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Yard Operations: How do best use a yard?

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, March 11, 2007 12:25 PM

Hello to everyone!

I dont consider Caboose Tracks a luxury.

But having a drill track that is long as a train? To me that is luxury.

I was thinking that the most trouble I see is keeping that drill track and yard switcher completely free and able to do it's work without interruption from the Main and other activity which includes engines going to and from arriving/departing trains.

I also decided to keep it single ended to save on the cost of switches. Double ended yards consume ALOT of space with those ladders.

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, March 11, 2007 11:07 AM

This really is a great discussion, one of the better ive seen on the subject lately.

I would use quotes etc here but since they changed the format in the forum here ive much to relearn I see.

Suffice it to say All points taken (Nick, Dave) Sign - Oops [#oops], did I forget Larry......well, thats what he gets for being stuck up & not saying Hi backTongue [:P]

I would have to say that Combining some idea's here coupled with other observations, the initiator of this thread should be well Pleased.

Dave , you said:

I get a definite impression that lot of modelers end up using other layouts that they seein magazines , shows etc as stand in for the real thing.

I agree with that (to a point). Some forums I have visited seem to stand out with their posted plans as having more of this than others...its pretty easy to see actually once you know what you are looking for LOL.....There are others however that seem to do a very good job of helping get people beyond this. (switching puzzle in a yard has got to be the second worst thing you can do)

What would be the first worst?

Using a yard for storage I would think.....that is simply my opinion of course :)

Yards have got to be the most difficult area of a layout to configure for most & I agree there is NO PAT ANSWER.......nothing one can do or say to help an individual that will cover all rr's through any layout for any type of operation, there are simply to many variables.

What we can do though is stress in order of importance what a yard needs followed by desireable followed by would be nice to have and then perhaps a definite Luxury but if youve got the room heck yea!!

The above would certainly Vary by Era somewhat so it could be adjusted as a generalization for late 1800's to WW1  WW1 to WW2 Era 1946 - 1965 and finally modern......(yes i know it could be easily broken down further but these should be sufficient for a general overview)

Example ERA 1880-1919

NEED -1 arrival Track

NEED - 1 Departure track

Need - 1 drill track average train length x 1.5 minimum

Desireable - Eng Service track

Desireable - X makeup tracks

would be nice - Rip track

Luxury - caboose track

etc etc etc

Something like this Would go a long ways to help FNG's (fairly new guys) determine a plan of attack that would at least generally fit into their proposed Era & Possibly keep these same FNG's from ending up with a switching puzzle where their Drill track should be Big Smile [:D]

It would also be interesting to see what Differences would crop up between the 3 of you Laugh [(-D]

Todd

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Posted by Dave-the-Train on Saturday, March 10, 2007 2:26 PM

We seem to have a minimum of four distinct yard types so far...

classification SIT and support + outlaying.

Just to confuse the issue any big yard can include any combination of the first three.

In addition to this we have connections from the RR itself to private tracks serving industry.

So, if I have this right...

A large RR will have...

  •  a number of really large "hubs" which will almost certainly include all three main elements... these may be side-by-side, strung out in a line or a mix of the two. - These yards are almost certainly way to big to be modelled but we could manage a representative corner or something like a loco facility serving a hub.
  • out on the territory there will be numbers of both classification and SIT yards placed strategically to where the RR needs to sort out where trains/cars are going in the first case and to where the RR needs to hold traffic until customers are ready to receive it. - Going back to a point I made in an earlier post I would reckon that some of these yards might appear to be in rather odd places... their postion resulting from where the RR used to be and where traffic used to be... BUT especially with line abandonments and changing traffic the RR has adapted what it already has to modern requirements.
  • In a modern system there will be fewer support yards as maintenance is concentrated and locos can run longer distances between the need to go into a facility.  -  Looked at another way... In steam days there had to be a Loco facility at regular intervals simply to swap out locos for servicing and switch in fresh locos to take a train on.  These were often/usually "Division Points" if I'm reading things right.  While locos were being swapped the RR could take the opportunity to do any classification for routeing so (under steam) classification yards tended to be at the same place as loco yards.
  • Especially in a modern context a lot of locos will not visit a full loco facility very often but may live in the corner of another yard. - What I'm thinking is that a classification yard in particular may have allocated switchers that get refueled from local suppliers and minor maintenance on site.  There may also be some Road Switchers/Geeps at the same place to deal with local traffic on spur lines and on chunks of the main either side of the yard.
  • At last we get to the "Outlaying Yard".  As I read it trains of predominantly (or exclusively) local traffic are going to venture out from a classification yard behind a Road Switcher to serve those private industry tracks and maybe hand off traffic to other adjacent roads.  At some point (probably near the far end) there is a small yard capable of holding cars near to where they are wanted and also suitable for the crew to switch cars around to make their distribution easier.  When the outward trip has been completed the crew may take time to marshal their train so that there is less work to do on it when they get back to the big yard.  This sounds like the ideal yard for most modellers.
  • As well as having some storage and run-round facilities an outlaying yard may have some sort of small loco facility... possibly just somewhere the loco stands overnight and/or gets refueled by a local contractor.
  • Private tracks to serve industry seem to be able to be connected to the RR's tracks almost anywhere they are needed.

