Iron Horseman
Well-Known Member
That is one that bites many/most people on their first try, as is jumping into scenery too soon. Everyone is impatient to just get the train running! That is also the hardest one to explain to the new folks.
I wish I would have--------
- Thread starter Fifer
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Iron Horseman
Well-Known Member
I don't know about that. I have one layout that I inherited which was designed and built by a "pro" (One of those that advertises in MR magazine even). It is about 6' x 15'. Horrible on all fronts. The track plan is basically a roundy-round three track loop. It looks like they used a chain saw to cut the benchwork. It isn't open frame but basically sheets of plywood. Scenery looks like a bunch of 6th graders had it for an art project. I'm very skeptical of the "pros".
montanan
Whiskey Merchant
With the spike gun I could lay track a lot faster than hand spiking, although I did build a lot of turnouts in place where I had Homasote roadbed. What reall got difficult is when I dropped the track to ground level from the road bed height and was spiking directly into the plywood for a yard area. I was able to use really fine spikes into the homasote road bed, but using them directly into the plywood was a real pain in the a$$. Got tires to drilling holes for each spike, and the spike gun worked great for this purpose. When the spike gun crapped out, I had all of my main line completed and was starting into the final yard and engine facility. I had thought about putting another material on the surface of the yard and engine terminal, but would have had to remove some of the hidden staging tracks and move them in order to have a reasonable grade up from the hidden tracks. It is currently just under 3% which is a bit steep for any main line track.
Got flustered and put the project on hold. Also without any hobby shops in the area and lack of any model railroad supplies, the layout went into a holding pattern for a number of years. I did some detail work and other projects using up what I had been able to stockpile for supplies, but in time they ran out. Thankfully on line retailers came on the scene and I was finally able to move forward. It was a frustrating few years. On frequent trips we took, I would always search out model railroad shops inn search of anything I could use, which kept progress creeping ahead.
Finally, with the help of on line retailers and a source of Shinohara code 70 products, I was able to move forward again. I did not want to hand spike an entire yard and engine terminal directly into plywood. Perhaps I was just frustrated and lazy.
I would not want anyone to build it for me , I think that is what I enjoy most , even if I am not very good at it . I would have liked a design ( road map if you will ) to know how to lay the track in a to give me more options to "run" the train . What I have now is just a 3 track yard and an industry for a siding . I have seen some where one siding accommodates 3 or 4 industries and that is what I wish I had the foresight to do.
Hawkesburytrain
Well-Known Member
That's why I got a pro to design my layout, well at least someone with knowledge of a prototypical operational layout. Not knowing anything about trains, I needed someone to guide me. Besides, he's not the one building it, his design is mainly a guide and as we all know, plans to get change as we progress in our layout
Someone with design knowledge would of solved that. When I contacted the designer, I told him everything I wanted to see on my layout with some stuff being very specific. The design is not set in concrete, so nothing stops me from doing some modifications, but at first glance I like it as is.
new guy
Active Member
I'm leaving myself plenty of room for changes in the track design as the layout progresses. No scenery till the track is all good. Being a 'newb', I know I'm going to need to re-do sections. I have a lot of hours of just track/train time to do before scenery gets in the mix.
Yards are one of the most interesting and challenging layout elements to design, specially if you want some switching action that needs more than just somewhere to store a few cars. You mention that you like the idea of having several industries served from 1 track. If you have enough length past the last spotting point (where you would place a car to service the last industry) for a turnout and enough track past that to accommodate an engine with at least 1 car, you can then provide a "run-around" track alongside that service track, so you can pull a car out and return it to the main classification yard (where trains of cars get assembled for despatch), or onto another siding so you can retrieve a car from the next industry that that car was hemming in (assuming that the car/s you were actually after were also blocked from the service sidings main entry.
