ANY BODY OPERATE TRAINS IN 2 DIRECTIONS?

Always test your track in both directions. The best test is shoving a train backwards through the layout. If you can shove cars around the entire layout in both directions, then your track work is spot on. Derailments will be a thing of the past. 

I usually run trains in a clockwise direction on my layout:

 

 

When I put the Wye in it enabled me to run trains in both directions.

 

A few weeks ago I ran an engine I normally wasn't running (my 4-6-0) counter-clockwise and every time it derailed in the lower curve on the right.

 

I found I had a dip in that curve, don't know why nothing else derailed there.

 

I put some tongue depressor "shims" under the roadbed and leveled the curve, now I can run all my engines/trains either way without derailments.  That "dip" has been there a few years now, ever since I moved the layout out of the garage.

 

Word of advice...run "the dog" out of your trains before ballasting (or making anything permanent, like scenery), it'll save you some heartburn down the road.

Sure do. But Doug is correct, test the track system when you first install it.

MUST run my trains in both directions on much of the track.  When you've got a single track main, there isn't much else you can do.  However, recently, on the double track section of main line, I converted it to left-hand main, operation.  Reason was that I had been running only Milwaukee Road trains but decided to put on the Chicago and NorthWestern fleet.  As most of you know, the C&NW was the only major RR in the country that operated on the left hand main. 

 

At first, I had a few problems but after correcting a few track gauge errors and track height errors, all went just fine.  We can now run trains in either direction in virtually any place on the layout.  Incidentally, even though the C&NW is now gone and has become part of the U.P., in the areas of the former C&NW, the U.P. still runs left hand main operation on their double track divisions.

 

Paul Fischer

What "minor" roads had a double track main they would need to worry about it?  Any

other U.S. roads at all that had engineers, like foreign drivers in England, thinking, "Keep to the left!  Keep to the left!"  Must be confusing for the UP, and I would have

thought would have been converted over, unless there are major trackage problems

to be worked out in running trains on the right on the old lines...

Anybody modeling the C&NW who has double track and does run his trains on the left

main?  Probably is in HO, but....

Always do it. Those folks with two main line setups likely do too if they want to run prototypically, like actual railroads. 

I do all the time except for my MTH Premier Reading and Reading & Northern T1s.  for some reason they only run great in the counterclockwise position.  When I run them clockwise they will derail.  Go figure?

Tried running my trains in only one direction, but they all wound up at one end of the layout. Couldn't run anymore, so I left.

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Laz1957 - clockwise/counterclockwise issue:

 

Coriolis Effect; y'know, the same reason that toilets don't flush in Australia. Or something like that.

 

 

 Yes, I run both ways depending on my preference at the time.  I did find when I bought a Lionel 2-8-0 that it was fussy on one curve in one direction.  Turned out there was a dip. Shimmed it up and no more problems.  Never knew there was any dip there before buying that engine.

Never had a problem...

Rusty

Rusty -

 

Yeah, there's that issue, too.

CSX ex RF&P between Alexandria and Richmond appears to use both tracks in either direction.  When I took the Auto-Train monthly, it frequently ran left-handed most of the way.

 

Over the years, I've had some switches that caused problems in one direction.  Usually slight dips and occasionally needed pushrod adjustment.  I've also experienced point spread on switches--from constant hammering of locos, the points would move apart slightly and foul a flange.

For a moment I thought you were trying to mimic Gomez Adams.

When I first read this post, and now I am sorry I didn't answer that way, I thought

"Cornfield Meet!"  (on the same track at the same time).  I guess they really know

where their trains are if they are running both directions on either track.

I run trains two directions - up and down!

 

 

 

 

 

 

What, me worry?

It will happen on my new layout this winter.

sur edo. At TMB one of the mainlines is a dog bone two reversing loops, one at each end and a passing siding in the middle. the two operators must wait to pass wach other before running on to either of the ends. Good communications is a must

Steve

My layout has a one track main with siding/yard tracks.  I run one train at a time and have a reversing loop and so I do change directions now and then.  I have four local freight trains.  (A string of 9 tank cars with a coal hopper at the end just ahead of the cabin car; a string of 11 reefers; a string of nine 2 bay coal hoppers; and a string of 9 mixed box, flat, tank and gondola cars.)  I pull them with a PRR M1a, Decapod, or Consolidation and switch them with a B6s.   

I have a local passenger train with an RPO, baggage car for newspaper and magazines and other things, and 2 coaches I pull with an Atlantic and a 4 or 5 car mail train I pull with a K4. I run the trains alternately with freight and change directions on the reversing loop and change engines as well.  The switching operations helps to keep running interesting for me and I use the Consolidation as a switcher now and then.

 

With reversing loops and crossovers between my two mains on a 16 X 20 U shaped layout, I can run two 15 car trains for about 11 minutes before they start the sequence over. It takes  a little of the monotony out of the route. I have Fastrack switches so I don't even have to change them, they do it themselves.