Track naming convention - what do I call this siding?

[Dave Vollmer]

All,

I'm setting up a car card/waybill system for operations, and I need to know what to call a particular siding.  The siding serves as a place for the Lewisport switcher to set out cars to be picked up by a passing freight, and for freights to drop of cars to be switched in Lewisport.

What's that called?  I'm drawing a blank.

Thanks!

[Texas Zepher]

I don't know the official term.  I've always just called them a "set out" track. 

Lewisport Set Out.

The "mine set out track" was the main feature of my last N-scale layout.  I've called it that since ummm 1974, and no one has ever corrected me.

 

[railroadyoshi]

Interesting question.

I guess typically it would be called some sort of yard track name since much of the time multiple switcher jobs work out of one terminal requiring a yard to classify cars for multiple locals versus a setout. However, since we are working with one track here, I guess that wouldn't make sense.

Perhaps I would say transfer track, but that would typically imply an interchange track.

Gee, I'm putting in a response and I have no good answer. D'oh.

Edit: Hm, setout track sounds good. Simpler is better?

[BRAKIE]

Will there are  several names from Lewisport siding to CP Lewisport.I like plain Lewisport transfer.

[pcarrell]

I dunno? 

Lewisport Drop (as in "dropoff")?

 

[nbrodar]

If it's not a DS controlled location, it wouldn't be CP Lewisport.   Lewis or Lewisport siding works for me.

Nick

[snagletooth]

 How about "Lewisport Industrial Track" or "The Lewisport Industrial Siding", seeing it's not quite a (passing) siding or really a yard.

[jimrice4449]

Lewisport siding works for me.  There's no law that says a siding can only be used as a passing track.   Of course, if there's already a passing track I suppose Lewisport Set Out Track would work

[Dave-the-Train]

I'd go with "Eric" 

More seriously... it's not unusual for sidings to continue to have names that they were given a long time ago that maybe haven't had any apparent logical reason for years or even decades.  For example a siding may still be referred to as the "Milwaukee Siding" despite the fact that the Milwaukee hasn't been around for years and there may be absolutely no obvious reason to an uninitiated observer to connect the siding to the city... there may even be no track connecting to old Milwaukee track.

Yup!  Definitely go for "Eric" and let people try to figure out why...

Hmm... We have a bridge near me that has an official unpronouncable name (Haemes bridge... how do you pronounce that???) a very popular worker died there from a heart attack so everybody now calls it "Tony's bridge".  I rather like that.

[Anonymous]

How about either Dave's siding or even better, Nameless siding.

Several years ago, I built a corner module for display with my club, but at 6 ft in length, I had no way to transport it after getting rid of my truck. So I donated it to a member of the club that could, he kept it for a while, then donated it to another, who donated it eventually to the club and wound up becoming part of the "club trailer" load. No longer was it Karl's corner, or Ralph's corner, or Jay's. We had no name for it. Since one of the features was a stream that bisected the module  beneath a road and a rail bridge, the corner is now knows as Orphan Creek. After all, it has a creek and it is an Orphan.

It means nothing to the spectators, but all the members understand.  

[Dave Vollmer]

Thanks for all of the suggestions!

For now, the bill box that goes with the siding is named LEW Transfer...  Not ideal, but it'll do until something better comes along.  LEW, by the way, is the name of the interlocking plant at Lewisport.  LEW transfer connects to the Number 2 main track across from LEW tower.

Note:  My Middle Division has succombed to the reality of space requirements and is therefore 2, and not 4, tracks wide.

[WSOR 3801]

You could call it anything you want.  I know of a Setout, Ramp, Hill, Distribution, White Rock, Tie-up, CNW Transfer, 100, 41, and tracks named for the industry they serve.  Some roads numbered every track.  The Hill track is on a hill, obviously.  Setout and Distribution (the center was never built, good place to stage MOW cars) are on the CN at Duplainville.

[tomikawaTT]

While wandering around railfanning the facilities in some small New York towns half a century ago, I happened on a situation similar to the one Dave stated in the starter post to this thread.  Here was a spur at one end of a noplace town with several rail-served businesses (I could hardly call a retail coal yard and a small builder's supply outfit, "Industries.")  Along came a freight, which dropped a loaded hopper and two box cars on the otherwise unused spur.  When I asked the brakeman what was going on, he said, "all of these drops are facing-point for us, so we leave them on McClatchie's for the peddler to work."  Further questions revealed that the spur had once served McClatchie's Feed Mill - which had burned to the ground a couple of decades before.

So, pick a name that sounds right and use it - even if the industry with that name vanished long before the era you model.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

[jeffrey-wimberly]

In the Leesville yard thay're called "set-out tracks", plain and simple.

[tatans]

"Aluminum"

[Midnight Railroader]

I like "Irving" as a name for the track.

 Where and when will you be hosting this convention to name the siding?

 

[BRAKIE]

In the Leesville yard thay're called "set-out tracks", plain and simple.

 

LOL! Thats REAL railroad speak!