A couple of weeks ago I was tinkering with some yard ideas and sought out some samples online. I found these three which are supposed to be ideal, functional, and real-world-like. I think that for the most part, some of us(me generally) would just run a spur and that was the yard. In my HO days, I was a little more creative, had a double mainline with spurs crossing over the mains to get to the yard, but it was still a single track(on one), and a fork(two) on the other.
So, my main question is what type of yard design do you follow? Do you have something were engines can pop on either side to set up cars in any order or move them out along to a different part(like the departure yard in the flat yard example), have maintenance/engine house/sanding/water/fuel facilities/shops/etc., etc?