The Falls Valley Railroad has been hammering out final plans for a future yard. Since I dont YET have a scanned image of that track arrangement I will try my best to describe arrangement and how I think best to use it.
Mainline goes into yard limits. One track will be the arrival/depart track off the main.
The Yard switcher's drill track will have connection direct to the A/D track.
The drill track will connect a ladder for 5 storage tracks. The store tracks are stub-ended.
There will be a run-around that bypasses the ladder along it's diagonal length with the hope that the road engine can escape from it's train and proceed to the engine area to be serviced.
Counting from the operator's point of view:
Edge of table: Mainline.
A/D Track with Drill track.
Track One: Yellow
Track Two: Blue
Track Three: Green
Track Four: Black
Track Five: Company use and engine area access as well as run around lead track.
I see a color system where for example Yellow track. This track will recieve any trains considered to be "Throughs- or Bridge Traffic" that does not do anything on "My system" but passes through.
This track also represents a train that will leave FVRR for the "Outside world" at staging. So once this track fills up with outbounds I can call an engine and get this train sent to staging.
Another example: Track Green This presents all of the cars that are specifically marked to go to be loaded or empty at the town of Falls Valley. The yard switcher can sort FV cars to and from that track.
Each of the other tracks with a color code represents a town on my line. Track 5 is special. It gets to be kept open for a variety of useful reasons.
My goal is to orginate and ternimate locals to and from each of the 3 towns and to send extra trains to interchange or staging by midnight each working day. I also plan to recieve manifests that are blocked from either Philadepha, Baltimore and Hagerstown and sort them according to two-cycle and 4 cycle waybills as needed.
This little yard should keep me busy for quite some time if I got it right. What do you think? Too simple? Too complicated? Too much in too little?
Sounds like a solid design for a small yard..You may want to add a caboose track as well.
"Track Five: Company use and engine area access as well as run around lead track"
You are wise to add a runner track..
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
BRAKIE wrote: Sounds like a solid design for a small yard..You may want to add a caboose track as well."Track Five: Company use and engine area access as well as run around lead track" You are wise to add a runner track..
Caboose track and Icing rack added. Thanks! I forgot about those.
I suggest you make an additional arrival/departure track. Make it a through track so once your trains are assembled you can depart from there.
Is your yard drill track clear of the mainline so as you work the yard, trains can arrive/depart/proceed on the main without interuption. This sounds like a very busy yard so and the yard is the most time consuming operation on the layout. This is where most time schedules get messed up.
John
I am working the drill track problem. The A/D is already at 15 feet which is dictated by the lengths of my trains minus engines.
The situation is complicated somewhat by the need to have a drill track. Im thinking of using about 6 feet worth so that the switcher can just start chomping on the train to be broken down. The storage tracks will not be too long, hopefully just long enough to meet the towns industrial siding capacity.
I am thinking about adding a second track. I already know that there will be a staging area also of the same length feeding the yard by a helix. There will be a backdrop between the two of somewhat medium height.
I have not yet decided if I want to use a helix or a loop with a roundhouse/TT area inside it.
I plan to start the railroad at this point when construction begins so I can get operations up and running right away even if it is only making/breaking trains. I could do this with what track I have right now in one area of the house although it might drive the spouse crazy after an hour of steam and desiel activity.
It's small. But imagine if I did not have heavyweights and modern stock like 62' tank cars I could probably change the era to 1930 or so and do the same thing in 8 feet and a 4-4-0
johncolley wrote:Urgent!! Clear your mind of the concept of using the yard as storage tracks! The purpose of a yard is classification (sorting) of cars: Incoming from somewhere (staging or local industry), going to somewhere else (staging or local industry). Make it a practice to keep the yard fluid. I have one friend who has a yard full of stored cars such that he can't use the yard! All he can do is have trains chase their cabooses around and around. Storage of excess cars/engines can be on staging or offline on shelves, in boxes, drawers, etc. jc5729
Most urgent! Yards are use to hold cars until they can be made into a train or local..
This is called terminal dwell time.
I switch cars for a living so, I'll admit I'm a little biased.
I use my yard as a visible staging/fiddle yard, rather then a classification yard. As a result, I shortened the lead to make the body tracks as long a possible.
