My HO scale Yard Design

[Milwhiawatha]

I finished designing my yard  and this is what it looks like, the red outline is the stationary part of the switching yard, the green is the removable part due to a sump pump. The Purple lines are the tracks. Theres a Caboose area, A RIP track, Intermodal Yard, asnd a place that stores the switchers.

[train18393]

My suggestion would be to add a run around track that parallels the RH ladder. It could run from the approach to the RIP/caboose track and the RH yard lead. You could use it to bring trains into the yard, get your caboose on the other end of the engine and it would make assembling trains alot easier. A long drill track on the LH end would be great also, depending on how you use your yard. Perhaps you are going to to all your switching from the RH side, or mabye fouling the mail on the left is not a problem.  Of course it has to fit into available space as well.

 

Paul

Dayton and Mad River RR

[railroadyoshi]

How much area does one square represent? Is this part of the layout to be operated from one side or both? You probably designed for this, but if this is up against a wall, I'm worried that if the boxes represent a smaller area, your not going to be able to fit what you've drawn, and if it is a large area, you're not going to be able to reach that far.

[Milwhiawatha]

The layout will be against a wall but the wall would be at the bottom of the drawing. Each Squre represents 1 sq ft. using CCT Templet and Paper. for creating this.

As for the round track I have three one does connect to the Caboose and rip track those are the two tracks on the right hand side..

I willa dmit ti some of the lines that should be round I sorta squared off with the ruler last night when I inked it so its harder to tell but In trainz I layed this out and it worked pretty good.

[ereimer]

you've got a 4 foot reach to a couple of turnouts , and over a 3 foot reach to a couple more . i mention the turnouts as this is where you're most likely to have derailments , but a sticky coupler will cause problems that will be hard to fix with that long a reach . and then there's just laying the track and doing the scenery

i suppose that this is the space you have to work with , and you need a yard this large , but i wonder what you could squeeze into a 3 foot deep space .

[cwclark]

that is really a huge yard...it looks like you're going to be dealing with at least 5 ' of table top for that much track to fit in the space ....it's gonna be tough to reach any derailments towards the back of the yard if it's going to be against the wall...you might want to cut out a few tracks if you can or put in an access port to get to the back of the yard or pull it away from the wall just enough so that you can slide in between the yard and the wall to reach the back......chuck

[Jetrock]

Access will be a big, big problem. You might consider redesigning the yard so it runs at an angle to the wall, rather than running track parallel to the lines on your graph paper. This would give you longer, straighter yard tracks, albeit fewer, but it would simplify the design without lowering capacity, and allow you to reduce the distance you'd have to reach. It seems like you have an awful lot in that space, and access will be a dreadful problem.

[Milwhiawatha]

thing is, this will be 24" above the main layout. I have roughly 4x2' connected to a 4x8' connected to a 2x5' section to work with. now I enter on the right side from the upper main layout with a curve, I want to have a rip track caboose track, sorting yard/yard then I want to be able to exit from the left and the right of the layout so I can pretend I have east and west bound freight. If anyone can come up with a better track plan I would love to have some help. I miss calculated on the graph paper.

[Dave-the-Train]

You may not realise this yet but the thing you want most is to be able to get at any derailments and to get at everything for maintenance.

That said... have fun!

[Jetrock]

thing is, this will be 24" above the main layout.

So, assuming your main layout is a low-slung 36" off the ground, this yard will be 60" or 5 feet above the ground, and 5 feet deep?

Seeing trains at the back end of such a yard will be difficult. Building it will be an engineering challenge, because you will either need legs that reach all the way to the ground (in front of the main layout) in order to hold the layout up, or build struts down from the ceiling to prevent it from falling over, or some sort of extremely strong bracket that can support a five-foot-deep shelf. Reaching them will become an exercise in frustration, and will probably be the cause of several falls off the chair or ladder you'll need to get up that high, and possibly a full-scale collapse onto the layout surface.

I'm trying to fathom why you would make a yard that looks like this, on a shelf five feet deep, five feet off the ground, but somehow I am not able to understand any of it. It's fine on paper--aside from being a very busy and overly complex yard--but it will have a LOT of problems in the real world.

[Jetrock]

Wait a minute...a lift-out section for access to a sump pump? Five feet off the ground? With another section of layout underneath it?

 

Something just isn't adding up here.

[Milwhiawatha]

I will admit its a challenge. I am interested in shorting it up so it is better than it is if anyone has any clue on how to accomplish this please seriously please post it. I just to have a nice yard I dont care how big it is as long as I can have a yard. and its not 5 ft deep its 4 feet deep if theres a way to make it were the yard is either all in back pr more towars the front i2 or 3 feet deep and have a decent sized yard I wouldnt mind that at all but to be honest be better in the back. due to I am using a ro-ro elevator near the yard.