I hope that this analysis is something like right!

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Posted by Dave-the-Train on Saturday, March 10, 2007 2:05 PM

Boy that private track throws up some questions

I guess that a key thing is the property line

Presumiably this may be marked by a fence line with a gate... or not???  A Lot of pics of elevators show no apparent boundary

  •  This leads to the questions
    Are the elevator tracks always/mostly/about50-50/sometimes private... or...?
  • apart from the lock on the switch (which isn't going to show in many pics) is there a way of telling who owns/is responsible for the track?
  • Where the industry track is (more or less) parallel to the RR track with no fence do RR (or industries) put in property marker posts? (I know a location in South London where ther are property markers between two pairs of Railway tracks that go back to the C19... they are so big and so deep in the ground that they still defy removal despite the fact that neither Rly has had independent exitsnace since 1923).</li><li>Is private track usually hand maintained?
  •  Okay, this will depend partly on how much there is... but (for example) do the larger private trackages get tamers and things in occassionally? - I guess that this might apply to the big power utilities where unit trains roll through and unload on the move?
  • Do the elevator cos. etc buy in second hand track from the RR?&nbsp; Do they get this as panels sometimes?
  • Who gets responsibility for providing a derail or any other device to stop cars escaping onto the RR's tracks?
  •  Presumiably this would get 2 locks as well?

[AAH!  Terrible time getting this to post!]

Worth it to get the questions in though...

Big Smile [:D]Big Smile [:D]Big Smile [:D]

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Posted by BRAKIE on Saturday, March 10, 2007 10:05 AM

Dave,Actually the railroad spur is privately owned and the industry is responsible for its up keep..If the track falls in disrepair and becomes a hazard the railroad can embargo delivering cars until the track is fix.The railroad is responsible only for the switch and the track leading to the property line.

The reefers would be spotted on a yard track until they can be delivered.

Another type of yard is called a outlaying yard..These yards are found in small cities and is used by the local crew to rearrange their train back into working order or make their home turn.Of course these small yard can hold empty covered hoppers till needed by that grain elevator you mention or use to hold industry over flow cars.Now some of these yards can be home to a local based out of a small city.There will be no engine house however in some cases there may be a engine service area if 2 or more locals are base out of that small city.Of course a local fuel dealer can refuel the locomotives.Cars are delivered to these yards by inter-division transfer trains or road trains.Of course these same trains will pickup the outbound cars.The local crew will switch these cars in a West bound cut or Eastbound cut..This helps the road crew pickup these cars.

Of course a EB will pickup the EB cars and a WB will pickup the WB cars.See how it works?

 

Larry

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Summerset Ry.


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Posted by Dave-the-Train on Saturday, March 10, 2007 9:35 AM
 BRAKIE wrote:

 

Actually those spurs are privately own by the scrap yard and elevator..Remember  99.9% of time any gate will have 2 locks on it..A railroad switch lock and the customers lock.These will be lock though the shackles of the locks..Worst case scenario will be the need to wait until security or receiving supervisor unlocks the gate.

Best would be to spot these cars on a yard track..

Terrific! Smile [:)]  Now I'm learning!

Here the track would usually be Railway owned and they'd park stock on it as/when they wanted... with a little bit of courtesy thrown in.

BUT... it looks like you do it differently.  I wonder how many modellers would realise this limitation on use?

So... we have to plan ahead to make sure that road is free or we would be shoving the reefers to the next RR yard...?  OR... do track owners work a "pool" type arrangement with each other... you can use my track when it's quoet against track cost when we're busy?

Cool [8D]

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Posted by Dave-the-Train on Saturday, March 10, 2007 8:40 AM

Tileguy 86

I grew up with "scale model railways", electric suburban commute services and the tail end of steam freight.  I also had some experience of preserved railways.

Until I stumbled into railway work as a fill in job I had very little knowledge of just how the real thing gets things done. It can't be such a bad job... I'm still there.  One of the terrific things as far as I am concerned is that every single day is different... you never know what will crop up next.

