Do it.

Looking for suggestions is a waste of time in your situation. Your issue is that you don’t want to make a mistake. You will make mistakes no matter what you do. It’s part of the appeal of this hobby as you will be working on so many different challenges. Do what you want. That is motivating in itself.

Do a yard. Make your decision.  There’s a million opinions here that aren’t worth a plug nickel unless you get your tale in gear and start anything. Learn and move on to something more challenging later when you have some experience.

Analysis Paralysis is deadly.

What Rick said!

What Rick said!  However, I'd add that I think a small yard makes an excellent prototype for an interesting, yet relatively compact shelf layout.  Lots of operational possibilities and a great variety of movements, power, etc.

 "what are your thoughts on

I think it's a great idea for a display and operating layout. A yard can provide many hours of switching fun and is a great place to display various types of rolling stock. I'd keep it 24 inches wide but make it as long as possible so more cars can fit on the switch lead. Switching is more realistic and satisfying if longer cuts can be handled. You could extend the layout length by making removable switching lead sections that could be stored out of the way when not needed. If the width allows you could add a freight house along the backdrop( closed by the 60's but still standing) and a team track along the front to add some more operational interest. A few small yard buildings and maintenance of way  supplies could complete the scene.....DaveB

yard lead

Alternative Options for Displaying Freight Cars

Steve,

I am very much in the same vein as you are. Freight car modeling is my favorite part of the hobby as well and I have a small town in 2x10 with a 3' extension. I would make the following recommendations after making some mistakes.

Design your track like a fork with a long handle: It will increase your switching opportunities in the space available.

Consider doing a layout on a part of one of the Milwaukee's car shops: The Milwaukee built some very cool railroad cars and you could do the buildings and yard for just a portion of one of them. Nothing but freight car switching, a handful of simple buildings, and lots of room to show of your work. Sioux City and Milwaukee had one, I don't know if there are others.

Consider a large railroad interchange: I'm sure the Milwaukee had a number of crossings where there would be plenty of activity and tracks. Just find the prototype. This gives you possibly the most operating potential with few if any structures and every freight car under the sun.

Just build it, or at least the benchwork: What are you waiting for, you are going to make mistakes. Just get them over with and become that better modeler after the fact.

Just my two cents.

@ Steve

Hi Steve,

That’s the way I started, Burlington, VT train yard.  A lot to be learned from a yard build.

Go for it!!!

Nick

Or not

If you want to showcase rolling stock a yard may not be the way to go, unless you are into car roofs.    Depending on how many cars you keep in the yard, the cars on the front tracks will block the view of the cars on the back tracks.

If your goal is to display cars then a more open, industrial area with maybe a 2 track yard would be better for viewing cars.

Do It!

If a small yard is what “kick starts” you into building a layout, “do it!”

This will be a great opportunity to learn and get experience without being overwhelmed. 

My only suggestion is “plan” the track layout first.  This will help you avoid “gotchas” and give you a “realistic” look at what fits and works in your space.  (Layout software, making paper templates, etc.)

Joe

Now thats a great idea!

Absolutely!

That is a great idea and one often not modeled. 

While I still had my last project up I threw together a crude yard. 3 through tracks, and 2 stub ends. I had a small yard lead and that was it. Since the layout never progressed I spent most of my time working the yard. It was actually a lot of fun.

I made a card for each car using note cards. Before I would start I would shuffle the deck then randomly pull a dozen cards. This would be the train the yard crew would have to build. Once they were done I would attach a caboose and pull some road power off the stub end that was designated the engine house lead.. I would let that train run around the loop while I started to build another train in the yard. Turns out in the scheme of model railroading running a yard like this wasn't much different the switching an industry.  Plus since most industries are car specific this allows me to use just about anything I had vs a industry that would only take a few car types at best.

Often I thought about building a real yard, and making that the focal point of the temporary layout. 

A few things I considered adding..

To the back of the bench work I thought of adding a Intermodal facility.  This was going to be between the main and the back drop.  Since I was modeling the 1970s it was going to be a TOFC type facility with some piggy packers.

A legitimate locomotive facility. Not a major engine shop but two tracks off a wye switch that were insulated so I could cut power for all the engines stored in there.. Fuel rack, sand towers and maybe a small office trailer.

RIP track (repair in place) any time I had a bad actor car I could have the crew shove it over to the RIP until I was motivated enough to figure out what was wrong with it. Here too is a good place for a small metal building. A lot of the major yards I work at actually do all car repairs outside. Most have a garage to park the forklift, air testing equipment and parts, but the men spend 8hrs a day in the elements even in 2018. 

