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Yards - A Resource Blackhole?

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Yards - A Resource Blackhole?
Posted by nbrodar on Thursday, October 19, 2006 10:16 PM

I spent the afternoon working on my 8 track yard.   After painting and ballasting about 2 feet of each track, I was crosseyed and stopped for the day.  Some quick math, showes that I painted and ballasted 16 feet of track, or slightly less then half the length of my main line.  I still have 6 plus feet on each track to do yet. 

Any one else feel yards are blackholes, endlessly sucking in time and material?

Nick

 

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Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, October 19, 2006 10:19 PM
    Well, of course they are...but so is anything else in the hobby, which is also part of the fun.

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Posted by jeffrey-wimberly on Thursday, October 19, 2006 10:22 PM
That's one of the reasons I don't have one, the other being that I don't have the room for it. I have 2 spurs, 1 for a small industry, the other for a small locomotive maintenance barn. There's a siding on the main line and 2 crossovers between the mainline and the branchline. That's enough for me.

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Posted by Angel_of_Mercy on Thursday, October 19, 2006 10:56 PM
thats why my yards will be hidden staging
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Posted by tomikawaTT on Thursday, October 19, 2006 11:08 PM
 nbrodar wrote:

Any one else feel yards are blackholes, endlessly sucking in time and material?

Nick

Just about every prototype operating department in the known universe, for openers.  Freight cars don't make money standing still, so the 1:1 scale railroads consider yards a necessary evil and try to make the stay in them as brief as possible.

If you add in hidden staging (if it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck...) yards soak up most of the specialwork we use and make the biggest contribution to control system complexity.  On the other hand, if you want to simulate prototype operations, yards are where the fun is.

Chuck (who operates from staging to staging, with a really complex yard in between)

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Posted by mtrails on Friday, October 20, 2006 12:55 AM

You mean one of these? It's only a 6-track (sorting/classifying) yard, and also includes two caboose tracks, drill track, a thoroufare track, runaround, roundhouse, fueling, MOW, and car shop... BUT it's 36 feet long . It only took 4 months to lay, paint and ballast. Smile [:)] I won't disclose it's cost. It's worth it.

Granted it's a club layout, having operated in it, if I could have double the lenght (or width) for myself, I'd be happy to spend the 8 months building it, for the greatest operational experience a layout has to offer. I never thought I could spend 3 (realtime) hours in the yard and never depart a train!

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Posted by PFS on Friday, October 20, 2006 1:21 AM

Not me, I wish I had room for a bigger yard/more industrial sidings.

 

mtrails, nice yard!

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Posted by Tom Bryant_MR on Friday, October 20, 2006 5:32 AM

Don Z and I started last March with the benchwork for what was to be my lower level staging only yard of 9 tracks (3 for Houston Strang yard and 6 for Hearn yard) with ballasting the only scenery item in my plan.

Oct 16th and some 15 turnouts later I ended up with this 13+ foot section. I agree that ballasting this was a chore - trick was to not attempt it all at one time. In the spring I hope to start on the upper level right above this module which has a real operational yard of a the same size.

Regards,

Tom

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Posted by hanawalt on Friday, October 20, 2006 6:59 AM
Certainly, building yards is a chore, but you do it for added operation.  Yards, particularly interchange yards are worth more in operation than other spurs.  If you have an industry spur, say a brewery, then you will be somewhat restricted in the types of cars you can send there (e.g., covered grain hoppers, and beer reefers).  You probably won't want to send oil tankers, flats, gons, open top hoppers, pickle cars, etc.  However, a yard or interchange spur can take every kind of car on your railroad.  When you get to car-card operation, you will be glad you have yard tracks. 
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Posted by Dave-the-Train on Friday, October 20, 2006 8:08 AM

Where you gonna put your trains if you don't have a yard???

That said... there is a choice between having plain and simple staging yards and scenic layout without or having a yard in the scenic layout.

The former is good if you want to watch your trains doing things... like running, working through junctions, being regulated by a dispatcher (at a junction) or switching spurs.

The latter... well I've concluded that most yards in US MRR and English do absorb a huge amount of space and materials... for what?  As everyone has said cars stand around in yards... either being loaded/unloaded or waiting classification or to leave on their journey.

Any sort of yard where (un)loading takes place needs space for the cars to stand... and "look pretty"... but that's all they do there.