A thought on your design...you might want to run the mainline along the BACK of the yard if possible. That way your yard operators aren't reaching over the main to do their work.
Nick
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
Take some time and read Andy Sperandeo's book on yard design. Also Google "Ten Commandments of Yard Design. It is excellent reading by Craig Bisgeier. I have used both to design my 24' yard on my railroad and the yardmaster in charge during op sessions says the yard performs flawlessly. Arrival and departures go on without interfering with drilling. Do not us the yard for storage. Either have staging or shelves for keeping cars off the layout.
Steve B.
Body tracks. Not storage. Storage is staging or in boxes underneath.
Regarding the mainline, I think flipping the yard over lengthwise should do it. I did it in my head, now I gotta do it on paper.
steveb wrote: Take some time and read Andy Sperandeo's book on yard design. Also Google "Ten Commandments of Yard Design. It is excellent reading by Craig Bisgeier. I have used both to design my 24' yard on my railroad and the yardmaster in charge during op sessions says the yard performs flawlessly. Arrival and departures go on without interfering with drilling. Do not us the yard for storage. Either have staging or shelves for keeping cars off the layout.Steve B.
Those 10 comments of yard design leaves a lot to be desired..I found the BEST teacher is the railroads and One's own experience in yard designs.Also recall there are several prototype yard designs and one design doesn't fit all.
Why?
Simple..Those Ten comments is only his thoughts which may not work in all situations especially for smaller layouts where yard space is at a premium..
Safety Valve wrote: Body tracks. Not storage. Storage is staging or in boxes underneath.
BRAKIE wrote:I found the BEST teacher is the railroads and One's own experience in yard designs. Also recall there are several prototype yard designs and one design doesn't fit all.
Texas Zepher wrote: Safety Valve wrote: Body tracks. Not storage. Storage is staging or in boxes underneath. Hence the big debate we had last summer about just saying "yard" because it means so many different things to so many different people. Reading the original description, I think this is supposed to be a classification yard, with a "body" track.
There are tracks that make up the body of a large yard..Sadly most modelers including "experts" isn't aware of that fact.You have classification tracks and body tracks that cars such as home road empties,empty grain cars,auto racks etc are stored till needed..These cars may sit for days without turning a wheel.
I built the main ladder on Rts 7 this morning.
http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/959/yardladdergraphicac6.png
I stripped off the grid, descriptions and the roughwork that included the roadbed then built this image to show to everyone.
There is a very specific use for each track, switch in this area without any waste. As I stated earlier there will be tracks one through four, three for towns and one to staging.
Track 5 which is not marked will take care of the engine facilities and caboose, location to be determined.
My next problem is that 15 foot elephant, the A/D track and where to put it. Looks like the total length is going to be just about 24 feet. The drill track will follow the mainline for a few feet and end where a yard limit (Junction tower, or interlocking tower I dont know what you call them) sign is going to be set.
I did not yet set a width of the yard; it will be at least two feet for sure probably no more than three total feet.
There is a run around built next to the ladder using flex track, I would hope that this will reduce excess traffic across the ladder itself and give the switcher a chance to run around something without venturing into the A/D or the main itself.
The mainline will go past the yard at the "Top" of the picture per the advice of a poster. The more I thought about having the ladder towards the operator, the more I liked it because indeed there will be derailments, coupler issues and other yard gremlins.
nbrodar wrote: I switch cars for a living so, I'll admit I'm a little biased.I use my yard as a visible staging/fiddle yard, rather then a classification yard. As a result, I shortened the lead to make the body tracks as long a possible.A thought on your design...you might want to run the mainline along the BACK of the yard if possible. That way your yard operators aren't reaching over the main to do their work. Nick
Precisely what I do/did....and am I ever glad I thunk of it all by my self. Whew!
Texas Zepher wrote: Safety Valve wrote: Body tracks. Not storage. Storage is staging or in boxes underneath. Hence the big debate we had last summer about just saying "yard" because it means so many different things to so many different people. Reading the original description, I think this is supposed to be a classification yard, with a "body" track. BRAKIE wrote:I found the BEST teacher is the railroads and One's own experience in yard designs. Also recall there are several prototype yard designs and one design doesn't fit all. A yard is not a yard, is not a yard. Another way to think about this is the opposite of the thread topic. One shouldn't make a yard and figure out how to use it, but decide what is needed and make the trackwork meet that need. Then whatever track work emerges from the design becomes the "yard".