I have built a few layouts, planned hundreds, operated quite a number and observed loads at exhibitions/meets.  From all this I would conclude that the way for modellers to go is NOT "from a Model RR Yard standpoint and Model RR operations and the best way I can see doing that would be to distinguish between what as modelers we do (or should do) as regards basic practices, and then Insert what the real rr does and why this practice is either not possible OR not practical in a model yard".

I guess that the easiest comparrison I can make to putting the model ahead of the real thing is a John Wayne movie like the "Green Berets"... apparently the real Green Berets loved it... best comedy they'd seen for years...

I would ALWAYS start with a prototype situation and learn as much about it as I can.  Then I would start to think about what I could model.

As I see it the modeller has the following limitations...

  • Space for everything
  • Space for the modelled layout
  • Space for the "off stage" "wings"
  • Space to create an illusion of trains taking time to approach (or depart)
  • Limited numbers of both stock and locos (unless he/she is modelling a small RR and/or early period).

That space thing Banged Head [banghead]... okay, I can select key things to model, I can use selective compression, forced perspective, swing tracks behnd buildings... all the tricks...

BUT!  If I am not starting from something real I've got to make it all up as I go along...

From all those years of varied experience I get a definite impression that a lot of modellers end up using other layouts (that they see in the mags or at shows) as a stand-in for the real thing.  What happens then is that we get layouts of layouts.  It very easily gets to be that "every" layout gets a switching puzzle built inot it... because the modellers have seen switching puzzles in mags and at shows... the fact that they are a modeller's invention has got lost in the mists of time.

So... in order to use what space there is to the best advantage I try to combine what is there on the (real) ground, what the real RR do with it and a large chunk of artistic interpretation.  On the rare occassions I manage to get anything somethging like finished I continue the process.  At a show the public don't see the ultimate fine details I might have in my head of crew coupling pipes and testing air pressure... so, again, we do some selective compression but this time in train movements... BUT we can use good speed, pausing a loco before moving on to attach etc.

I DO NOT HAVE AN SINGLE PERFECT ANSWER... What I have been trying to do with this thread is to extract some information about how the real RR does things so that modellers can see into a world which is increasingly closed to them.

In fact, because all my experience and most of my modelleing is UK based I need people like Nick and Larry to write more... there is only so much I can get from 10 years of research... I may be able to read things between the lines more easily than modellers... but even then I know that my interpretation can easily be distorted by my perspective.

Anyway... THANKS NICK AND LARRY... may we have some more please? Big Smile [:D]

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Posted by BRAKIE on Saturday, March 10, 2007 8:25 AM

Dave said: Another way round is to move cars as short a distance up the line as possible to stand on a little used spur.  All the spur has to be is clean and secure from pilfering.  So, if you have a scrap nyard and an elevator nearby you will move the cars to stand on the elevator tracks while they chill... except when the elevator is busy... but then you might still not use the scrapyard track but take the cars off somewhere else... or move something else from your yard to make space for the reefers to stay...

=======================================================================

Actually those spurs are privately own by the scrap yard and elevator..Remember  99.9% of time any gate will have 2 locks on it..A railroad switch lock and the customers lock.These will be lock though the shackles of the locks..Worst case scenario will be the need to wait until security or receiving supervisor unlocks the gate.

Best would be to spot these cars on a yard track..

Larry

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Summerset Ry.


"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt  Safety First!"

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Posted by Dave-the-Train on Saturday, March 10, 2007 8:09 AM
 Safety Valve wrote:

Many a time I hustle into a warehouse with a hot load only to learn that the same product is overflowing. That means I sit at the dock for a day until they consume enough to start working on the trailer.

That is one reason I got out of the dry box business. I dont mind waiting for a coil to cool or a produce to chill down but I have a problem with a hot load of widgets no one needs right then.

Back to the yard, Im wrestling with the icing rack because Im also wanting an identical track to set reefer cars aside to cool down while empty so that they can go to be loaded when ready at the cold storage.

Why do trucks always roll in in bunches or just as we go for a meal break? Laugh [(-D]

Why do the cars need to move off the icing rack to cool down?

Assuming that the reefer moves are on a regular pattern - and that, maybe, your rack road is 5 cars and the string to be iced is 10 cars - clear out some space in another road ahead of the ten cars coming in, ice five of them, swap the cars over, maybe take the 1st 5 to be loaded...  This is the nature of what Nick is saying about planning ahead.

