anyone have any luck building a hump yard
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There is a group(club?) in North Platte, Nebraska That has a working modular hump yard.
Some of my rolling stock coasts very freely, but I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the physics don't necessarily scale down. I've also heard of folks regulating the speed of the cars by using pressurized air nozzles between the ties instead of "retarders" that pinch the wheel flanges as on the prototype.
My guess is that, to make it convincing, you would need quite a bit of room, and the initial part of the "bowl" would still have to retain a little slope to it. It would definitely be neat to see a working O gauge model of one!
I know they have one on the new version of the Appalachian & Ohio. If you go to the discussion board section of the site and search for "hump" they have several posts about it including video.
Personally I would agree that the physics don't work right. Not enough mass to create the inertia for the long, slow roll. But I would think it was cool if somebody pulled it off.
Jim
I was planning on doing two hump yards, but now I'm not so sure about even doing one. The amount of space required to build a hump large enough to be close to functional may be more than I care to give.
My guess is it will take at least 10' of approach and 5' of decline on the back side. Then who knows how far a car will roll or if it will stop without some intervention. It is a lot easier dealing with cars that weigh tons, than with cars that weigh ounces.
elliot
some ideas i have a pinball style bat to push the cars down magnets in the tracks to stop them
I'm not sure how a mechanical pusher would work. Flinging or flailing at cars strikes me as derailment prone. I'd rather find enough gravity. Maybe something like an 8" drop with a 10% grade that tapers out.
I'm not as worried about stopping cars. I was thinking of a retractable wheel catch on each track, and just let the cars crash into each other. With any luck the couplers will close.
The only magnet I would use is a strong permanent one to open couplers at the top of the hump.
Then there's the matter of throwing switches. A diode matrix with twin coil machines would be best. A single push button route selection, one button per track.