This is quibbling, TZ, but I think an eclectic, non-rigid, but guided approach to building a yard is probably the refined modeller's way of doing it. Those ten commandments are for guidance and provoking thought, but they may cause a modeller to conclude that they should forego a yard entirely since they find themselves having to compromise too often, or to break the commandments here and there such that they feel the proper thing to do is to forget the yard.
So, yes, you are right, but we shouldn't be so rigid in any approach or attitude that we preclude effective use of potential.
selector wrote:I think an eclectic, non-rigid, but guided approach to building a yard is probably the refined modeller's way of doing it. Those ten commandments are for guidance and provoking thought, ... we shouldn't be so rigid in any approach or attitude that we preclude effective use of potential.
Here is the official prototype definition of a yard from my current Operating Rules book.
Yard: A system of tracks other then main tracks and sidings. A yard is used for making up trains, for storing cars, and for other purposes.
"... Operations: How do best use a yard"?
There are four categories of answer...
If you are looking to model the real thing you need to decide first on the influence of era and second on what the RR is doing with what it has got at the site.
The more modern and more recently built/modified a yard is the more likely it is to be out-of-town with high switch (angle) numbers and long flowing curves if not straight tracks. Unit trains are favourite. A computer may decide what goes where.
The older you get the more you are likely to have what the RR could afford balanced with anticipated (hoped for) traffic. In earlier periods cars also tended to have both longer stand times and more frequent static inspections.
In between you have a mix of specialised yards and compromise. As much as possible any business including RRs uses what it has already invested in up to the point where it becomes more cost efficient to change - if it can find the new capital.
So existing yard(s) and spurs will get used and modified a lot unless someone is putting in something like a big new plant. Then that plant will get specialised tracks to serve its (original) designed needs. Note the "(original)". Plants also change their practices and internal arrangements. This sometimes shows as bits of track still in roadways or across parking lots where there is no other visible track around or even a new/more recent buillding on the site of the old track. Sometimes just a switch stand or bumper gets left in place as a sort of monument.
Where new track is put into new plant the RR may run direct to/from the plant if the facility is big enough. Where it is smaller the RR will more likely make some sort of transfer moves fom the nearest available yard with track space for the traffic. Note! this is not necessarily the nearest yard. This means that you can have nice interesting moves of a loco and cut of cars (with or without caboose depending on era and local rules) to and from the facility. This is a variety of switch move. Space has to be found for it at the facility, on the running tracks and in the handling yard.
So at the handling yard...
I go back to my points 1-3. Point 3 is the way the job gets done. Nick isn't going to split strings of cars that belong together unless there is absolutely no other way of handling them. So a long cut of cars will go in the appropriate length road mostly regardless of any theory about that road being for a specific traffic. There is no point messing about putting all the blue cars on the blue track just to look pretty if that makes endless switching (unless you have got bored at the end of a long day's exhibition running - I've seen this done - on the model).
What a good yardmaster knows is what traffic is coming and what traffic is going out. So he plays a chess game. If he wants happy crews and few tie-ups or cars in the dirt he makes as few moves as possible... and when he has to do extras he tells his guys what the problem is... sometimes they will come up with an answer that gets round the problem more easily. A good yardmaster will listen... a bad yardmaster will be allowed to tie the yard into a knot... the shareholders don't like that. Bad yardmasters don't last.
I have not allowed for specialist roads such as cattle tracks, icing roads, reefer roads and end ramps for circus style loading. Even where these roads are in or next to a big(ger) yard they are effectively not part of the yard as a whole because of their restricted use. They will simply only come into the yard equation with regard to their specialist use.
Such specialist use will mean that if, for example, a yard has a reefer track entered from one end the yardmaster will be looking for at least regular cuts of reefers to arrive in consists so that they can be cut off and shoved into the track quick and easy. If another yard/yardmaster keeps sending him the reefers mid train so that he has to do a lot of messing about things will be said. If appropriate some degree of shoving urgent cars into the wrong/worst place for the other yard to handle will occur "due to operational requirements". The other end will get the message.
