I need help with designing a rail yard

Your yard appears workable to me the way you designed it.    It lookes like an engine terminal in the lower right, is that correct?

However, to  use  you yard,  you have to use the main line track so you can't run trains on that loop while you work in the yard.    The usual thing to do is to create a yard lead separate from the main to allow that.    Since your yard is on the outside loop, you would have to make the lead around the outside.    Perhaps run it parallel to the mains around the "top" of the layout and connecting to the main in the upper left corner.    All the  yard tracks at that end would come off this track.    It would essentially be an extension of the first double ended track next to the main.

My concern with the design is the right aisle will only be about 18" wide.  That is tight if you plan to be in there a lot working the yard.

I have always like the design of a double main line with a wye and a yard in the middle.

@prrjim posted:

Your yard appears workable to me the way you designed it.    It lookes like an engine terminal in the lower right, is that correct?

However, to  use  you yard,  you have to use the main line track so you can't run trains on that loop while you work in the yard.    The usual thing to do is to create a yard lead separate from the main to allow that.    Since your yard is on the outside loop, you would have to make the lead around the outside.    Perhaps run it parallel to the mains around the "top" of the layout and connecting to the main in the upper left corner.    All the  yard tracks at that end would come off this track.    It would essentially be an extension of the first double ended track next to the main.

Prrjim, the area in the lower right is not an engine servicing facility.  I didn't want to have an empty location in the yard area so I placed so tracks there.  But an engine terminal sounds like a good use of real estate.  I have also taken note on your point on making the yard lead run on the outside of the yard.

@CAPPilot posted:

My concern with the design is the right aisle will only be about 18" wide.  That is tight if you plan to be in there a lot working the yard.

Ron, you are correct.  I want to have aisles at least 2 feet wide, but with the diameter of O-72 track not really being 6 feet it has put me in a quandary once my plans went on paper unless I can find a 15-foot wide room.  The center island is where all of the urban city structures will reside but I would love also to be able to have retail structures along the left side wall in front of the tracks.  However that doesn't leave any room for roads and 1:43 vehicles which are big deal to me. Who ever thought that a 2 foot shelf wouldn't be wide enough. Finding a 15-foot wide bedroom is unlikely which means I have some more work to do.  This will be a work in progress.

Kevin, I don't know what version of RRT you have, so you may not be able to view the attached v5 version file, but I cleaned things up a bit to get everything to join. I deleted some cut tracks near the yard, but didn't notice there were other straights that had been cut, so I didn't see if I could fix those. I figure things are going to change anyway. I raised the double-crossover to 3" and the over/under tracks to 6", you can see the resulting grades. Some grades are already over 3%, so you need to be a little careful depending on what you're comfortable with. I added the yard lead, at the bottom, but didn't optimize grades, etc.

@Edmund Schwartzel 060518 posted:

I have always like the design of a double main line with a wye and a yard in the middle.

Agree.  I would get rid of the inner loop and put a Wye with the yard in the middle.

Dave, thank you very much for that work that you did, especially with the grades that I'm not that good with.  My computer crashed recently and I had to repair it, and with it lost my most current RRT version, so I just put in the initial disc again to upload the program.  Will have to upgrade to the latest version soon. 

Interesting thought on the Wye.  As the island is the one space where I can populate with structures, a single dead end wye would take away from the space and seem lost.  Having the wye open up into a yard on the island is a possibility and would free up 3 of the four sides to have structures on them.  Hmmmm.

Getting rid of the inner loop - leaving it to structures alone - and just have the trains running on the room perimeter is also an option.  My reasoning for the inner loop was to avoid the monotony of running in an easily seen loop. Will need to play around with the track layout.

Thanks your your input, folks.

Have you considered a twice around the room main line? The second line which is above the other, would be located at the back of the layout, and can be much higher, say 12" or more. This means you will need to hide the "cross over between the two lines" behind a scenery block (I hid mine in a closet). This will give you a very long main line.

The higher line would be narrower, so as not to cast a shadow on the main lower part of the layout

You could then turn the centre island into a large yard with some industries. This means you could widen the walkways. I have room in my layout for 3 or 4 chairs, so visitors can sip on wine & cheese (or beer) while watching the trains. Great before a dinner party.

You may also want to consider adding some sidings in the corners, where you can add an industry. Some amount of switching can be fun. It also allows for some good modelling of buildings in a space that is not usable for trains. My corner industries are mostly a building front, unless the track goes into the building.

Just some ideas to get you thinking out of the box. It took me a year of design (which I then modified many more times after construction) and looking at options before I started building my layout.

Good luck. The designing can be as much fun as any other part of this hobby.

Kevin and all,

Interesting thread, good ideas. FWIW, my area is similar to Kevin's (10'6" x 13) and my benchwork is built so I am more or less committed to something like this plan. But it might help your decisions.

Kevin, as food for thought, I did not plan elevated track since my priorities were a switching yard, industry sidings, and a turntable with my old backshop (you can see them on the current plan.) There is a wall on the lower side but everything else has access on the esterior.  That is a 30" x 5 ft opening in the middle with a swing up access gate (similar to the Geezer gorge that the River city 3 railers built) to the right of it. (several of the forumites who responded to you helped with my floor plan and benchwork decisions).