[Anonymous]

Other than the fact you have a long reach, it looks pretty good. I also like the fact that some tracks are stub tracks, while others are double-ended. I'm also using this (John Armstrong) concept in my yard.

[Jetrock]

Okay, then.

 

Suggestion 1: Especially if you are serious when you say that this part of the layout will be five feet off the ground, cut the width of this yard down to 2 feet thick, MAXIMUM, and only 1 foot thick behind the sump pump. This will prevent you from having to build a difficult to build and difficult to maintain 3x3 foot removable sump pump access hole, and also allow you to actually see and reach the track.

 

Suggestion 2: With your nice long mainline running the whole length of the room (what, 17 feet?) you have enough space for about 12 feet of yard. A foot-wide yard gives you room for four tracks, so you build a double ladder, starting with the mainline running along the back edge TOWARDS THE FRONT. This means all the switches on the ladder tracks will be accessible without having to reach over the yard itself--easier to see how switches are facing, etcetera. You'll have room in unused corners for a RIP track and caboose track.

It will be a lot simpler than what you have posted here. To give you an idea of capacity, my own layout's yard is half of exactly this space--12 inches deep, six inches wide--with a single ladder, four tracks deep, with a RIP track sticking out at the end of the ladder. My yard can hold around 24 40' cars without blocking the mainline. Yours should be able to hold 48 40' cars--or, figure, more like 30 or 40 60'-80' modern cars.

Suggestion 3: For the right-hand side of the area described, you have two feet of depth to work with. The main yard is using the back 12 inches, so put your single-ended intermodal ard in the 12 inches closest to the layout edge. 2 or 3 tracks, running around six or seven feet each, should be room for plenty of intermodal cars.

 

Bottom line: Look at real yards--they tend to have VERY LONG TRACKS. By making your yard skinnier with longer individual tracks, you maintain a high capacity, use fewer switches (reducing cost, complexity, wiring and derailment problems) and can easily reach the whole area. If you have to get at a sump pump or something often enough to need a lift-out in such a complex area, you're better off not covering it at all.

 

Something like this:

[topcopdoc]

Speaking of yard design I have reached that point myself. I only have room for a Wye switch off the main line, which breaks down to a 3-way switch and two other legs off the ladder. I believe ladders tracks can be build two different ways. I can’t find any diagrams on the web.

 

 Does anyone have a diagram of the different ladder designs? The yard will be contained between two mountain walls so space is a consideration for the eight tracks.

 

Thanks Doc

[railroadyoshi]

Jetrock, nice plan.

Hiawatha, is it going to be a problem for your yard switcher to occupy the main? If so, you'll need to remember to somehow work in a drill track.

Doc, are you thinking of a regular ladder versus a compound ladder? I don't have any good diagrams; all I remember is that on the compound ladders, you really have to watch out for those S-Curves that appear out of nowehere. :-)

Yoshi

[ericboone]

Your double ended yard ladders are too steep.  Your ladder angles from the yard tracks at a 3 to 1 ratio, which would require #3 turnouts that just do not exist.  Almost all your other turnouts are at way too sharp as well.  (The stub ended yard ladder angle looks just right for #4 turnouts.)  You could use a compound ladder with number 4 turnouts and maybe get what you want.  However, you are just trying to cram too much into too little space.

I recommend buying one LH and one RH turnout you plan to use.  Photocopy them and use those photocopies to lay out your yard full scale.  Otherwise, if you're comupter savvy, use one of the track planning software packages.

Good Luck,

Eric

[Milwhiawatha]

Jetrock,
         I like your plan the problem  is on the right side of the plan I need a 4 foot section available for the train elevator by RO-RO so ther curve cant be that close to the wall it would be further to the middle of the track plan.

[dinwitty]

what glares into my eyes is, first you have inbound/outbound tracks and a storage yard (if that is what that is)
If you plan to have your yard engine use the main for switching in/out of the storage tracks ok, but better yard designs have a switching lead for this beside the main.

That switching lead would access both the inbound/outbound tracks and the storage yard.

If this isnt a mainline area then forget what I said... 8-D

[dinwitty]

other things to think about where your opening is, there are switches there across the remove parts, and some curved track. splitting a switch can be touchy with multiple rails and moving points
.
You may want to think about the modular tricks to separate modules from each other and
using short straight sections to join modules.

not a problem if you have perfect alignment, but...it gets problematic.