Any sort of classification yard with parallel tracks most f the cars are parralel to each other and you can only see those on the front track and a whole load of roofs.  They don't even "look pretty" much of the time.

In both sorts of yard there isn't a whole lot of switching that really goes on.  Personally I don't find a lot of switching interesting.  A little adds spice a lot soon gets boring.

So... my answer is a  through staging yard or point to point between staging yards and as much operational interest in between as possible.  A "hotspot" with a junction at one or both ends is good... especially if there is length to allow some trains to slowly arrive and then wait for a train with priority to run ahead of it before moving on.  In this situation a switching job can sometimes come in, run-round and go back out the other leg of the junction.

If you recall my post "Aliens on the track" a couple of months ago (where we met) your sort of track situation is just the sort of thing I like... work for a hard working tower operator Cool [8D]

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Posted by dknelson on Friday, October 20, 2006 8:20 AM

Yards ... can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.   Because yards tend to be large expanses of more or less repetitive pattern appearance, however, there are things that can be done to save time and effort and brain-pain and still be happy with the result, well short of just hiding the whole thing under a cover and calling it hidden staging.

Unless you intend a yard to be a detailed focal point for visitors (such as if it is the first thing they see when they enter the layout room) maybe one alternative to this "black hole" of time and effort is to try some of the better quality modular track where the roadbed is part of the track already.  I think MR editor Terry Thompson has suggested using better quality modular track for turnouts to avoid the hassle of ballasting around the points.   Or try his idea of spray painting the cork roadbed with one of those fleckstone spray paints to simulate ballast.   Again, because there is so much visual repetition in a yard this is an opportunity to "fool the eye" with simulations of detail.

In one of the prior versions of his layout David Barrow experimented with really minimal ballast, rather than a solid cover he spread just a few grains, and the effect was reasonably convincing even in photos and probably better than that in person.

Still another timesaver might be to lay track on larger sheets of cork rather than using the half-strip cork roadbed.   Or forget cork and lay track right on the plywood or homasote.   I can say that laying track using the Chuck Hitchcock idea of spreading acrylic clear caulk sure lets you lay a lot of flex track in a hurry with satisfying results.

Dave Nelson

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Posted by jecorbett on Friday, October 20, 2006 8:38 AM
Yes, they are time and resource hogs but they give lots of bang for the buck. Well worth the time and money.
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Posted by nbrodar on Friday, October 20, 2006 9:14 AM
 tomikawaTT wrote:
[

Just about every prototype operating department in the known universe, for openers.  Freight cars don't make money standing still, so the 1:1 scale railroads consider yards a necessary evil and try to make the stay in them as brief as possible.

As a Yardmaster and part-time Trainmaster, I am well aware of the prototypes opinions regarding yards.  I am please to say that, with expection of cars holding for local industry, and cars only interchanged Monday, Wendsday, and Friday, my dwell is under 24 hours.

I laid the track and installed the track feeders several months ago.  Other then the hole in my wallet, it was a breeze.

But I'm now just starting to add the scenery.   I think Tom is correct, rather then tackeling the entire yard at once, I will do a little at a time.  I'm taking some extra care with it, because it's the first thing visitors see.

Nick

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Posted by whitman500 on Friday, October 20, 2006 9:18 AM

I think the inclusion of a yard in a small to medium-sized layout may not be worth it.  If you put the yard at one end of the mainline, you might as well convert to staging and move it to a lower level where you won't have to invest the space and the time and effort for ballast, scenery, etc.  After all, what is the point of switching a yard at the end of the mainline?  A train comes in with a string of cars that get broken and then sent out in the same direction from which they came?  It really destroys the illusion of a real railroad in my mind.

I think a yard only makes sense if your layout is large enough to put it in the middle of the mainline. 

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Posted by StillGrande on Friday, October 20, 2006 10:08 AM
In college I knew a guy whose layout was nothing but a yard over a staging yard.  I kept saying that couldn't be any fun until I went over and ran it a few times with him.  What a blast.  We could keep 4 people busy with just yard work.  Occasionally run a train into staging or up from staging.  It was great.  My current project calls for a yard over the staging that will be just under a scale mile long.  I have the room for mainline running and such that my friend didn't, but I still want that yard. 
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Posted by BRAKIE on Friday, October 20, 2006 10:14 AM

Guys,As I mention many times I simply WILL NOT design a "YARDLESS" layout.Why? Real railroads needs yards and so do we IF we are to operate our layout versus running endless loops.

