I am mapping out my yard and of course once you physically start placing turnouts and track on the bench, you can see how you might be able to do things a little differently. So given the choice of five 5' single ended ladder tracks or eight or nine 3' single ended ladder tracks what would you do and why? I am thinking there is a benefit of more shorter tracks, as shorter cuts of cars need to be moved and thus also a shorter yard lead. All thoughts greatly appreciated.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
It depends on how many sorting tracks you need and how many cars you'll have in each category. Assuming HO, 3' tracks hold 6 40' cars and 5' tracks hold 10 40' cars. So if you have 8 cars for Lower Swindall the 3' tracks mean using two tracks and joining them up for the train. OTOH if you need to sort into 8 categories, 5 tracks mean you have to use some tracks for 2 things.
Personally, given the choice you have stated I would opt for the 5' tracks - for me that would seem more realistic. But I'm not sure why there has to be a choice since not all tracks in a yard have to be the same length. Why not do the 5 5' tracks and 3 3' tracks?
Enjoy
Paul
The fewer, longer tracked yard would usually look more prototypical than the more, shorter tracked yard.
If one operates more and shorter trains, then the shorter yard would be more useful. If fewer and longer trains are operated, the longer yard would be better.
Mark
IRONROOSTER But I'm not sure why there has to be a choice since not all tracks in a yard have to be the same length. Why not do the 5 5' tracks and 3 3' tracks?EnjoyPaul
It comes down to how I want to use the same piece of real estate and orientate my yard. The tracks won't be all the same length regardless. If I have my ladder one way the tracks will be shorter than if I turn my ladder 90 degrees and have it the other. My two A/D tracks are 12' and 15'. I am leaning toward the longer tracks though.
I'd go for the fewer but longer tracks. My old yard was way too short and it was a pain to operate - nothing is more confusing and annoying than a yard with tracks that have to overflow into others to fit the cars.
My new yard has two A/D tracks and four classification tracks with the shortest being 5' long. I only need those four tracks for my four car destinations: Eastbound, Westbound, local delivery by LE-1, and local delivery by LEWC / WCLE.
Part of the answer will be in the era you are modeling and the locale. If your yard is in an urban area and has been there a while, chances are that the tracks will be more numerous and shorter. Railroad yards tend to get landlocked by the industries they serve and the residential areas that surround them. In our operations here in Houston, BNSF trains originating at our main yard generally have to double and triple over to make up their train, so modern operations are effected by the prior era's standards of running shorter (and more numerous) due to older locomotive's lower capacities. Many studies have been made to find ways to expand yard lengths but because of the surrounding buildings and streets and the Bayou, nothing cost effective can be done. Our efforts to replicate actual operations are as hampered by our available benchwork space as the prototype is with real geography. Your operations should dictate to you whether you want longer tracks or more tracks. If you do a lot of blocking and switching and local industry operations, more is better. If you like to run longer, main line trains, longer is better.
I once caught a train in my pajama's. How it got in my pajama's I'll never know... (sorry, Groucho)
You don't say what the yard is for.
Is it part of the scenic layout with the action part of your story of what the RR is doing - or - is it for storing trains off scene until you want to bring them "on stage"?
If the yard is "on scene" I would expect that longer roads or a mix of roads of diiferent lengths would be more likely. As just one example ypou might have a very short road for cabooses...
Something to note for an "on scene" yard is that if you squash in as many tracks as you can across the board all you will be able to see of a lot of cars will be the roofs... things can also get interesting if you need to re-rail a car...
A couple of other things to consider...
More roads require more switches - how are you operating your switches? ... You may also need to consider how you are detecting (or observing) the switch positions (so that you can be sure of where a movement is going / avoid trying to trail through a switch set against a movement).
Are you working with DCC or analog?
Don't know about the OP but I would like to see some more ideas on this
Working against a physical constraint, the wall at the end of the yard, I employed several tricks to maximize both the number and lengths of track in Lampson Yard.
First I used a compound ladder. While I loose about a car length off the track for the turnout, I gained another track, nearly as long as the first one.
I also introduced a steeper angle to the ladder, by adding a curve between the turnout off the lead and ladder. This does introduce a curve to the body tracks, but I've had not problems with coupling on the curves.. The yardstick shows how a conventional ladder would have run.
