authority which in turn lease the track to a short line operator..The short line becomes a "short line pardner" to the connecting road which could also supply empties to their short line pardner
In the early years a interchange agreement would have been worked out between the short line and the larger railroad and a interchange built.
Here in Milwaukee, WI, the Wisconsin and Southern (WSOR) interchanges with both the Canadian Pacific (CP) and Canadian National (CN). The CN has trackage rights thru the WSOR yard in North Milwaukee to their Saukville Sub, and they perform interchange in the WSOR yard. The WSOR has trackage rights from their North Milwaukee yard to CP's Muskego Yard to reach some industries along the way and interchanges in Cp's Yard. Just some ideas.
Sal
WFB, WI
a lot of interchanges in remote areas were just one track connecting the two roads with a mail box of some sort to leave the bills in. sometimes you had to pull the connection before you could deliver anything to the other outfit and visa versa.
grizlump
Note too that the interchange trackage wouldn't necessarily have to be at the junction of the two railroads, although of course that often was the case. It wouldn't be that unusual in your example for the smaller railroad to have trackage rights for a mile or two over the larger road so that it could reach the nearest yard of the big railroad. The smaller road would have a train bring cars to the big railroads yard, then pick up the cars going to the smaller road and take them back to the junction where they would switch over to their own tracks.
Not exactly back woods, but one typical interchange between a shortline/regional and a major carrier I know of is Annpere, near Howell, MI. This is where the Great Lakes Central interchanges with CSX. CSX runs east-west, GLC runs north-south. Cars for interchange are placed on the curved leg of the wye. Overflow is placed on the short runaround on the GLC to the south.
Bing Bird's eye of Annpere
Not sure if you would consider this to be a "yard" or not. More tracks could be added to this kind arrangement if the amount of traffic warrants them.
One example of a larger interchange yard is in Durand, MI, where trains from the CN Holly Sub, CN Flint Sub, Great Lakes Central, and Huron & Eastern all interchange / swap blocks.
Google aerial of Durand
This is probably bigger than what you have in mind, but it could be scaled back and the general "style" followed.
The Seaboard (Now CSX) interchanges with two shortlines in a yard just south of Aberdeen NC. It interchanges with the Aberdeen and Rockfish and a shortline that is the replacement for an "old" Norfolk Southern branch. The yard is just south of town but could just have easily been in the country. See the book "Railroads you can model" Kalmbach, page 29.
The yard is a single ended and could make a good staging area as well as an interchange.
Model RR is Good "Brakie" Suppose the small shortline operation in a remote area, had a portion of some product or commodity that was needed by the society at large. Would the major carrier then build an interchange at the location of the shortline, or would some compromise of track laying for the interchange (and yard?) between the shortline & major RR come to pass? It's all about supply and demand I would think. In my layout concept, the major RR mainline is nearby the shortline anyway, so therre is some agreement to have an interchange there, out in the sticks, high in the mountains due to the value of the freight commodity that the shortline offers.
A small shortline probably wouldn't be producing enough carloads to warrant a "yard" per se. Perhaps a two-track interchange where the shortline could leave five or six loaded cars and pick up the same number of empties that had been left by the larger railroad.
Keep in mind too that if the commodity were valuable enough, or there was a lot of it being shipped, the big road would probably just buy the little one and run it as a branchline. If a shortline in your scenario is operating like that, it would most likely be because the big railroad didn't want to do it....maybe the tracks of the shortline are too steep and require geared engines, or too lightly built to support the big roads engines, or there just enough carloads to make it profitable to pick up cars at the interchange, but not enough to warrant paying it's more highly paid railroad workers to run a train up the line the short line is running.
Stix:
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A small short line can handle a lot of traffic..The OAR is 2.5 miles long and handles 10,000 cars a year so,one needs to be careful with "small short lines" as I found out several times over the years.LOL!
Again a short line may lease several unused yard tracks from their interchange partner for their "yard" since they will need a place to hold industry overflow cars and in some cases lots of empties..
As far as a bigger railroad buying the little road 90% of the time its was the bigger road that sold/lease the track to another operator and that smaller operator built the traffic base up...R.J.Corman and GWI is shining examples of turning former run down branch lines profitable..
Of course there are examples of buy backs as well.