One thing to recall is that while the management would like things to all be in constant fixed numbers and colour coded they don't happen like that on the track. The situation is always fluid. A lot of it is predictable... but...
Traffic also ebbs and flows on different days of the week. Monday may be boxcars, Tuesday Autoracks, Wednesday tanks...
The fun bit, as Nick will tell you, is when you lose a switch or a road... or things back up out on the main track.
"Space" in yard terms is not the final frontier...
yard space is physically only two dimensional... the length of tracks by the number of tracks across. you do NOT want to go vertical!
BUT there is another dimension... TIME.
This all applies all over the RR in practice. Operations are always dealing with occupied or free track in chunks of time.
As far as possible things are scheduled to at least keep rolling slowly. The order of working trains both on the main and in yards is shuffled to keep everything on the move. There is no point in rushing a train or car through to the front if it will only stand there... even less point if by standing there it will stop other stuff getting through. You also do not want to have to shuffle it to the back... where it may get hung up and not be free to be moved when it is wanted.
maybe the best/easiest comparrison that most people will be familiar with is an airport. Whole trains, cuts of cars and individual cars are like aircraft. They need their "slots". get there early and they block something else. get there late and they may be blocked as well as blocking something else. There has to be some slack and some flexibility in the system.
One solution on the RR is sometimes to send a train on beyond the yard it is meant for and bring it back later. This is not popular with anyone as it costs fuel and crew time but it is better than blocking the main track waiting for a yard road. If possible a train will be held back or diverted to take the long/slow way round (provided the crew know the route).
Operation
Arrival/Departure track.
It may be obvious but a track is not (usually) sanctified to be used only for arrival departure and nothing else on penalty of death except in the really enormous yards.
Most yards will receive traffic into almost any road that is long enough. What you do want to be able to do is to get the locos off reasonably quickly if not at once. So a long enough road with a free outlet is preferable.
Similarly if a train conventiently comes together on any road within a yard it will leave from that road. No-one is going to mess around pulling it all out of the road it has made up on and pushing it back into a departure road just for the sake of it. (Apart from anything else every push includes a higher risk of cars ending in the dirt - even on the best track).
If a train is being made up on an arrival/departure track... you can't have a train arrive off the main onto it... obvious but...
The reverse applies...
No one seems to have mentioned that if you need caboses it is good to be able to get them on/off the consists easily.
The one track you normally want clear is what we would call the "Head shunt" or "Shunting Spur". The track that is clear of the main and any arrivals/departures but has access to all or almost all tracks in the yard. If this is segregated the yard switcher can shuttle backwards and forwards on it switching cars from any track to any track without tieing up with any other movements. Any busy yard wants this facility. BUT! Any yard that only switches (maybe with the train's road switcher(s)) once or twice a day doesn't have to have this... what it does have to have is time when switching moves will be expected to block arrival/departure tracks OR the main track.
That said... what may be planned is that an arrival/departure track is scheduled for one thing at one time of day and other things at other times.
This is glaringly obvious... once you write it down... but when you just stand and watch a yard there is nothing to give this planning away. It explains why yard crews may appear to suddenly hurry up and clear a track. They may then vanish down the line. What they have done is set up the track ready for a later arrival.
A casual passer by might think "Why do they bother to have that track? They never use it. there's never anything on it".
The same observer might look at another track and think "those cars have been stood there forever". But he is unaware that "those cars" constantly change as cuts of covered hoppers (for example) roll in and out with hundreds of miles between visits.
Dave,
Chess is good way to describe it. I firmly believe one the reasons I'm so good at what I do is that I played a lot of chess. It's that uncanny ability to see four or five moves ahead that keep good yardmasters out of trouble. And the lack of that forsight, that ties the yard up in knots.
I often start a sequence of moves two, three or even four hours in advance to have all my pieces in position, and keep everyone moving, when four or five trains arrive in the same 30 minute period.
Time is your best friend, or your worst enemy.
You got it Nick!
So... what do you do when that SD sits down in the dirt of track 3?
I'm still in the planning stage of my lay out so forgive me for my ignorance. I was very dissapointed that there are no reliable uncouplers available like that which (forgive me for bringing up this nane) Lionel has. To me that is what is required for a real switching operation.
