I have Seen One

Years ago on a nosing around trip in Chicago I spotted one buried in the dirt, long out of service. So they do exist. BUT, I suspect they are more common on model railroads as we try to get more bang for the buck, so to speak, from our limited real estate.

Real railroads would spend the money on more complicated trackwork if the expense was justified by the # of carloads generated by the shipper.

Have fun !

Espee over Donner

Form follows function

Certainly I am no expert so take this for what it is worth.

During my track planning process I enlisted the assistance of Byron Henderson to do a final review. The question you ask came up in the review. The arrangement in your figure A was present on my prototype in one of my key LDEs. I used it in my plan. Byron questioned the arrangement and suggested replacing it with your figure B. From the discussion with Byron I learned:

1. Figure B is more common on the prototype.
2. Figure A is more common on model railroads.
3. Figure B generally has much more track length in prototype than modelers have space for thus making the arrangement more practical for real railroads than model railroads.
4. Figure A is more efficient to switch on a model railroad.
5. Track arrangements used by real railroads don't always make the best arrangement for model railroads.

In the end I decided to stay with my figure A arrangement for the area in question due to its relationship with the structures and my desire to accurately model the scene. The overall length of track beyond the structures was increased to make it switch better without hurting the fidelity of the scene.

You are right

in that figure B is generally too large. I have one I shortened just a bit to fit.into a 8' scene. That's just under 700' in real track and I lacked about 1 car length on either side. Front to back (main to siding) I was fine in the 174' of a 24" module. This was a fairly small one I wanted to replicate from the real world.

And they are a devil to switch. I asked a modern engineer and he had a hard time figuring something out. I asked a retired guy who dates to the PRR and he came up with some quick options.

Charles

Switchbacks

One other possibility: Diagram B is the current arrangement, but in the past the right hand track hooked back up to the main or whatever, making a double-ended siding.  That was common as well.  

I've seen Diagram A in a couple of spots, in congested areas.  

You are right, too. In my

You are right, too. In my case, the siding as-built looked like this:

Years later, and the way it looked at the end, the small section of track with the red star was removed. With all track in place it was fairly easy to switch. After removing the runaround switch, it became much harder. A siding about a mile away was used to hold cars in between maneuvers.

Charles

Seen a few here in

Seen a few here in Chicagoland 

They were all found in heavy industry areas and most were no longer in service. I find it more common to see lots of industries served  from one track lead and a run around track. 

Search google earth and you will find lots of interesting spur tracks either in use or out of service.

Common but uncommon

Complex tack work with double crossovers even incorporating double slip switches were often used in the leads to many passenger and some freight yards (Chicago, Washington DC, Memphis, Cincinnati) where space was at a premium. They are still used in space limited Metro rail systems (See Chicago track work below).

Here's one in Portland, OR.

Here's one in Portland, OR.  Not used any more but still there.

https://goo.gl/maps/CHVKj

​another: https://goo.gl/maps/oqSDu

another: https://goo.gl/maps/NX4J9

one in Kent, WA https://goo.gl/maps/pAZ7l

Paul

Some walk-arounds of diamonds and switching districts...

Dear Charles,

May wish to have a read of these

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/79653-san-pedro-subsanta-ana-branch/

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/17847-unusual-us-track-layouts/page-2

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

one more

There's a few tracks like that around here, type this into Google maps, I don't know how to put the picture here:

123 Plymouth St, Winnipeg, MB R2X 2T3

This is in the Inkster Park Industrial area, there's some cool track work there.

Winnipeg diamond crossing...

Dear Rico,

Like this?

https://goo.gl/maps/VYo5m

or this?

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Yup

Just like that, thanx Prof!

Multiple Diamonds in LA

Dear MRHers,

Try this, multiple diamonds inc curved versions in close proximity

https://goo.gl/maps/ZvOvm

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Nice examples!

So far they are all out west....

Charles

Not just out West

Dear Charles,

Examples are everywhere, the ones above are just some that I'm particularly familar with, and can recall readily...

How about this, ultra short pass fed by a switchback in Chicago, feeding Morton Salt...

http://chicagoswitching.com/chicago/former-cnw-up/north-line/UP-Switching-Morton-Salt/
(check the embedded Google Map)

Ultra-short switchback anyone?
(Tulsa-Sappulpa Union Glass Plant)

http://www.trainweb.org/southwestshorts/tsu-glass-plant-2.html

http://www.arcticrail.com/trains/trainpages/musicalchairssapulpa.html

Current-day switchback on CSX Kellog Branch, with curious operational ethos...

http://gino.cdfw.net/_railpage/kellog/today.html

http://gino.cdfw.net/_railpage/kellog/dennis.html

https://goo.gl/maps/sVugo

...and of course, 30 seconds with MRH's own search function (top RH of the screen you are now looking at) reveals a number of previous discussions on the topic of "tight switching"...

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/13960

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

I would

love to do some of this complex trackwork for my planned passenger depot to save space, but I just don't have the confidence I could create that complex trackwork that would run flawlessly and I'd end up never finishing it.

Switchbacks

It seems that prototype railroads usually try to avoid your second example, a switchback, and would tend toward the crossover.  Switchbacks may be prevalent on model railroads because they complicate switching operations thus adding to session time but on a prototype railroad these are the last things they want.

Ray

An Old Diamond in the East

This one's in Toronto's east side:  http://binged.it/1x7ZeSx

This was a much more industrial area in the 1970's, serving a General Motors plant. I believe it previously served as a munitions plant during the Second(?) World War, when the tracks formed a loop up to this area from the Port of Toronto. I've found drawings of it going back to the days of the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR).