The best part is the yard doesn't need to be 100%  ballast..In other words ballast your yard sparingly like the prototype.You see far to many  model yards look fake when compared to the prototype yard of equal size.Ease up on ballast and add more ground,weeds etc..

Larry

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Posted by Anonymous on Friday, October 20, 2006 10:31 AM
 BRAKIE wrote:

Guys,As I mention many times I simply WILL NOT design a "YARDLESS" layout.Why? Real railroads needs yards and so do we IF we are to operate our layout versus running endless loops.

The best part is the yard doesn't need to be 100%  ballast..In other words ballast your yard sparingly like the prototype.You see far to many  model yards look fake when compared to the prototype yard of equal size.Ease up on ballast and add more ground,weeds etc..

Absolutely agree. I don't recall ever seeing a fully, neatly ballasted yard (maybe when they're brand new, but never saw one of those). Quite the opposite (particularly for steam era like I model). Half the time ballast is truly sparse.

The other one that looks "wrong" to me is yards laid on cork roadbed. Real yards in my experience are rather flat with drainage addressed mostly around the edges, and internal drainage being more of a swale between tracks than nice, clearly defined, well-raised roadbed.

My yard is laid directly on the foam base (painted earth brown first). To make "drainage" I literally just use my finger to "dimple" the foam and make "trenches" between the tracks. Around the edge of the yard, I might carve a little down into the foam to make full on drainage ditches. Then I use ground cover and ballast _sparingly_.  Since I model the steam era, I then give everything a good dusting of engine black (i.e. airbrush from a foot or two away set on wide spray, make sure you brightboy the railheads right afterward). Looks very good to me and definitely doesn't take hours of ballasting like the OP mentions.

Next up is my loco service facility, and looking at old pictures of those... I'm hard pressed to find much ballast at all. Looks mostly like greasy, oily dirt with a lot of coal dust on it... Or maybe the ballast is just so filthy with so much junk between it that it just looks like a flat surface? In either case, I haven't quite decided how to handle it, but it surely won't be mainline-grade roadbed and ballasting! (Suggestions on that count welcome).

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Posted by reklein on Friday, October 20, 2006 10:34 AM
I think yards are a necessary part of railroading. I don't believe in hidden yards because watching the models is the fun. I think the worst wast of talent,time and trackage is the hidden helix. A much over rated tool for changing grade. There was a layout in one of the magazines which had a humongous Oval shaped helix in another room,and I thought what a waste of track and veiwing opportunies.Sign - With Stupid [#wstupid]
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Posted by Anonymous on Friday, October 20, 2006 10:45 AM
 nbrodar wrote:

...After painting and ballasting about 2 feet of each track, I was crosseyed and stopped for the day.... 

Nick

PS - I believe the man who can invent a way to ballast quickly and easily (and I mean actually ballasting, not sectional-on-fake-ballast track) will quickly find himself quite comfortable financially. In my opinion, that's the biggest "better mousetrap" candidate in the hobby.

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Posted by jrbernier on Friday, October 20, 2006 12:10 PM

  One of the big problems with model railroads is what we USE the yard for.  Most prototype yards are used to classify cars - Trains are arriving & departing.  Many model railroaders seem to use a yard as a personal storge device for their many freight cars.  My yard has 4 through tracks, holds maybe 60 cars maximum.  Most of the time the yard has only15-20 cars in it.  My 6 staging tracks usually hold about 60 cars, and the industries have maybe 10-12 cars spotted.  If you do the math, I have under 100 cars on the layout.  I have about 400 freight cars -only the ones that are needed for operation reside on the layout.  I have display cases in the family room(crew lounge??) that hold engines/cars that I thought were 'neat', but really have no use in the operation of the layout.

  A friend has 1/2 of his 'on stage' yard tied up with a coal train and intermodel train that he runs when he is too tired to operate.  When he operates, his 6 track yard is always plugged up - he want to add more storage tracks, but gets concerned about the cost of switches!