Another way round is to move cars as short a distance up the line as possible to stand on a little used spur.  All the spur has to be is clean and secure from pilfering.  So, if you have a scrap nyard and an elevator nearby you will move the cars to stand on the elevator tracks while they chill... except when the elevator is busy... but then you might still not use the scrapyard track but take the cars off somewhere else... or move something else from your yard to make space for the reefers to stay...

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Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, March 10, 2007 12:06 AM
 nbrodar wrote:

Yardmasters live and die by dwell time and car hire.  Number of cars in the yard is actually a minor concern.  As a wise yardmaster once told, "Anyone can switch with clear tracks."   Although, it's a good idea to leave one track clear, so you can run from one end to the other.

The object is to minimize dwell time and car hire costs.   As a general rule, you send the oldest and highest car hire cars out first.  - Car hire is the money charged for everyday a foreign car is on line.

Example...

Customer 1105 requests an empty boxcar.   A quick check of the inventory reveals three cars for 1105. 

Home car, 20 hours old - head out on track
Home car, 100 hours old - 5 deep in track
Foreign car, 40 hours old $40 car hire - 10 deep in track

Which do you choose? 

The switch crew wants the easiest one to pick up, which would be the 20 hour car headout.  Most mediocure yardmasters will spot that one.

The oldest first rule says spot the 100 hour car.  However, that car has no car hire associated with it. 

The car hire rule says the foreign car with $40 of car hire gets spotted.   This is the best choice, even though it's an extra move for the crew to dig the car out.   A good yardmaster, on top of his inventory will spot this car, without being told to.

Nick
 

Im learning. I went straight to that 40 dollar car with the eye on the list.

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Posted by nbrodar on Friday, March 9, 2007 11:07 PM

Yardmasters live and die by dwell time and car hire.  Number of cars in the yard is actually a minor concern.  As a wise yardmaster once told, "Anyone can switch with clear tracks."   Although, it's a good idea to leave one track clear, so you can run from one end to the other.

The object is to minimize dwell time and car hire costs.   As a general rule, you send the oldest and highest car hire cars out first.  - Car hire is the money charged for everyday a foreign car is on line.

Example...

Customer 1105 requests an empty boxcar.   A quick check of the inventory reveals three cars for 1105. 

Home car, 20 hours old - head out on track
Home car, 100 hours old - 5 deep in track
Foreign car, 40 hours old $40 car hire - 10 deep in track

Which do you choose? 

The switch crew wants the easiest one to pick up, which would be the 20 hour car headout.  Most mediocure yardmasters will spot that one.

The oldest first rule says spot the 100 hour car.  However, that car has no car hire associated with it. 

The car hire rule says the foreign car with $40 of car hire gets spotted.   This is the best choice, even though it's an extra move for the crew to dig the car out.   A good yardmaster, on top of his inventory will spot this car, without being told to.

Nick
 

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Posted by nbrodar on Friday, March 9, 2007 11:16 AM

I tend to group yards into three basic types:

Classification - the stereotypical yard.  Trains come in, get broken down, reassembled and leave.  Some cars may go to the shop, interchange, or area storage yard. 

Personally, I think these are unnecessary, on all but the largest layouts.  True classification yards require an enormous amount of real estate, and unless they are the reason d'existance of your layout, overwhelm small and medium size layouts.

Storage in Transit or SIT - a place where cars are held until ordered by the customer or after the customer has released them.  At smaller interchange points, they are also prime interchange locations.  

A road train or drag from a nearby classification yard, will drop cars for the local customers and interchange.  A local crew will then sally forth to switch the customer from the interchange cars, and service any customers requesting service.  The crew may also deliver the interchange cars to interchange or the foreign road may send a crew to pick them up.

Upon returning to the yard, the local crew may then broadly classify the customer and interchange pulls.   Usually, they cars will only be classified in the general direction they are going for a road train to pick up.  If there is a classification yard nearby the cars may be all lumped together and sent to the class yard for handling.

Larger SITs may have several crews.  One crew may handle all the yard switching, while another may do all the customer and interchange work. 

In my opinion, these are ideal yards to model, as they offer a little bit of everything.  They can be as small as a two tracks or as large as you want.

Support - basically everything else - shop facilities, intermodal ramps, auto loading areas, and other transloading areas.  These can be interesting to model, particularly if you treat them as the customers, they usually are.

Any sizable terminal, will include all three of these areas.   They may not all be seperate yards, though. 

Nick

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Posted by Anonymous on Friday, March 9, 2007 8:58 AM

WOW..........I am enjoying this thread immensly. RR employee vs rr employee vs rr employee all coming at the same situational topic from a different perspective and Me with a Ringside seat....Man it just doesnt get any better than this :).........Heya Larry!! ;)

Thing is guys, we got Just a little over the top on How BEST to use a Model RR Yard.