Additionally, I wandered about the site a few years back, and it looks like there used to be a second diamond crossing the north spur, making a wye out of the south spur.

Prof

Prof: My out west comment was to diamond crossings. I can find tons of switchbacks all over. They were very common for all of our modern-day railroad's predecessors to have built. It's the diamond crossings I don't see much of in railroading. When the examples were coming in, they were all out west.

Ray: The switchback is way more used than a diamond crossing on a industrial siding. There are track charts galore with switchbacks on them. I'm not sure they were built that way but they can end up that way when a switch (part of a runaround) gets removed from the main. You are left with a switchback. Like I said, those old guys seemed adept at switching them.

The switchback in my second diagram is courtesy of the Lehigh Valley.

Charles

...

There's something here that a lot of people keep saying that hasn't been directly pointed out yet.

I'll repeat the lines and see how many of you catch them...

So with all this being said, form follows function.  Why do we use them in Model railroads so much?  Because space is tight and we have a lot of tracks t put in a lot of places all at once.

So then why do the railroads not use as many nowadays?  Because there's not as many of them [rail names] and they aren't as busy as they used to be [fewer customers].  And further, I bet a diamond is a lot of maintenance versus straight track or even switches [now that switches have been modulized], so the prototype would rather not put them in!

But once upon a time when the tracks were common AND crowded with customers all over with not much space between them, these diamonds were Everywhere.  I dare say this, they were Everywhere!  And with labor being cheap, they were just as difficult to put in as a switch or any other piece of track work...Did I also mention how much longer a road steam engine with tender is versus a switcher, or even a modest GP?

Byron is correct - they are far more common TODAY as a model railroad trope, whereas they are uncommon on the modern roads.  But this says nothing about the Era - the era here is as important as any other element in this discussion!

USE THE DIAMOND!

"But once upon a time when

    Not everywhere, just in crowded places. Out in the country they'd just move the factory down the line a bit and use regular turnouts.  The most likely place to see complicated trackwork was in the city around passenger stations and dense industrial areas. Santa Cruz SP yard in the 50's had one crossing where spurs came off the yard to align with perpendicular city streets, also had one switchback serving a cement dealer because old yard tracks and the position of industry made it easier that way........DaveB

I remember lots of

I remember lots of complicated tracks from days gone by in the Eastern part of the country where I grew up. Industries were more common and packed together fairly tightly because of topography and population density. There was a time when folks wanted to live with in walking distance of where they worked or with in riding distance on the street car routes. Population in the Eastern cities during the turn of the century were very high and were close to the places folks worked because alternatives were not generally available. The move to suburbia did not happen till the automobile made travel more universal.

So if your industry is something that started around the 1880s to 1920s and went on to the 1970s think steel mills as one example there is likely to be lots of in the way of complicated tracks to serve them. 

The photo above is from a 1928 photograph that was sent to me by Eric a poster on this site who models the B&O freight station in the picture. From left to right they are the Pennsylvania station and then the B&O. In looking at the photo above one can see lots of rail traffic in this section of the town. What is not readily apparent are the number of bridges needed to carry the rails across a creek that connects to the Ohio river to the left of the freight stations.

At the right bottom of the picture is the B&O passenger station it has what looks like more than 4 elevated tracks going to it at this time, it was the largest passenger station in WV at one time. It is now a college. Between the freight stations and the passenger station is a large building with a water tower on top. It is still standing and was served via a track that crossed the creek and then went curving down the street to reach an interior loading dock on that building. 

The modern day photo above shows the same building with the entrance to the loading dock in the gray area to the left side of the building. The ground floor under the water tower has steps and a pedestrian entrance. The stone bridge that is shown in the 1928 picture is the same one the street is using to cross the creek to the right of the water tower above.

There were more than seven bridges crossing that creek in the area of the freight stations carrying railroad traffic. The bridges were multiple span and at different height as well. I also have some photos of the remnants of them but they are somewhat obscured by foliage.

I just posted these two photos to help illustrate the point about tracks being era specific. Until the 70s and the massive industrial blight that turned this area into part of the rust belt there were rails and traffic on them. Buildings had industries in residence and were manufacturing goods. There were many places with multiple tracks and crossings and switches to get into the industries because of the crowded nature of the tracks structures and natural barriers. When these things were built keeping things close together was much more important than it is today due to the lack of mobility of the population. Many of the towns in the East were near rivers for transportation, railroads entered after the towns and cities were in existence and then had to use complicated track work to serve them.

On the far side of the lower hill at the top of the photo is a nail plant, a steel mill, rail servicing facilities for the wheeling terminal railroad and a glass works as well as other nearby industries along the line. In some seven miles of city there were about 70,000 people many factories and mills that made a tremendous number of goods for sale as well as coal mines. So if modeling the Eastern United States, complicated track work could exist because it was the only way to get in there when the previous transportation method was a wagon or river boat.

Maybe the thread is getting a

Maybe the thread is getting a little off-topic. I'm really referring to the diamond as shown at the top which appear on many model railroads and now we've seen some good western US examples of.

I know that diamonds appear regularly in tight spaces with lots of industrial track crisscrossing all over or at passenger stations/terminals. (Fast Track guy's CNJ Bronx Terminal comes to mind).That's a completely different animal. Again, I'm just referring to the first diagram.

Charles

...

No, it;s not a different animal.  Its the same horse, just the other side of it.

And that one modern example with the two warehouses isn't exactly in a "crowded city" by the past's definitions of Crowded.

And it comes down to this: if your railroad does not have the space for a spur and a switchback, they'll use a diamond.  It's still two switches, no matter what way you look at it...