Jim

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Posted by Texas Zepher on Friday, October 20, 2006 2:44 PM

 BRAKIE wrote:
I simply WILL NOT design a "YARDLESS" layout.Why? Real railroads needs yards and so do we IF we are to operate our layout versus running endless loops.
So what about real railroads that don't have yards?  Take a look at the track layout of many shortlines and industrial railroads.  Even look at the shortline photos called "yards", and it will be noticed that they are not yards at all but several side by side industrial or station tracks at the end of the line or at best an interchange track or two.  If someone is modeling such a railroad then they aren't operating their layout?   What about those who model a prototypical branch that has no yard, should they add one even though it would be un-prototypical?   I find this view to be a bit limiting on what prototypical things could be modeled.

I am in the opposite camp.  I believe most model railroads are overyarded, but as someone else (jrbernier?) has pointed out this is probably due to the fact that what is being called a yard isn't really a working yard but more and area just for storage or staging.   I also contend that if a working yard is well designed it will have all trailing point switching and the most complex move will be running the road locomotive around the train.   Even if one simulates things like caboose servicing, all the moves end up being shuffling forward and back (hence the word drill).  The challenge in operating a well designed yard is keeping the departing trains on schedule (and hence the yard empty), not the switching problems. 

So yes, I think they are a resource (space & time) black hole.

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Posted by Jetrock on Friday, October 20, 2006 3:13 PM

A lot depends on your emphasis. If you're the sort who doesn't care for scenery and is perfectly happy running on bare plywood, then scenery and structures are the resource "black hole." Maybe your yard is bigger than mine (in fact, it probably is) but my yard was pretty darn easy to throw together. It's a four-track single-end yard with a runaround track, a RIP track and a short stub for storing cabeese. I laid track in one afternoon, ballasted in another afternoon, and spent a few hours adding a little scenery, mostly dirt, scrub grass and some tire tracks, plus a few small yard structures and lots of grime. All in all, my yard took about a week from track on bare wood to ballasted and scenicked and essentially complete. My industrial area took months to complete, as it included a lot of structures and scenery that took quite a bit of time. I don't consider them a "black hole" either because building structures is pretty much my favorite part of the hobby.

 

The yard gets used every time I operate the layout, so I guess I don't really see how a yard is a "black hole" for my own resources. If you're an advocate of just watching the trains run, and your yards are basically there to stage trains before watching them go round and round, then I suppose yards don't serve much purpose.

 

Much may depend on how much you like prototype yards. I'm one of those guys who will go stare at yard operations for as much time as I have, just watching cars being scooted back and forth, and when I'm on train trips I invariably stare out the window at every yard snapping photos and taking mental notes of cool details or things to model.

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Posted by johncolley on Friday, October 20, 2006 4:29 PM

Aaaarrrgggh! The whole purpose of a yard is to sort cars, make up trains, and move 'em out! If you are taking three hours and not departing a train, the hoboes will have apartments! Happy railroading! LOL jc5729

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Posted by BRAKIE on Saturday, October 21, 2006 9:05 AM
 Texas Zepher wrote:

 BRAKIE wrote:
I simply WILL NOT design a "YARDLESS" layout.Why? Real railroads needs yards and so do we IF we are to operate our layout versus running endless loops.
So what about real railroads that don't have yards?  Take a look at the track layout of many shortlines and industrial railroads.  Even look at the shortline photos called "yards", and it will be noticed that they are not yards at all but several side by side industrial or station tracks at the end of the line or at best an interchange track or two.  If someone is modeling such a railroad then they aren't operating their layout?   What about those who model a prototypical branch that has no yard, should they add one even though it would be un-prototypical?   I find this view to be a bit limiting on what prototypical things could be modeled.

I am in the opposite camp.  I believe most model railroads are overyarded, but as someone else (jrbernier?) has pointed out this is probably due to the fact that what is being called a yard isn't really a working yard but more and area just for storage or staging.   I also contend that if a working yard is well designed it will have all trailing point switching and the most complex move will be running the road locomotive around the train.   Even if one simulates things like caboose servicing, all the moves end up being shuffling forward and back (hence the word drill).  The challenge in operating a well designed yard is keeping the departing trains on schedule (and hence the yard empty), not the switching problems. 

So yes, I think they are a resource (space & time) black hole.

 

Being a big fan of short lines I can assure you ALL short lines have yards of some type even if its no more then 2 tracks including the main ON BOTH ENDS of their line..Where do you think they hold the overflow cars? How about empties? How do they make their train up in working order by town and  industry order?

 

As far as branch lines that would depend on type and how far away from the nearest yard..Again,you need a place to hold empties and overflow cars.