Realistically we should be discussing this from a Model RR Yard standpoint and Model RR operations and the best way I can see doing that would be to distinguish between what as modelers we do (or should do) as regards basic practices, and then Insert what the real rr does and why this practice is either not possible OR not practical in a model yard.

Seems to me this approach would be more user freindly for the Non Employee's who really need your particular expertise (and I mean that for all 3 of you Larry, Dave and Nick!!)

The thing is ya'll live this and many of the guys here really want to understand HOW to operate their Yards in the model world while at the same time understanding the differences between real and model operations. Afterall, we do have our limitations in the model world space not the least of them.

How many of us can model a real Yard with all of its yards within a yard??

So from a Practical standpoint, Model Operations will NEVER be the same ads real life......can we agree this is a given???

So using your expertise and the consideration that we can only afford the space for 1 functional operations Yard, How would YOU set up your's (keeping things Generic)for satisfying operation and Why?

 

As a side note:

By the way, that Pokegama Yard is quite close to me( I railfan it on occassion) and a nice example of a small yard but it has limitations. If you pan south you will find yet another Larger yard with shops. Pokegama is pretty much used as an ore transfer yard 99% of the time as I recall.For a much larger Classification yard the BNSF (old GN's) Allouez yard is east about 12 miles or so.And almost due north on the other side of the river is the DM&IR's Steelton Yard.

Todd

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Posted by coldguy on Thursday, March 8, 2007 9:52 PM

I've operated on and directed operations at many military rail installations stateside and overseas. As a matter of both training and real world planning, I've studied military and industrial rail installations around the world. What I've realized is that the most useful yards, terminals, industries, interchanges, and sidings are designed to function like a machine, or an assembly line, not like a road or warehouse. Tracks in a yard are a certain length so they can fulfill their purpose. The switching stub must be long enough to transfer the entire capacity of a loading ramp from the inbound/empty yard. The outbound staging track must be long enough to hold an entire Battalion's trainload of equipment. The yard must have enough tracks to hold all the empties to be loaded for a full train, without waiting for more to be delivered. A passing siding must be long enough for the longest train.

You must ask what the purpose of the yard is, before you can make a useful one. Then consider the space available for it. You may have to wind it through a valley, or wrap it around existing industries. You may have to sacrifice some tracks or shorten them, which will affect your operations, which will affect other parts of your railroad.

A few more things I've noticed about yards in model railroading. Twenty-four feet of straight tracks next to each other just look ugly, unless its a hidden staging yard. When I've seen them as part of the visible layout, they usually have a bend in the middle or wrap around a corner in a very wide arc. Most layouts I've seen in magazines or at shows avoid large yards in the visible layout or make a smaller transfer yard. Operationally, a really large yard would be a hub that takes inbound trains from several regions, separates them into the cars that are destined locally, and to regions A, B, C,...etc, and makes up outbound trains to those regions and local trains for its region. It doesn't make much sense to allocate large amounts of layout space to a huge yard if little of the yard's traffic is destined for the layout. Unless you just want a really big switching puzzle. I read somewhere that the layout is the stage, the staging yard(s) are the faraway places the trains(actors) come from and go to.

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Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, March 8, 2007 11:33 AM

Many a time I hustle into a warehouse with a hot load only to learn that the same product is overflowing. That means I sit at the dock for a day until they consume enough to start working on the trailer.

That is one reason I got out of the dry box business. I dont mind waiting for a coil to cool or a produce to chill down but I have a problem with a hot load of widgets no one needs right then.

Back to the yard, Im wrestling with the icing rack because Im also wanting an identical track to set reefer cars aside to cool down while empty so that they can go to be loaded when ready at the cold storage.

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Posted by BRAKIE on Thursday, March 8, 2007 10:34 AM
 Dave-the-Train wrote:

 To use a horrible bit of jargon... 'We're all on the same hymn sheet'.  (Yeuk!  I hate "manager speak").

I know what you mean about the different set outs, roll bys and overflow traffic... any chance of some examples from you for the modellers on the forum who don't have our god fortune to have played with the big trains? Smile [:)]

DtheT Cool [8D]

Dave,You are numbered with the few that understands what a overflow car is..I have mention that in ops clinics I have given over the years and on other forums and the majority had no idea what I was talking about and yet most of these modelers was into some form of operation.

Larry

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Summerset Ry.