Depending on the time you are modeling ( I was still in the caboose era) a cab track to put all the cabooses on. 

Also larger yards would have a pocket track for the yard power. 

A yard as the focal point of a layout is a great idea, and you have endless options. Google or Bing Maps are great ways to look at current yards for layout ideas. 

Do It Today!

Steve - Go out and get some Kato Unitrak and build it today. Assemble it on the floor if necessary and play with it for a week or so.

You'll quickly find out if you like the arrangement and operating value. If you don't like it you haven't invested the time in building and laying track.

If you do like it, but prefer the look of more conventional track, you can always build that later.  You can spend the time to get the geometry and appearance exactly the way you want it. But that all takes time and you don't even know if you'll like it yet.

Get the Unitrak, work with the operation now.  Get some forward momentum going.  

gs

Yard lead does not need to be

Yard lead does not need to be as long as the longest track in the yard. 

It can be much shorter.  

instead of working with 30 car cuts you are now working with 15 or 10 car cuts. 

Where does it say in the rules that you must be able to pull and entire yard track in 1 cut?  In a book on operations?  it is a suggestion a hard fact.

Function?

What is the yard function?

What are your layout goals?

My layout has a yard that feeds a freight terminal. It's HO scale and about 10 x 16. A main goal is to operate like the prototype in a 1926 setting. About 100 freight car move in each op session.

What do you want from your layout project?

Eric

Freight house

Larger towns had freight houses which had two or more stub ended tracks and cars were lined up so a car three tracks over could be loaded by going through the doors of the cars closer to the freight house.  The freight house could be a low profile building or a flat on the backdrop.  As an example Dubuque, IA had individual freight houses for the four railroads that served it. (CB&Q, IC, CGW, MILW)

I rode along with local on the shortline here in my hometown and I was amazed how many moves we made at the interchange with a two track yard. (2 yard tracks + mainline)  I would recommend making the lead as long as possible or otherwise you have a Timesaver situation which is far from prototypical.

Robert

Yards are great, Do it!

Like others have said, yards can make great little layouts.  Almost any kind of equipment can show up in a yard so you aren't limited to what you can run.

Also, like others have said, just do it!  Or do something!  If you think about it too long, you'll end up with Analysis Paralysis.  Get some track and switches. plop them down on something, and play around for a while.

If you're not a fan of Uni-track or EZ-track (or don't want to spend the money on something you won't use very long), get some Atlas flex track and switches, a sheet of the blue or pink foam insulation from your local lumber store, and some sewing pins to pin the track down.  Don't be afraid to cut up the flex track or trim the rails.  Trimmed bits can often be used elsewhere.

Don't worry about trying to get everything exactly right the first time.  This probably won't be your last layout (and that's okay, just look at some of the British modelers that build a new micro layout every few years).  The fun is in the journey, not just the destination.

But most importantly, just do it!

Craig

yards...

I read a lot of Brit modeling magazines and one thing I see often with them is a yard or station 'scene' with a loop track to service it. That could work just fine in this case.

Maybe a yard with a runaround track with a depot on it, then you could have tracks running on/off 'scene' to be the trains passing through. You'd likely want staging track(s) of some kind.

I like your idea, go for it!

clean-out track

Team tracks yard

Another option might be a team track "yard". Case in point, the P&N team tracks area in Anderson, SC had a small stub end arrangement with two team tracks, a track to the freight station and a track to a warehouse building that had 4 or 5 small businesses(like a coffee wholesaler) each with its own door. The photos below are Anderson in about 1979 when SCL had taken over and not as much traffic to this area as say 50s-60s. But the photos give you an idea. On the prototype there was a one or two track double ended yard around a bend from this location and that is how engines ran around the cars. the first photo is looking back toward that yard, team tracks etc would be to photographers back.

First layout

The first layout is the one you will have the most fun with, no matter whether you make mistakes or not.  That is until you build your second layout correcting all the mistakes.  Then you'll build a third layout because your hobby interests have changed.  And your 4th layout, well you get the idea.

Build that first one and don't worry about getting it right, just get it running trains.  If you use sectional track it's easy to change things. 

Good luck

Paul - who is on his 11th (or is it 12th) layout

"Analysis Paralysis is deadly"

Definitely the truth!