So,show me a layout without a working yard and I will show you a un-prototypical layout-stagging yards don't count simply because they are "off layout" destination points.

Larry

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Posted by dehusman on Saturday, October 21, 2006 9:08 AM
A handy way of looking at it is the concept that "a yard is a verb".

Yards are places where cars move from one train to the other.

Dave H.

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Posted by Texas Zepher on Saturday, October 21, 2006 10:21 AM
 dehusman wrote:
A handy way of looking at it is the concept that "a yard is a verb". Yards are places where cars move from one train to the other.
That is an intersting definition. But then isn't every interchange and industrial track a yard?  One train leaves the car at a grain elevator and a different one picks it up.
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Posted by BRAKIE on Saturday, October 21, 2006 10:42 AM

 Texas Zepher wrote:
 dehusman wrote:
A handy way of looking at it is the concept that "a yard is a verb". Yards are places where cars move from one train to the other.
That is an intersting definition. But then isn't every interchange and industrial track a yard?  One train leaves the car at a grain elevator and a different one picks it up.

 

No..Usually elevators are switch by the same local the next day or 2 days later depending on the load out rate...Of course the exception being large elevators that loads unit trains such as ADM,CARGILL etc.

Larry

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Posted by Texas Zepher on Saturday, October 21, 2006 10:47 AM
Being a big fan of short lines I can assure you ALL short lines have yards of some type even if its no more then 2 tracks including the main ON BOTH ENDS of their line..
OK, show me where the yards are on the short lines Lousiville & Wadley, Wadley Southern (Petticoat Junction like), or Belfast & Moosehead Lake.   When examining the actual track of the B&ML the closest thing I can find to a yard is the interchange with the Maine Central (At Burnham Junction), and in that case the track happens to belong to the Maine Central so if I were modeling this it would be the staging and by your own definition doesn't count.  At Belfast the few tracks that look like they are a "yard" are the mail track, 2 passenger terminal tracks, the freight station track, a scale track, and the warf track - no yard.   All the other pictures or track diagrams I've found of their "yards" in the other towns are just passing tracks.  http://www.cprr.org/Museum/BMLRR/ 

Exactly the same scenario for the L&W.  The closest thing to a "yard" in Lousiville is the run around track just off the turn table (later the wye).

These railroads don't have enough traffic to have to sort cars. Most of them don't have any of their own fleet and just use interchange cars. All the cars from the interchange only have one destination, and as such there are no surplus cars, the empties are in the next train back to the connecting railroad.   A notible exception is the Lousiville & Wadley that has a fleet (and makes all of their money from cars in interchange), but their cars almost never get to their home track.  I found one reference where they were clearing the brush from the "yard" (the interchange track that branches off the connecting line) to make room for a couple.

Then there is the railroad made from the former AT&SF branch through Timken Kansas.  The railroad's main terminal is in Ellis.  They have no yard.  The cars sit behind the locomotive right in front of the station.  When the train is needed the push the train to the desination to fill up the cars.  There is a passing track in Bazine so I suppose they could run around there.

All I am saying is that there are many instances where a real railroad has no "yard", ergo a model railroad of it would not prototypically have a "yard".  But as the prior poster just pointed out it depends entirely on what one is classifying as a yard.  If someone wants the single track in front of a station to be called a yard then that is OK, it just makes having conversations difficult.  I am guessing we are actually agreeing in concept but disagreeing on what classifies as a "yard".  To that question there is no resolution (sort of like the  way car vs. caboose debate). 
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Posted by dehusman on Saturday, October 21, 2006 11:21 AM
The question is, does the average modeler handle a half dozen cars with one locomotive a day or a week? Or does the average modeler switch cars at about 300-400% or the prototypical rate to generate "operation"?

There are lots of operations where having a yard may not make sense. There are situations and track plans you could come up with to eliminate any number of things (easiest example is engine facilities). I would say that if you get more than two or three trains originating on the visible portion of your layout, then having a yard becomes a real benefit.

Dave H.

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Posted by BRAKIE on Saturday, October 21, 2006 12:37 PM

TZ,Any of the tracks you mention could be used as a yard..Sadly the B&ML cease operations on June 9,2005.

The L&W is far from being a "Petticoat Jct" type of short line..While only 2 miles long it owns several hundred cars which seldom sees home rails.

Larry

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