Nick
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
I would definitely go fewer but longer. My old yard had a fairly large, as far as number of tracks, yard and I found it rather confusing and not very prototypical looking. New layout has fewere but longer rungs.
Also at one end of the yard, I forget what they call it but its something of a fantail design. I used no. 5's and each turnout inlet is connected to the previous turnouts diverging rail. Makes sort of a curved entrance to the ladder that saves lots of space. When connected this way, the no 5's actually create a fairly large radius curve. No problem with my Triplex or full length passenger cars to go through them.
My $.02
A good friend and I recently built my main yard and opted for fewer longer tracks. Most of my operations session buddies thought that would be a more useful choice. Not that I don't wish for more yard tracks though ;-)
I found the shorter more numerous solution to look too odd but that may vary from layout to layout. On mine it didn't look prototypical at all.
My yard is a simple ladder. Two steam loco servicing tracks, one main passing siding/AD track, one caboose track and 3 yard tracks 7 to 8 feet in length. I'd love to have more than those 3 but I can use the passing/A/D track as an additional yard track if nothing is scheduled to come through anytime soon. If you're running steam or transition era, the shortest track can be a caboose track if it's not way too far away from your loco servicing/roundhouse tracks to make sense .
(Edit: I forgot it's useful to state a layout size sometimes.) Mine is 8'X17' and the yard is 30' wide by 15-ish feet in case that helps the OP. There is going to be a 130 foot roundhouse (19+" in diameter) or else my yard tracks could have been another oh...foot and a half to two feet longer.
I also used #5s. Another good friend drew them into the plan. I've had no trouble running a Big Boy, Challenger and passenger cars through them. People often don't think of #5s, I think, as most magazine plan drawings indicate 4s and 6s and 8s so #5s seem to sort of...fly under the radar.
Raised on the Erie Lackawanna Mainline- Supt. of the Black River Transfer & Terminal R.R.
I guess Maybe I should have done this at the get go. After all more info is always better. This first photo shows where the two A/D tracks will come off the main. All that is there is the cork at this time. The two tracks will go around on the inside of the other two. I figure they will be about 12'and 15' long.
In this photo you can see the length of the inside of the loop. It is about 14' long. At the far end I would like to have a Roundhouse/turntable. The cardboard is a loose template of the six stall roundhouse I would like there. The yard lead is going to go up to the left of the roundhouse with the ladder coming back towards you. I will just break up the trains off the A/D tracks as I am more into just letting them run and not so much into switching. I will have four or five places at the other end of the layout that will need to be served, but it will (hopefully) be more of a scenic cross country layout In the late fifties.
Please feel free to have at it with all your suggestions as it is all new to me. Thanks for your input.
Example: Pennsylvania (circa 1960s and prior) would dedicate at least one storage track to cabin cars - PRR's name for a caboose.
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
BATMAN I am mapping out my yard and of course once you physically start placing turnouts and track on the bench, you can see how you might be able to do things a little differently. So given the choice of five 5' single ended ladder tracks or eight or nine 3' single ended ladder tracks what would you do and why? I am thinking there is a benefit of more shorter tracks, as shorter cuts of cars need to be moved and thus also a shorter yard lead. All thoughts greatly appreciated. Brent
Hi,
Yard design must be done carefuly if you want a good working one.
You can'nt go out, a yard is a feature which need to work well because all the trains, even if you don't operate as named"realisticaly" your layout, issued from the yard.
I am a poor design master, beleive me, so I use a copy of a Santa FE yard published in MRP by Mister Sperandeo in Nscale.
Anyway this yard had long ladder which I beleive is a good choice anyway.
The second good feature of this design is the double ladder included in this yard, so you have two yard in one yard and they could be used separately or togheter.
Even the design is for a great yard, you could reduce the number of the track ladder and still use the double ladder feature.
It's just my taste.
Another way to safe place is using curved turnouts and begin the ladder in a curve; if this curve is broad there are no problems; you can also use a smaller diverging angle ot the turnouts; a six could handle a ladder designed for a n°5 turnouts; that's mean good sized turnout whith a smaller diverging route, you safe place.
If you could do it, try to not use smaller turnouts than a n°6 in ladder even greater if you use modern or passenger equipment; use only live frog turnouts for better electrical continuity in the ladder.
See my sketch of my underway building yard.
Good luck.
Marc
East side
West side