Bob
Don't Ever Give Up
If you want to be prototypical, put in the yard as you designed. Work it for a while and then if you need to, make track changes. Some times the big boys do that. You will have troubles with the rivet counters either way.
rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
Dave said:The same observer might look at another track and think "those cars have been stood there forever". But he is unaware that "those cars" constantly change as cuts of covered hoppers (for example) roll in and out with hundreds of miles between visits.
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Dave,Cars can set for days at a time..Ths is called TERMINAL DWELL TIME..Its a killer on a loaded car..It will take days for cars to travel those"hundreds of miles" between visits..As a former brakeman I can assure cars can and will be stored for days.
Study the dwell times in this link.These times are for LOADED cars not empties.
http://www.railroadpm.org/Performance%20Reports/BNSF.aspx
You will find other railroads on the left side.
Sad much hasn't change since I worked on the railroad even with the "seamless" merger plans the railroads tooted as a means to merge.
Dave-the-Train wrote: You got it Nick! So... what do you do when that SD sits down in the dirt of track 3?
First, I say a series of words not suitable for the forum.
Then, I go out, make an initial investigation and report to the Trainmaster. Next, the Trainmaster will arrive and conduct a more through investigation.
If it's a minor derailment - one truck derailed and inline - we break out the blocks and wedges and rerail. If it's more serious, we call 1-800-BIG-HOOK.
Lastly, we quibble over the cause and which department will get the blame.
nbrodar wrote: Dave-the-Train wrote: You got it Nick! So... what do you do when that SD sits down in the dirt of track 3? First, I say a series of words not suitable for the forum. Then, I go out, make an initial investigation and report to the Trainmaster. Next, the Trainmaster will arrive and conduct a more through investigation.If it's a minor derailment - one truck derailed and inline - we break out the blocks and wedges and rerail. If it's more serious, we call 1-800-BIG-HOOK.Lastly, we quibble over the cause and which department will get the blame.Nick
Then of course the Division Superintendent will want to talk to the crew as well as the Road Foreman of Engines who will file a full report on his findings to the Division Superintendent..
Yes Brakie, I know that cars can stand... I was contrasting to the previous paragraph.
Usually the shareholders won't mind if cars dwell provided they have a load in them ... because that means that someone is paying for them.
What the crew that is going to have to get the load out of them thinks may be another matter... epsecially if the load can become compacted or wet and possibly iced.
In earlier eras frreight cars were not unusually used as sort of "rolling warehouses". Places like big iron works wouldn't run just on a straight flow of materials from source but have pools of cars standing under load close by. This covered both for hold ups in the regular flow of traffic and changes in level of demand. It also saved double handling to some extent. Reserves could be dumped into stock piles but they then rquired time and energy to pick back up. A rolling reserve was more responsive to changes in demand and flow.
The further element to your terminal dwell time is that a yard master - and his crews, including the brakemen on incoming trains, - need to know what cars are going to move through fast and what cars will stand around.
When a train arrives with all the fast moveres more-or less together, at least in cuts within the consist, and all the slow stuff together it is a lot better than everything just jumbled up.
Regular crews will know regular visiting cars pretty much by sight in the same way that truck stop people will know who will blow through and who will stop over night. This can of course lead to a problem if people assume a car is in a particular service and don't read the waybilll. you can lose things this way. If the car happens to be a Nuclear flask this can upset people a bit.
This last is kind of good news for modellers. Apart from the fact that you can totally ignore these notes and do it your way anyway you will find that when you get into a practice you will have a good idea how you will operate a train anyway. Again, like the truck stop owner, you will see one of your trains roll out of hidden storage and you will know what you are planning to do with it. If you are lucky enough to have got into fairly advanced ops your crew of modeller friends will play games and occasionally put a spanner in the works by adding an extra car or changing the route of a car that they know you will expact to send one way.
These notes are not only not meant as "This is the way to do it" but cannot be a definitive version ... simply because with rail yards each "chess board" is different and every game is unique. You could say that most days conform to certain opening moves... what develops is probably more variable than is possible on a chess board. this is why I find it so sad when people who have spent so much time and effort building excellent models clearly don't have a clue what can be done with them except run them round in circles.
The main thing is to enjoy the trains