engine house

[Christian H]

Hi,

Can anyone explain me for a enginehouse like in mrr 9/2015 page 22 ff.: If I put 2 engines on one track in a stall - how can I drive the engine that behind out ? Is this possible or what doo the prototype?

Christian from Germany!

[cv_acr]

Don't have the issue, so not sure what the shop looks like but a few points:

(I'm going to guess that this is probably a modern diesel shop with a couple of long through tracks.)

- diesels don't require the same level of servicing as steam locomotives. Apart from fuel, water and sand which can all be done outside at the fuel rack, the diesel doesn't necessarily even have to come into the shop very often. In many places diesels are just left to park and idle outside

- the shop tends to be a full repair facility rather than just minor servicing. An engine might be in the shop for days or weeks for a teardown.

- such heavy repair shops usually have double ended tracks, accessing either end of the facility

- there are other examples of smaller railroads with engine houses to put engines in for light maintenance or just to securely park them and shut them down indoors. So that is still valid too

- even in the latter case, many modern jobs run with pairs of engines, so probably both of them are going to come out together anyways

- but otherwise, unless they've jacked up the unit and removed the trucks for repairs, they can pull things out of the repair shop and re-arrange if necessary if one unit has been finished repairs and released. This pretty much becomes like switching any other sort of industry, moving the engines around dead-in-tow with a shop switcher.

[Beach Bill]

If I understand your question, it is about operating a model locomotive in an enginehouse.   If using DCC, one would just select the appropriate locomotive and run it out the door.  Clearly, if it is a dead-end track, the locomotive in front would have to be moved first, but often such tracks run through the enginehouse.   If using DC control, one would have to have installed the track with an electrical gap about halfway through the enginehouse to allow for powering a different "block" while one locomotive remained stopped.

Bill

[NittanyLion]

http://binged.it/1ML0pMA

A track that runs around the building.  

My assumption is that one track is for light repairs and the other is for heavy.  This would still allow you to do first in first out repairs, but not pin a light repair behind a heavy.  And, even if you did, you can still go around outside the building.

[steemtrayn]

The picture in question shows the shop with the roof removed, thus allowing a drill with the 0-5-0.

[rrinker]

 Plus the tracks on both sides connect back to the yard, so if the loco 'behind' the other one happens to be ready first, they can just back out its end of the shop and work its way over to pick up a train.

 For model operation, with DCC, it's just like the prototype. Back the rear loco out, or pull the front one ahead. For DC - as stated, break each track into two blocks, split in the middle of the shop building, and then operate like the prototype would, back the rear one out if it finishes first.

 Such a shop would not really do heavy repairs, there's no provisions for a crane to lift out prime movers or anything. Replacing wheels or traction motors, or pulling individual power assemblies could be done.

 In ste steam era, most large backshops were arranged with rows of stalls down the length of the building. A few had a linear arrangement like this diesel shop, only larger - there's an example in the current issue of Classic Trains. In the traditional arrangement, there was a track or two connecting to the outside world, and a heavy traveling crane was used to hoist a loco from the connecting track and 'fly' it down the building to the assigned working space, where it would either stay for the duration of repairs or in some cases would be moved by crane to different stalls where specific types of repairs were done (since depending on the work, the machinery and tools needed to do said work were not easily moved all over the shop floor). The linear type of shop had more potential for bottleneck but worked somewhat in an assembly line fashion. Diesel shops, especially those built to EMD specifications (that was the subject of a Classic Trains I think several years ago), boorowed heavily from the auto industry and worked in a linear fashion though larger facilities would designate each track for various levels of repair so you ideally wouldn't have a loco requiring major prime mover service sitting in front of one that just needed a 90 day inspection.

                         --Randy

 

[wjstix]

Keep in mind too that early 'squarehouse' diesel houses were originally designed to hold multi-unit diesels, like A-A sets of E units or A-B-A or A-B-B-A sets of F units.