Hump yards

[tatans]

Just read a book on North American hump yards, I never realized just how massive these facilities are, now the big question, I have not read on this forum about any modeler or group who have attempted a hump yard, of course it could not come even close to the actual, unless you owned an old zeppelin hangar and had an extra $3,000,000 for switches (oops-sorry! -turnouts) has anyone attempted even a small version of a hump yard??? I realize one of the restrictions would be a coupler that actually works, maybe in the future eh? any info out there???

[BRAKIE]

As I have mention before the club I am a member of has a working hump yard..

[cwclark]

why a lot of modelers don't do hump yards is that the rolling stock gets going to fast as it leaves the hump and a lot of them get going so fast that they fly off the track or hit the car on the siding ahead of it so hard that it messes up the couplers...there is a way to model one but you have to install a railcar speed retarder and those are really hard to build and to get them to work correctly...chuck

[ARTHILL]

I have a 50 year dream and lots of pics. Will probably stay at that.

[trainboyH16-44]

I have a dream to make one, but with the cars propelled by me, at least until I can do better. Getting the cars to roll at scale speed is nearly impossible unless you have motors in the cars.
Matthew

[BRAKIE]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cwclark

why a lot of modelers don't do hump yards is that the rolling stock gets going to fast as it leaves the hump and a lot of them get going so fast that they fly off the track or hit the car on the siding ahead of it so hard that it messes up the couplers...there is a way to model one but you have to install a railcar speed retarder and those are really hard to build and to get them to work correctly...chuck

Not so..We use compress air through plastic tubes and the speed is close to scale 5-7 mph..That is prototype speed. There is no crash coupings because the cars rolls at scale speed.[:D]

[jimrice4449]

I've had one working for 10 or 15 years. The big drawback is retarders. I have 2 banks, one at the top of the classification bowl and one about 2 or 3 feet farther down. W/ my 12 tracks that comes to 24 retarders. I lucked out and found a source of 12 VDC solenoid valves originally intended for after market smog control devices at about $1.50 a pop. They had to be tweaked to hold 30 lbs of air pressure (they were intended to hold vacuum) and 35 or 40 lbs would be better, You can't use a single control source for multiple tracks because the retarding effect is disapated and inefective. As my stash becomes depleted as valves wear out I',m looking for alternatives but haven't found any yet.
Another problem, as you've noted, is space. My shortest classification track is 12 feet. In operation I pull from the first 5 tracks, doubling over to make up half of the outbound train. I hump inbound trains half a train at a time. My arrival/dptr yard is adjacent to the the classification tracks. This means that I need, extending from the lower end of the bowl, enough space for a fan of 11 switches and a long enough tail track to hold a switcher and 25 to 30 cars. At the other end you need a tail track long enough for the hump eng and half a train and the hump itself and the switches fan at the hump.
Couplers are no problem if you use KDs. All you need is enough permanent magnets to uncouple the longest and the shortest cars you run (I use 2 at the crest of the hump & they accomadate cars from 34' to 50'.) A lot of space and quite a few potential problems to work around but running it is more fun than a barrel of drunk monkeys!

[wjstix]

A local O scale club has a hump yard on their modular layout they take to shows etc. It's pretty neat. I know I've seen working hump yards on HO layouts in MR or RMC, in fact I'm pretty sure I saw one on a video but I don't remember if it was an Allen Keller one, or of MR's videos or what?? I remember the interviewer asked the guy what slowed the cars down after they were humped and he said something like "poor axles". [:D]

I guess it's like everything else in model railroading, if you really want a working humpyard bad enough, you'll figure out a way to do it regardless of the space you have, the expenses, etc. etc.

[cwclark]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BRAKIE

QUOTE: Originally posted by cwclark

why a lot of modelers don't do hump yards is that the rolling stock gets going to fast as it leaves the hump and a lot of them get going so fast that they fly off the track or hit the car on the siding ahead of it so hard that it messes up the couplers...there is a way to model one but you have to install a railcar speed retarder and those are really hard to build and to get them to work correctly...chuck

Not so..We use compress air through plastic tubes and the speed is close to scale 5-7 mph..That is prototype speed. There is no crash coupings because the cars rolls at scale speed.[:D]

did you read the part about the railcar speed retarder?...i was talking about a model hump yard that doesn't have a railcar speed retarder..without a speed retarder the cars can be damaged or derail if they freewheel off the hump and into the yard...I saw a layout one time that used a railcar speed retarder that had a set of minature round brushes (more like foam rubber) that gently compressed against the car body and slowed the car as it went over the hump and it looked pretty complicated..lots of wires and electronics that controlled the brushes against the car body...never seen one that uses compressd air before...chuck

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BRAKIE

As I have mention before the club I am a member of has a working hump yard..

Would it ever be possible to see some pictures?

[BRAKIE]

Sure,If I can get somebody to take the pictures..You see the club is on the 3rd floor and with my current heart condition I am not allow to climb more then one flight of steps.I retain my membership dues free because I am medically retired..

[tatans]

Question answered, So it's the railcar retarder that is the big setback to building a hump yard, makes sense, as those cars go shooting off into space, this and the expense of many switches,etc,etc. I would like to see some photos also. thanks

[Anonymous]

Here's a thought for car retarding... Don't have a clue if it will work... most cars have a strip of metal in the floor to provide weight... so how about an electro magnet between the rails to attract the steel downwards... should have the effect of braking the car... so long as it doesn't send it into orbit... Would seem a lot cheaper and easier than copying the real thing. You should be able to adjust the amonut of power to the magnet and so how much "braking" you achieve.
Don't know... just a thought...

[jimrice4449]

I tried various methods of modeling the prototype aproach of direct contact w/ the cars' wheels and nothing worked. The idea of compressed air blasting against the approaching cars was first used by the late Ed Ravenscroft. It wasn't much of a hump yard...only two tracks and you had to pull the humped cars back out over the hump, but it did demonstrate the utility of an air blast as retarder. I use brass tube set in holes that are at about a 15 degree angle aimed towards the approaching cars. Much, if not most, of the retarding effect is from the axles and cross members of the underframe. I never had much trouble slowing flat cars until I got a bunch of Bowser 54' flats that I had to remove all the underbody detail from and ballast w/ sheet lead. Those puppies come down the hump like they were shot from a gun. Like most Bowser cars they are EXTREMELY free rolling. I'll probably have to figure out a way to (sob) make them less free rolling. Another problem before I went era specific (1945-1955) was frameless tank cars. They looked and acted like torpedoes. It requires some ingenuity to get it working right, but it's well worth it if you can solve the space problem.