Final yard design?

You included a yard lead! How about that!

Looks like a very workable design.

A train entering the yard clockwise - the engine can continue to the shops from the make and break tracks.  A train entering counter clockwise - how does the engine get to the shops?

It seems like there needs to be a run around track.

may i ask what kind of floor space do you have for this end,

and what is the size of your full layout

i am in the thinking stage and trying to get some feel for room size

lot of work

Bill,

I apologize but I don't see what you are saying.  There is a run around track (in red in the schematic), and to me it makes it easier for a train entering counter clockwise to the A/D track (from the left) to get to the round house.  A train entering from clockwise (from the right) has to do at least one back-and-forth movement to get to the roundhouse.  (NOTE:  Engines from the large engine yard will mostly use the mainline to exchange with other engines on through trains.  These engines could use the run-around track and double crossover to stay off the mainline, but that would entail several back-and-forth movements. The roundhouse will be where I keep the engines for my local freights, switchers, and commuter trains.)

I think the design does a good job of getting engines moved without interfering with the drill track, but the run-around track did prevent adding another classification track and required two full ladders at the ends.  One of my first designs had a couple of the classification tracks as stub-ended, allowing more cars in the yard.

Ron

jpc,

The layout is L shaped, 30' X 32', in a 30' X 35' basement.  It could be described as a bent dogbone.  The track continues off to the right on a 90 degree turn and goes into a similar shaped area as the yard area.  Where the track is narrow is the town, and then it goes into the "countryside".

I have 14' of width to use on both legs.  I'm limited to this width because of the staircase that comes down in the middle of the room, plus the need to have some storage space for all of my and my wife's stuff and clear the utilities.

The grid is 12" squares if that helps.

Ron

thank you

you have done a lot of work

may i ask, how many layouts have you built

jpc,

Only one, and it was a fairly simple 14' X 30' tabletop layout.  What I learned from it was to make sure all the joints in RR-Track were perfectly smooth or else the actual track lay down will have kinks that will be hard to fix.  Other things I learned about my needs:  use as large a curve as possible, have loops for "loop running" but also trackage that allows some realistic operations, and use RCS switches.  I had examples of all makes of switches, but after seeing how smooth the RCS switches were in tight places (and some S turns), I got rid of all the others.  For a HighRailer, I believe RCS is the only way to go.

ADDED: Also use at least 4.5 inches center-center on the curves.  On my first layout I used RCS and Gargraves which are 4" C-C and that was not enough on my O-72/O-80 curves.  I now use Atlas curves (4.5" C-C) with the minimum inside track of O-81 on the double track mainline.  The curves in my yard have a minimum 4" C-C which will work for my 1940s era freight cars.

Ron

You will be glad that you have 5-6' of straight track leading to the TT. Makes placing all the service structures a lot easier. We just went through placing all those items on our inbound and outbound tracks to the TT after pulling them out and re-doing them. We only have 3'-4', and it's on a curve. Made it real tough. I would also suggest not placing those 2 tracks in permanently until you have all the structures you are going to put in so the tracks can be spaced for spotting/unloading of the raw materials.

Another suggestion is when putting them in and doing the wiring, put common wires on both outside rails......just in case. You don't want to have to add a wire later.    

thank you for the advice

a good day, reading the ogr forum and watching the open

not bad

Explain the importance of a yard lead track.

When switching cars to make up or break down a train, it helps a lot to have a track at least the length of your longest yard track, where your switcher can work. A separate track that allows you to keep the main open. That's a yard lead. If you have the space it is a useful and realistic feature.

OK, good planning. For some reason n the red track doesn't show up on my computer.

Bill,

I think the red track only appears in the layout schematic drawing, not in the layout design picture.  At least, that's the way I see it on my screen.

Chuck

Bill

I book marked this post back in July for future reference and pulled it up today

interested if you have made changes/progress

I thought at the time that this was well thought out

hope you are enjoying your work

jerry