I have a friend whose been planning a larger N scale layout for as long as I've know him, maybe 15 years?  He still hasn't got it started!  In the past year a fellow modeler past away before his layout was complete (but then again, they never are).  But this got my friend thinking about getting off his butt and start building his.  

But he decided to switch from N to HO thinking this would help boost his efforts by having half the space to model in and force his thoughts to a smaller, more manageable size.  Well all the switch has managed to do for him is find more ways to spend his money and start collecting HO now.

Do yourself a favor, grab some track, throw it down and start playing!  Design doesn't matter.  Just get the trains moving on the rails and soon you'll be on your way. One thing leads to another.

There has been some great advice given to you in this thread. Just Do It!

"Analysis Paralysis" or just pondering?

I took about 2 years of going through countless track plans, sketching out things, and generally trying to figure it out until I gave up and asked someone to help me out. His track plan drawn the same day wasn't useable (he was thinking HO for an On30 layout) but it did form the spine of what I wound up with and you can see my layout in his original plan easily.

My point is that the stuff I'd had before was terrible and I'd have hated the layout. I'm glad I took the time, and during this, I worked on rolling stock and structures. Only a caboose was lacking and the engine weathering not yet done when the tracks were in and powered.

In this day and age where people rarely get time off from jobs, you do need to think twice before doing something. When I was building my layout (the first real layout I ever built), I knew I'd be able to tweak a few things here and there later on, but there wasn't going to be a second or third layout, not for many years into the future, if ever). As I was building it over a little more than 2 years, my wife several times said that this was going to be it, and if I ever decided to tear it down, she would consider than abandonment of the hobby and there for sure wasn't going to be a case where I started all over again ("I'm not going through listening to you gripe about switches and scenery again," she said). That said, i think she does like that it's in a back bedroom she can easily get to, and that it looks presentable now...

First of all thanks everyone

First of all thanks everyone for the replies and helpful suggestions and confidence.  

Hello Eric,

To answer your questions, the layout I plan to build really has no function in terms of operation at this point in time. Actual operations will probably be the last thing on my mind, other than running the occasional test train.  But with that said, I will keep that all in mind while designing, building up a freight car roster, and so forth.  I'll also need to research on how actual prototype yards work.  

As for my layout goals; I hope to gain a learning experience that I can take with me for as long as I have an interest in the hobby. I'll definitely make mistakes thats for sure. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here, but I would like to possibly tackle hand laying track and building my own turnouts.  Again a little farfetched for my experience level, but something I would like to try eventually.  

And lastly, what do I want from my layout is ultimately a place where I can escape and have a little fun.  Put my endless amounts of prototype research to work.  After all, I'd hate to see my extensive library go to waste.  Granted I'll probably be the only one to see it, but it sure would be nice to get my locomotive and rolling stock out of their boxes and actually enjoy them. And as I mentioned before, I have an interest in freight cars and I think that will be what I enjoy the most out of this hobby. Subscribing to this site along with Trainmaster TV has really sparked my interest even further.     

Anyways, if it helps any, here is a prototype yard that I have an interest in.  I don't know the size, but something of this design is what I was hoping to accomplish.  And having the industry with a siding at the lower part of the yard has some possibilities as well.... if space allows.  Either way I don't plan to have a huge/busy yard by any means.  Just a few tracks and enough work for a yard switcher or 2. No locomotive servicing terminals, etc.      

It's the WSOR yard in Janesville, WI, which just so happens to be an ex Milwaukee Road yard.  (hopefully the link works).     

https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=71ee6005-d408-4434-aaff-1b019412f014&cp=42.677843~-89.047954&lvl=18&style=a&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027

​

Thanks for your help,

Steve

"Maybe I'm getting ahead of

       Handlaying makes perfect sense for a small layout if your goal is the whole journey and not just the finish. There are plenty of instructions for handlaying in magazines and online. It's a satisfying feeling to see your equipment rolling down tracks and thru turnouts that you've built from scratch. I think the first step would be to figure out the longest space you can procure for a layout then draw up a yard design that suits your visual and operational needs and preferences. Then get some backdrops and benchwork up and start learning how to lay that track :> ) ......DaveB  

You could always go to the

You could always go to the extreme that was reached in this railroad

Lakeside Lines RR

 

Awesome Idea Bessemer Bob

"made a card for each car using note cards. Before I would start I would shuffle the deck then randomly pull a dozen cards. This would be the train the yard crew would have to build. "

This is fantastic, I am totally going to borrow this idea!