You know that you don’t need a yard.

Yards are optional for modeling purposes. Staging can represent any connection that you don’t model. 

Having a division point yard next to staging possibly creates a longer visible run in one direction and creates an operational complication in the other direction. You now need to run trains from that yard to staging and from staging to the yard. That creates many short runs. If you are doing an operating session then someone will get this relatively boring assignment. Most operators will have a longer run. 

Having the yard in the middle of the run creates two shorter runs from staging. Possibly making your mainline seem  really short. Every one gets a short assignment. 

Honestly having a ‘division point yard ‘ makes it more complicated because every train has to stop and change motive power and caboose. Having a medium size yard would simplify operations. 

I would leave some space for industry on the top deck.

Design

Part of the issue is you are designing things piecemeal.

Design the RAILROAD.

Then design staging to support the RAILROAD.

Take a piece of paper.  Hold it landscape.  Draw a straight line across it.  Then draw the railroad on the straight line.  Not staging.  Not helixes.  The visible railroad.  How many stations do you want? (a station is a place not a building).  How many passing sidings?  How many yards?  Where do you want interchanges?  Draw it on the straight line.  Don't worry about scale.  Once you get your railroad figured out, then you will know how the staging needs to fit, how the helix needs to tie into things, etc.

Right now you are designing your layout to support your staging which is bass akwards.

Qs

1. I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at with the "existing" layout image, it appears to be all yard tracks, and a big jumble of them, I'm not quite sure of the flow. Is that your lowest level staging?

2. You mention an upper and lower level, are you planning to have the tracks basically come out of staging into the lower level, run through the whole lower level, then helix up to the upper level and run to the end up there? Is it a staging to point design, or a staging to staging loop, with track running through the lower level, up to the upper level and then back down the helix into staging? (i.e. two helixes wrapped around each other)

3. Building off Dave's comment from this point.... What is the railroad going to do?

4. Do all trains run from staging originate/terminate in the yard? or Do trains run through over the entire length of the railroad? 

5. Does every through train stop to exchange cars in the yard or just some of them? What reason are the cars left? Are they for local industries or jobs, or do trains transfer traffic between routes for a nearby junction or interchange?

6. Are there (and how many) local jobs based out of the yard that run out to switch industries and return?

7. What is the purpose of the yard - what operations does it support? 

i.e., is the yard a true "division point" with trains originating/terminating and changing crews etc.? Is it a transfer point for through traffic between multiple routes? Is it the drop-off point for local jobs that work the industries on the layout?

Follow Dave's advice and actually design the railroad - real yards (and really any track in general) exist for a defined purpose and not "we wanted a yard here". Design the railroad and operations and give it a purpose or it won't necessarily work well for anything.

Confused

I guess that's where my confusion is coming from. I always considered Staging as some other place outside my railroad. It did not matter to me what's out there, only that trains will enter my railroad from there, and leave back there once done.

The above image depicts my staging/storage, which is the lowest deck. There will be two more decks of my actual railroad above it. Trains will leave and come back to staging via the two helices wrapped around each other - staging to staging loop.

So, is my first step a schematic diagram then? To me that's counter-intuitive, as I'm a very visual person and prefer to see the physical space vs a conceptual line on the paper. I could have all kinds of unrealistic expectations drawn into the diagram that would not fit into the layout space. If I see the space I know what roughly fits where and the physical dimensions keep my expectations within the bounds of possible.

From what I read above, it sounds to me that I also must have a train roster first? In my mind for specific trains to exist, there have to be reasons for them, e.g. industries/customers/destinations. Should they not be built first before any trains are put together to serve them?

The way I envisioned my railroad working is that some trains will be through, some will terminate in the main yard, while others will stop, pick/drop cars off and continue on their way. I do not have those ratios figured out yet because I do not know exactly what industries will be where.

Find a prototype...

Have you considered finding a prototype that you'd like to model?  I think actually having something to model should be your first step. 

Randy

Design top-down, build bottom-up

It  also seems to me that you're doing things in an awkward order - you've got benchwork up before you have a track plan, and you're trying to define the track plan for staging before you define the track plan for the main layout. 

I had a career in software design, and some people I worked with naturally designed everything bottom-up; they wanted to build simple bits they could understand that they knew they were going to need, then put them together later when they had a better overall picture. I always felt that resulted in a lot of ill-fitting components and rework along the way. They ended up with software that didn't do quite what they needed it to do, but they were already done and it had to be used whether it was well-designed for its job or not, maybe with a little bashing into shape disguised as "debugging". 

The top-down design technique is to begin by understanding the whole thing at some abstract level and then begin dividing the problem and filling in details part by part. I think that is what others are urging you to do by asking you what the railroad is for, what it will do, drawing the whole thing on a single sheet of paper in the abstract, etc.

Knowing that your railroad will probably need a yard somewhere, and picking a spot in your room where a yard fits and then designing the track layout for the yard is bottom-up design - you haven't figured out why the railroad needs a yard, and you haven't figured out why it needs it there. 

It can be very very hard to switch gears from bottom-up to top-down design, most people I worked with who needed to do it resisted all suggestions along those lines. It's an uncomfortable mental act for some people, their brain just doesn't want to work that way. 

For best results you need to design top-down, then build bottom-up. Building bottom-up without a top-down design gets you going quickly but results in a lot of rework and stitched-together ill-fitting parts rather than a well-designed whole.

What kind of railroad is it?

Please don't take this as harsh wording. I'm just expressing this as questions that I would ask myself if I were building a layout.

What era, location, equipment, and traffic density are you working with? is it a short line, regional, or class 1? How long are the trains that you are running? If it's a branch line, it probably won't have a yard and staging is only on one end.

