long spurs

[gregc]

normally there is a spur track for freight cars to be left for loading. if the spur is no too long, it shouldn't take much time to swap the cars. but if the spur is very long, it might take some time to pull the loaded car out and push the empty back up the spur.

how long would a spur need to be before a switch and additional trackage added to make it convenient to swap the cars on the spur?

is it even a good idea to have long spurs on mode railroad?

i hope i've explained this well enough. i'd appreciate it if someone would explain the correct terms to use.

 

[kenw]

In the real world, I see spurs several miles long that are single tracked the entire distance. But, most longer ones serve multiple industries, so with multiple sidings there are a lot of places to spot cars while swapping them around.

If you can, simply add a 2nd siding,either for the same industry or a separate business and you can use that to swap the cars. Adding a separate dedicated siding to just facilitate not having to make a long run to the main would be a very expensive undertaking and would be unlikely (IMHO, i'm sure exceptions abound!).

 

[UP2CSX]

Long spurs either serve several industries or a single industy at the end of the spur. As Ken said, with several industries, there are usually enough other sidings that can be used to shuffle cars around. If it'a long track serving one industry, having a runaround track at the undustry would make sense since you would have to make two moves to switch cars, one to deliver and one to pick up. With a runaround track, the engine can drop the loads on the runaround track, use the siwthc at the end of the runaround to get back to the spur, move the empties further down the track, and then pull the loads out of the runaround and drop them at the industry. Without a runaround track, your engine would be trapped by the incoming cars.