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Posted by Dave-the-Train on Thursday, March 8, 2007 8:01 AM

 To use a horrible bit of jargon... 'We're all on the same hymn sheet'.  (Yeuk!  I hate "manager speak").

I know what you mean about the different set outs, roll bys and overflow traffic... any chance of some examples from you for the modellers on the forum who don't have our god fortune to have played with the big trains? Smile [:)]

DtheT Cool [8D]

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Posted by BRAKIE on Wednesday, March 7, 2007 2:41 PM

Dave,Those waits at Limeville was never planned.You see the Russell yard is a major funnel because every train from Eastern Ky,Wva,Virginia,Ohio either terminates in that yard or  by passes with a crew change and usually a change of engines or at best engines service.Of course the train will be inspected and may even pick up or leave cars.

Some crews had a old saying.." Clear at Limeville honey put the dinner on"."Red at Limeville its cold cuts for us."

I fully agree operation is more like a play in fact Frank Ellison said that years ago.

Actually there isn't a need to move every car or even have a pickup at every industry.You rotate the cars some days pickup only next time maybe nothing then  next time a set out.

Why not add some overflow cars? Hold these cars till the industry has room to received them.

 

As far as  a grade crossing being next to a yard that does happen and every time the yard crew the grade crossing the engine would sound the engine horns as per the rules.However,we can pretend the engineer tooted the horn instead of actually doing it every time..That does get old and on your nerves.

 

I think we was talking the same lingo with different observations..

 

As as "And pray tell when did the Operations Management learn to run a railroad"?  Ask any railroad crew what that means..

Larry

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Posted by Dave-the-Train on Tuesday, March 6, 2007 11:57 PM
 nbrodar wrote:

Stay away Dave!  Stay away! Smile,Wink, & Grin [swg]

I see what you're after.  You want to know how I "bob and weave".

Aw!  ... Go on ... admit it... It'smuch more fun when there's interesting things to do...

Thanks that's exactly the sort of thing I'm getting at.  Got time for some nice examples please?

DtheT Cool [8D]

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Posted by nbrodar on Tuesday, March 6, 2007 4:16 PM

Stay away Dave!  Stay away! Smile,Wink, & Grin [swg]

I see what you're after.  You want to know how I "bob and weave".

The response depends on where is happens and how involved the rerail will be.

If that SD goes on the ground in a body track it's not that big a deal.   You simple lock out that track and any fouled adjacent tracks and go on about your business.

If it happens on the lead that's a little more pressing.  Sometimes you can work around it - Pull cars off the fouled tracks and shove them on to one that's clear of the derailment from the opposite end.  If traffic is light, you can suspend operations until the rerailing is complete. 

Often if the train is just coming to change crews, you can recrew the train at a different point and avoid the yard.   This is easy when your territory has a line or lines that bypass your yard.

If the train has to do work, it's possible to have the train do its work at an outlying point and have another crew drag the cars in later. You might hold the pick-up for the next train. Or you could have a yard crew shimmy the pick up through the yard and out on to the main.

If it happens out on the main, well that's Condition Red.   On a single main, there's often nothing you can do except start stacking the trains up 'till the line is clear.

Larry and I, just have to agree to disagree.  We are looking at the same thing for two different perspectives.  Larry being a ground pounder.  Me being an Operations Manager.

Nick

Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/

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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, March 6, 2007 1:16 PM

Those are very good pictures.

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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, March 6, 2007 12:54 PM

One average size yard I have always thought to be a good starting point for designing a yard on a layout is DW&P's Pokegama Yard outside Superior, WI. Here are some aerial pictures of it.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/srchThumbs.aspx?srch=DWP+Pokegama+Yard&search=Search

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Posted by Dave-the-Train on Tuesday, March 6, 2007 11:41 AM

Do we have two perspectives of the same thing here?

Maybe in my list of 4 ways of looking t operations I should have sub-divided the #3 between the yard people and the train people?

Clearly I'm going to see things more like Nick does.  (I asked about the SD in the dirt to see if I could coax out information on what you do (after you've finished the immediate comments) when your careful planning goes wrong/gets blocked Nick).

That 3 hour wait shouldn't have happened... but it may have had to be planned... either to get you out of the yard you came from and clear a road there or because of what was going on at Limeville.  It may even have been a back-up beyond Limeville that held a train there so that the track you had to wait for wasn't clear on time Larry.  This is what we mean by a game of chess... what happens at one place and time follows through to what happens somewhere else "down the line"... in both time as well as place.