This is also where a yard lead track is useful. Generally they are outside of the main yard and running away from it towards the opposite direction and often lay alongside the main right o'way. Can take the form of a stub ended siding, or may have a turnout connected to the main at the end. In the latter case, it would sometimes take the place of a main yard, if it were long enough to assemble a train from the industries served. If it lies alongside and connected to the main by a turnout at it's end, the main line can be included into the yard trackage to act as a run-around track for it, under Track Limit rules. Trackside signs are placed alongside the main line to warn trains of the yards existence and yard work crews must keep within those signs, also they must know when to keep the main clear for passing trains.
This is also where a yard lead track is useful. Generally they are outside of the main yard and running away from it towards the opposite direction and often lay alongside the main right o'way. Can take the form of a stub ended siding, or may have a turnout connected to the main at the end. In the latter case, it would sometimes take the place of a main yard, if it were long enough to assemble a train from the industries served. If it lies alongside and connected to the main by a turnout at it's end, the main line can be included into the yard trackage to act as a run-around track for it, under Track Limit rules. Trackside signs are placed alongside the main line to warn trains of the yards existence and yard work crews must keep within those signs, also they must know when to keep the main clear for passing trains.
new guy
Active Member
LOL! I'm going to need to buy more turnouts! The 'run around' track on a yard fascinates me and I think it is a needful feature. I'll be trying to make 'spaghetti bowls' before I find my limits! There is a yard down the road from my house that was a REALLY neat pattern that I'm thinking would be a nightmare to wire, but it would look awesome!
montanan
Whiskey Merchant
Toot - I will have to totally have to agree with you about yards being an interesting part of a layout. I have two stub yards on my layout. It really doesn't matter if you want a layout for a long continuous run or a switching layout like myself, because there will always be a bit of action going on in yard areas.
When visiting my madel railroad friends in Missouri, we usually have a few operating sessions planned and the guys that are assigned to handle the yards are usually the busiest people during the op sessions, breaking down incoming trains, sorting cars and making up local freights and outbound trains.
When visiting my madel railroad friends in Missouri, we usually have a few operating sessions planned and the guys that are assigned to handle the yards are usually the busiest people during the op sessions, breaking down incoming trains, sorting cars and making up local freights and outbound trains.
Iron Horseman
Well-Known Member
I agree with this statement 100%. The selective compression needed to do a significant yard is very interesting and a real design challenging.
However, I totally disagree that a yard is the most interesting part of a layout, especially for operations. I think yard operation is much more voluminous and repetitive than it is interesting. Hence the business of the yard operators, but I guess I do not equate business with interesting. I don't really even consider yard operations as switching, I consider it drilling. Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, ad nausium. Even if one uses a cherry picking scheme to build a consist it is still basically the same back and forth. On one layout I operate on, I often end up with the Cheyenne Yard (mostly because no one else can keep up with it). My favorite part of the entire session is the internal local that switches the Cheyenne industries. That's where the interesting part is, local way-freight switching. Switching a local one generally has to deal with both trailing and facing point moves. Time those run arounds to be certain the main is clear before the next train comes through. Then not only does the car have to be on the right track, but also positioned the right direction, in the right order relative to the other cars that are there. One doesn't want an empty coming in to get a load sitting in front of and blocking the dock before the full cars have been unloaded.
So for designing yards my philosophy is very prototypical. A yard is a necessary and space consuming evil required to build those local trains that bring in the real money. I think most model railroads are over yarded and under industrialized. That was one of my first "I wishes" from some of my early layouts, I wish I would have made the yards smaller. They were too large with no place for all those cars to go.
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I designed my new layout with a 2 track yard. At some point I realized I really needed a large industry to represent the main city on my railroad. I realized I could use the 5' long straight track to represent a large prototypical industry that was headquartered in that city. The other track is now a team track/ layover track. My 'yard' is in staging. The train is assembled presorted to switch the 4 industries on the layout. I do have an interesting / time consuming hiccup. Only the main city has a runaround so the 2 industries in the other town need to be thought of if your train is southbound. It is very different than my old nscale layout. I did like building a train in the yard and getting it correct. Sometimes it could take a half hour to assemble the train and then I would stop for the day. I actually had to add auxiliary tracks to handle both an incoming train and then an outgoing train. I could have used 2 other people to run the layout at capacity.
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