Two mains: I settled for 054 since I only have 18" passenger cars.  Up top, between the two mains will be the passenger station.  the outside main has a siding.

It is not a yard in the middle but something you might consider, since you have the room. The yard has an arrival / depart track, a lead, and I am hoping to figure out how to get a caboose track in.  Would be nice if I can connect it to the turntable but might be too much. you can see where I am working on industry siding above the opening. RRT v 4 file attached too if it is useful.

Kevin, if you go with the yard in the center, you may be able to increase mainline radius around the walls and fit your 21" cars better.  If I were restricted to O-72, I'd probably sell all of my 21" passenger cars and acquire 18" and smaller, just because of the "look" going around the curves.  Most freight cars (excepting scale-sized auto racks and such) look OK with O-72, so that works for the wye sides.  I spent a fair bit of time playing around with engines and cars on bare track of various radii, set on a folding table, to get a good sense of "look", before starting my plan.  That's something that you can do before you move - worst case is that you end up with some surplus track segments to sell off.  Good luck with room negotiation!

Since folks have been suggesting things like a wye and a yard on the peninsula, I thought I'd show some of what that would look like given the space and your desire for O-72 curves. I think you'll find that while you have a lot of space compared to others, it's not as much as you might hope. Oh, and sorry it's done in SCARM, but it's a lot easier and quicker for me to edit with than RRT. It also looks a lot nicer, though maybe not as nice as AnyRail. The yellow rectangles are 3" wide to make sure the tracks don't get too close to the walls and the double-crossover is there to keep tracking spacing at 4.5". You already know you have to consider where to place crossovers when adding elevated sections.

These are very symmetrical designs, but they're just to show relative spacing. You can shrink the aisles and bench work to widen the peninsula to get O-72 curves, but then you minimize your ability to move around easily and have guests, not to mention giving up space for landscaping. Of course, the peninsula doesn't have to be in the center, but you can see were an O-63 curve goes. BTW, the Blue tracks are O-72, the Orange O-63 and the Green O-63 with O-72 switches and wye. For what you want, you may have to consider something with O-54 curves/switches (2nd photo). You can still use O-63/O-72 curves on the dual mains, this just shows O-54, but you won't be able to use the storage tracks for anything that requires more than O-54 curves.

Wow Dave and Hokie71, that's some amazing work!  Thanks for your efforts.  Didn't think I would like the peninsula as a freight yard but its growing on me.

Just so everyone knows, I'm intending on running scale size equipment - passenger cars, auto racks - that's why I'm limiting myself to O-63 and O-72 so that I like the way the cars look on the curves.  All of these cars are designed to run on O-54 track so that's why I had O-54 turnouts once in the rail yard proper.

Thanks for the comments.  Signing off for the evening...

Kevin,

My trainroom (currently a storage room after Hurricane Michael) is the same width as yours but twice the length.  I built an around the room layout with a center peninsula.  My side aisles are 3' and 2' with visitors expected to stand in the wider aisle.

My original layout is much like yours with the wye leading to the yard on the inside loop.  My new design moves the wye to an outside loop which leads to staging tracks under one side of the layout.  Their are three levels to the layout:

1. The yard and staging is at 0";
2. The town is at 3"; and
3. The industrial area is at 9" and is above the staging.

The grades are just less than 3%.  On the non-yard side the track from the staging splits with one branch passing under the main.  This allows a train to travel three times around the layout without passing over the same track.  In theory I could run a train with more than 200 cars!  How many Atlas reefers do I have?

The entrances to the room are shown in red.  The original layout's layout was rotated 180° to this orientation.  Access was through the bottom, smaller door with a lift-up bridge.  I am considering a Mianne lift-gate at the left doorway.

The mainline curves are Atlas O90 and O99.  I considered increase them to O00 and O108 but felt that it shortened the straight runs to much.  All other curves are O72.  All the track and switches are Atlas.  I have variations which use Ross turnouts which would increase the capacity of the yard and staging.

Jan

Dave, I remember now that I did change the tolerances in SCARM to close some gaps so that I could run the simulator.  Of course, this lead to a reopening of the gaps and some redesign to close some and relocate the rest/

For the halibut, I decided to see just how much I could squeeze on the peninsula and this is what I came up with. The outer curves are O-72, the inner O-63, the ones leading to the yard O-63 and the yard is all O-54. The yellow rectangles are there to show both the clearance to the walls (3.5") and between tracks (4.5"). All the crossovers are just to maintain consistent track separation. I have no idea if 4.5" is enough for the equipment you plan to run, but it's got room to store some pretty long trains if you split them between 2 or more storage tracks. It's not pretty, just a fun exercise.

Dave, Wow!!!

@Mark Boyce posted:

Dave, Wow!!!

It was fun putting it together. Add a passenger terminal in the Wye and you could maybe have a halfway decent passenger layout.

Dave is becoming the guru of yard designs.  Funny, I almost went with a design like this in my 12X13 room (around the room loops with yard in the center, but opted for more of a U for the mainlines.  Good work again, Dave.

Nah, these aren’t even close to real yards, just storage tracks for someone who just likes to run a variety of trains without having to do buildup/teardown. It is fun though at times to see how much track can be packed in a space. 🤪