I am NOT suggesting that modellers hold their trains for three hours - not even on a fast clock -  although I have known modellers who did this.  The Kalmback book I have on designing for operations does have a good discussion on operating with a fast clock.  One of the good things about doing this is for operators to have to get their local switch moves off the main for following (or opposing) through moves to run clear without delay.  Working a layout this way is incredibly  absorbing and satisfying... especially when everybody gets a session right.  Then again, I still like it when things go wrong and the muddle has to be sorted.

I have also watched modellers "work" rater than "operate" a layout.  I've seen this on some absolutely beautiful models that have incredible detail and look real in unaltered photos.  It always seems so sad to me.  They've put so much into the model but they don't have a clue, maybe have never given a thought to, what to do with it when they've built it.  It is really scarey just how many of these lovely models get broken up for the team to start over just as soon as they've taken it to a couple of shows.  It seems such a waste.

NOt sure what you mean by "And pray tell when did the Operations Management learn to run a railroad"?  Maybe this is the view from your caboose?  Or are you refering to the Commercial Managers who are looking to please the customers all the time regardless of what is operationally possible?  If my Ops managers hadn't had some clue about ops - or left us to sort the issues out - the whole system would have been like a ball of wool that a whole slew of kittens had played with in less than an hour. 

When I started (nearly 30 years ago) even our Signalling Inspectors could not tell us how to run the trains.  They could make a request.  They could tell us to log the request in the "Train Register" if we declined it... equally we could (and did, rarely) ask them to write the request themselves... we would then write in the reason the request was declined.  The Register is a legal document... so, if we asked for it to be written, they would normally back off.  It was very noticeable that any manager that even got as far as asking for a declined request to be logged didn't stay around very long.  Notice I say "ask".  The alternates were for the Inspector to have the Signalman/Operator relieved of duty (He could not take over - it had to be another Signalman) or (if the manager/Inspector did not back off) for the Signalman to ask the person to leave.  If they did not leave the line shut down.  End of story.  In all the years I have only known a line start to shut down once.  The manager was sideways stepped within the shift.

I find "whiz-bang" switching as bad as, if not worse than, trains chasing their tales at speed.  On the other hand when a layout operator eases a loco up to a car and then stands and looks at it for a minute or two while the crew in his head hook up and test the air etc is like watching paint dry.  there is a limit to how much "re-enactment" we need to put into our layout operation.  There is a big difference between what is right at home or at the club and at a public show.

I've said before that at one show a switcher with sound drove everybody in half the hall nuts with the bell tolling for the mid layout grade crossing every time it moved (which wouldn't happen in the real world as it wouldn't be on the same crossing all day...)  However... when asked to turn the bell ff the owner/operator indignantly protested that "Someone could get run-over" if the bell wasn't operated by the crew.  I think that he was nearly "run over" shortly afterwards...

Nick will probably agree with me that there are Ops people who want the whole thing to run smoothly all of the time... and then there are the maniacs (like me) that absolutely love it when it all falls apart.  For a few of us a washed out fill, a loco in the dirt or whatever are the spices in the meal. 

Maybe a different idea to chess will be more acceptable...

When it comes to operating a layout I think that it can be useful to think of the layout itself as a stage and the wing, or wings, as the rest of the world.  As in any play what goes on "on stage" does so in an imagined context of the off stage "rest of the world".

Using this analogy we all know and accept that characters in a play are usually stylised and that the action moves along to get the main points of the plot into the stage time.  I think that this can go some way to making the ballance for modellers.

For a start it is good for a loco to stop just short of a car/train and then ease on to attach.  We may wait a moment while the Engineer reverses the engine (if steam - especially with a manual reverser - if we model an early enough era) and while crew hook everything up... but we don't need to wait for every single thing that would be done.

Similarly we don't need to have a way bill for every single move that every single car makes.  Like the real railway we would have an enormous pile of paper... except their's is in scale while ours would be unscaled...

Something I was thinking about...

If we have a small to medium yard with mostly regular traffic the local yardmaster and crew will have a pretty good idea what will be happening on each day of the week.  They will even look out for particular cars on particular trains.  In fact the sending yard and the train crew(s) in between will be looking for the same thing.  This means that anything unusual will not only stand out but a call may be put in from the sending yard to the receiving yard.  This may be as simple as to say 'That cut of cars for the feed factory hasn't got the car with "the Wolf" on it'.  "The Wolf" being a piece of graffitti that has made a specific car stand out for the last couple of months.