When you get down to actual construction you will see the problems and find ways to solve.

[Dave-the-Train]

A 4' shelf 5' off the ground accessed by a Ro-Ro elevator?

1. Are you doing this for a Phd in awkward engineering with future high maintenance?

2. When you finally get it all working you will be able to see the sides of the locos and cars on the front tracks and a heck of a lot of loco and car roofs.  this should make all the effort really worth while...

3. and... if you havene't noticed... a. you appear to be giving yourself this Ro-Ro access at one end only... b. nothing is ever going to be doing anything but creep around... then again - with all those switches - that's probably a good thing.

4. the lift on that Ro-Ro should be interesting... just how much steel are you planning to use?

Er... I think that it's about time to do some hard thinking... and ;ook at Joe Fugate's maintenance thread...

[Milwhiawatha]

Ok first I did not invent the ro-ro I heard about it and asked many people who had it how it was and it was great and not much maintence. Second I did some testing to see how things would be held up and my idea worked pretty well which I wont reveal just yet. Seconds I do have another side to the layout which isnt shown into the track diagram showed. And people are right is 17" long by roughly 10' wide. I think I am going to use the diagram someone showed on here and modify it so it works to my situation.

[Tom Bryant_MR]

Speaking of yard design I have reached that point myself. I only have room for a Wye switch off the main line, which breaks down to a 3-way switch and two other legs off the ladder. I believe ladders tracks can be build two different ways. I can’t find any diagrams on the web.

 

 Does anyone have a diagram of the different ladder designs? The yard will be contained between two mountain walls so space is a consideration for the eight tracks.

 

Thanks Doc

 

Byron Henderson has some excellent tips on yard design and some examples.

http://home.earthlink.net/~mrsvc/id19.html

Craig Bisgeier also has some tips

http://www.housatonicrr.com/

Regards,

[Milwhiawatha]

To clerify what a RO-RO Elevator is it lifts trains from layer to layer takes plpace of a helix. I'm working on a track plan that follows the one done for me by someone else. If anyone else has any ideas please feel free to post them.

[GearDrivenSteam]

My suggestion would be to relocate the sump pump.

[Jetrock]

RO-RO train elevator...okay, fancy! Simple, just shorten the body tracks so you have a four-foot lead for the elevator. I didn't realize that the mainline didn't just continue around the room, which is why I put the curve in there. You'll lose a little storage in the yard but it won't affect the intermodal area. Hiding the RO-RO elevator behind a short warehouse or false wall of stacked intermodal containers (something easy to look over or lift out of the way if there's a problem) would be a slick way to hide the elevator.

[Milwhiawatha]

Jetrock,

  yu where right it does go all the way around the room but in that 2' section where you have the curve I need to make a straight track cause under the top yard thers a service yard with a turntable, roundhouse, car shop, back shop, allied rail rebuilder, fueling facility  and transfer table. So your idea with the containers would be great if it was further back. I am trying to figure out what to do. My dad (the land owner where the layout is built) told me the top section of the yard where the sump pump is wouldnt need to be removable so I think that should make a different when space? (sump pump is detachable near the lower portion of the layout with a backwash baffle) Any ideas? Heres a quick draw of the room and layout shape. not worried about derailments on the rest of the layout due to the track wilb more towards the front and in the back of the main layout the background slide on rails.

 

[oldyardie]

Perhaps you should look at the whole yard design issue differently by establishing the requirements for the yard, then worry about the fit.

 

1. How long is the longest passing siding on the mainland ?

You will rarely want to make up consists in your yard longer than that.

 

2. How many different trains will you dispatch each way each operating session?

maybe... 

- a through freight each way which (in which the yard would take away and add a block of cars but not always break down the train

- a local turn to an industrial area or a dedicated freight source

- perhaps a unit train (anything from coal to oil to produce)

...and so on.

 

Once you have established the yard's purpose you will know how many tracks for sorting you need for each direction - probably less than you think.

 

3. For general car handling (and storage) you want to keep the yard at less than 50% full - so you can move cars or blocks around.

 

And yes you do need the caboose and service tracks, and also the runaround that thers have mention - and a yard lead that is also at least as long as the longest sorting track (so you can pul a complete cut and move it to the departure track w/o fouling the main.

 

The more practicall asepcts like 24"-30" depth, etc. can come out of that.

[Stourbridge Lion]

oldyardie- Welcome to Trains.com!

[oldyardie]

Thanks. To be welcomed by the D&H snout means a lot. Years ago (many) I worked at a railway museum beside that line and got to see the PA-1 run past.