The other side of this is that the same yard may have a road taken out of service for maintenance.  Depending on how busy the yard is this will have to be advised to sending yards.  You can't necessarily just move everything round to another road.  Where you can keep fitting things in while traffic stays normal just another car or any hang up in the system may become a lock up if that road is out of use.  This is, again, what i was trying to goad Nick with... He's done all that preperation for hours ahead and the first train of the five in half an hour is just arriving when... that SD si

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Posted by BRAKIE on Monday, March 5, 2007 8:32 AM

Nick,I recall waiting 3 hours at Limeville(Ky) for a yard track to open in Russell(Ky) so we could yard our train.Switching cars on  a layout isn't any where near switching cars on the prototype..I have watch modelers switch cars for years and break safety rule after safety rule,reverse engines without stopping,cash coupling,coupling on to a string of cars and keeps right on shoving.They set new land speed records in the yard,pickup and set out cars far faster then any real crew.

And pry tell when did the Operations Management learn to run a railroad?

 There is a world of difference between reading books on operation written by "experts" and working on the prototype.I know as a student brakeman I learn in a hurry model operation isn't any kin to the prototype an what I thought I knew was worthless...

Chess game? Not likely..

That is one rule you can bank on..Plan your work and work your plan..Never move cars you don't need to and above all never get your cabin in front of your face.A old line PRR conductor taught me those words of wisdom when I was a student brakeman.

 

Larry

Conductor.

Summerset Ry.


"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt  Safety First!"

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Posted by nbrodar on Monday, March 5, 2007 7:20 AM

But Larry, at an operational level it IS like a game of chess.  Anyone in Operations Management will tell you the same thing. 

It's about seeing 8 hours into the future, and having arrival tracks clear, departing trains ready, locomotives fueled, and crews in position.  It's about having the tactical ability to roll with a fast changing situation.   It's about knowing where those old cars are and getting them moving again.  It's about being PROactive and not REactive, so you work the problem, rather then the problem working you. 

I said it before, and I'll say it again - I used to play a lot of chess.  And I firmly believe that my skill as a chess player is why I run a yard better then yardmasters with four and five times my service.

There are two distinctly different types of yards:

Classification Yard - where trains a broken down and made up.   Dwell time is the enemy.  Dwell time, not numbers of cars in the yard, is the biggest measure of how fluid the yard is.  Ideally, with seven day a week service, dwell should be less then 24 hours.  Sure, any yard has a max capacity, at which movement becomes impossible.   Even at capacity, if the dwell is low, the yard remains fluid.

Storage in Transit - where cars are held until the customer requests them.  Dwell time here isn't normally an issue. Once the car arrives at the SIT, it goes on the customer's clock.  The cars continue rack up dwell, but the customer is paying for that dwell.  Dwell becomes an issue only when the customer releases the car for pull.

Nick

Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/

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Posted by BRAKIE on Sunday, March 4, 2007 9:22 PM

Dave,I fully understand how a railroad works after all I was a brakeman for 9 1/2 years..

Stockholders frown when the SHIPPERS-you know the folk that pays the bills -screams because their freight isn't delivered in a timely fashion..NOBODY wants their freight standing still.

Actually the yardmaster will send those cars on their way when he has enough cars to build a train.Sorry the yard crew does their work using switch list and if a group of cars isn't on that list then they sit regardless if they are empty or loaded.Thats the way it works.

The railroad is not operated like a game of chess..Its a TRANSPORTATION system that is govern by switch lists,availability of rested crews and yes locomotives... The only fast movers run through the yard stopping only for a crew change,inspection and refueling or change of the locomotives of course these unit trains fair better in terminal dwell time.However, some of these trains can sit for hours waiting on a rested crew.Single car loads takes the longest to get from point A to point B and suffers the most from terminal dwell time.

Actually IF we operated like the real railroads those trains that we run out of stagging would either yard,need a crew change(who must be rested)inspection of the train and locomotives changed or service..

Thankfully and like you said we find a system that works for us in our model world.

Larry

Conductor.

Summerset Ry.


"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt  Safety First!"

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, March 4, 2007 4:46 PM
Add "Big Hook Track" Check!
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Posted by Dave-the-Train on Sunday, March 4, 2007 3:43 PM

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

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Posted by BRAKIE on Sunday, March 4, 2007 3:42 PM
 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?  Laugh [(-D]

First, I say a series of words not suitable for the forum. Censored [censored]

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..Shock [:O]Big Smile [:D]

 

Larry

Conductor.

Summerset Ry.


"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt  Safety First!"

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Posted by nbrodar on Sunday, March 4, 2007 3:24 PM
 Dave-the-Train wrote:

You got it Nick!

 So... what do you do when that SD sits down in the dirt of track 3?  Laugh [(-D]

First, I say a series of words not suitable for the forum. Censored [censored]

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

Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/

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