Some railroads run without yards. The Arkansas & Missouri doesn't even have a yard because cars sitting around don't make money.

Railroads don't like to put in track for the simple reason that it costs money.

I would also suggest the TOMA method of layout construction. That way, you can have some operation with later expansion. The equipment that is running on the layout also affects the size of turnouts and radius of the curves, which affect the track plan.

Most important, make sure that you know how to build a helix or else you have a nightmare on your hands.

Good luck, Mike

Qs, cont.

Yes.

Ok.

Try this. Start by looking at your space. 

Determine where and how you can space out stations (named "places" on the railway - towns, sidings, yards, etc.) and locate them on the layout. Determine where there should be "empty" running space between stations. Give them names and add them to the schematic drawing.

Decide what sort of industries and features you want to include. You can experiment with layout out the towns and industries "in place" on the layout space, but also add the *rough* information to the schematic. It doesn't need to be super detailed, just show what you want to include in each town, and which direction any spurs or sidings connect to the main. This schematic will help make overall sense of the railroad.

Start thinking about the jobs that will work the industries. Are there towns or industries big enough to have a dedicated switcher that has cars delivered by other trains. Can smaller industries on the line be operated by a "turn" wayfreight that runs out from a yard somewhere switching industries in both directions, or is there enough work for a wayfreight in each direction.

No...

Yes.

That's kinda the point of the questions/planning. The activity that happens in the yard will greatly depend on the rest of the layout design. *Why* does this train terminate here, and what happens to its cars after? Why is this through train dropping off cars, where are they going? How many different destinations for traffic are there out of the yard? How many local trains will actually run out of here? When? How many tracks need to be kept empty for arrivals, and how many sorting tracks for destinations are needed? How big an engine service, or indeed, whether you need one at all, depends on the trains terminating/originating out of the yard. If you don't know what's going to be on the layout, you don't know what you need.

Qs, cont.

From the original thread post, and sort of the original question here:

If your operation is set up that there aren't any true through trains and all trains come in from staging and terminate at the yard (the railroad I'm modeling actually kinda works this way with the freight trains) then if the yard is centrally located, all the trains have roughly a similar length run. If the yard is at one end, then trains in one direction out of the yard run almost the length of the railroad, while out the other end it's just a short pop into staging. This may or may not be a "bad" thing for your layout. Although I will have this sort of operation, my layout will be designed with the yard towards one end since most of the interesting activity is to the north, and to the south it's mainly just tonnage moves. Operating sessions will likely start with the morning northbound from staging actually staged as "arrived" in the yard. The afternoon arrivals/departure on the south subdivision and through passenger trains can probably be done by a "swing" operator as their times don't really intersect while the other crews are kept busy working locals in each direction on the trackage to the north, and a turn job on the branchline.

If your operation includes mostly through trains that either blow right across the whole layout, or just stop at the yard long enough to drop off or pick up a few cars, then the location of the yard doesn't matter to them. If you have locals based out of the yard, then you either model the yard at one end and dispatch local trains only in the direction of the rest of the layout. Or you centrally locate the yard and send a local in each direction out of the yard with through trains from staging setting off traffic for the locals. Operation at my club layout works much like this. Mainline freight trains drop cars in the yard and several branchline locals are based out of the yard in several directions. (The mainline routes basically form a big "X" with the central yard located right in between all four legs; there are locals run in three of those four directions, plus minor branches, and traffic connecting between those routes is exchanged in the yard. This makes for a very busy hub.)

Confused also

Correct.  Superimposing the middle (?) level on top of the staging yard is confusing.  Other than a connection, the two are unrelated.

That's why a schematic is clearer.  In Schematic 1 the yard is right out of staging.

In schematic 2, the yard is in the middle.

 Much clearer.  Neither one is right or wrong, its what you want the operation to be.

That's because you are designing a LAYOUT rather than a RAILROAD.  Asking whether the yard is better at the end or in the middle is an operational, a RAILROAD question.  Asking if you can fit a 30" radius loop someplace is a LAYOUT question.

Buy more than one sheet of paper.

Al that takes is a bit of thought about the space.  Lets say you have about 80 running feet of space per level, two levels, that's 160 ft.  You want to run 10 ft trains, that's a 12 ft siding, and you want 2 train lengths between sidings.  So one "siding" is 36 ft long.  160/36 = 4.4444 so that means you can have about 4 sidings on the layout, take away one for a yard and that lets you have one yard and 3 sidings.  You want more than that, then crank down the distance between sidings, 1.5 trains, 18 ft or a siding now becomes 30 ft long.  160/30 = 5.33.  You now get a yard and 4 sidings.

No, a list of cars and engines isn't required.  You do have to have some idea what the trains are doing, where they  come from and where they are going.  You have to decide what the yard is doing.

Is it a division point yard, that means that almost ALL trains terminate there, are switched and re-blocked.  Regardless of where the cars go. (I personally don't like the term "division point yard" because its poorly defined)

Is it  yard that just originates locals and switch engines to serve its part of the railroad and the only through freights that originate or terminate there are the ones that carry tonnage to or from the local industries.

You can make the layout with the major yards on either end (staging) and the yard(s) in the middle is just the industry support yard.

Seems like I'm half-way there

Reading all of your posts got me thinking that I already have quite a few questions answered, but as eastwind points out from his career, my approach seems to be bottom-up, requiring a course correction.

I made up all of these bits, a piecemeal, and now trying to put them together without looking at the big picture first (as an abstract).

Many parameters have already been determined, and I outlined those in my Givens and Druthers some time ago:  https://trainsluvr.com/2017/11/givens-and-druthers/ , while others like places and destinations I only made abstract, as in my LDEs (UPDATED TO CURRENT DESIGN):

So, perhaps I need to start from these LDEs, and work my way backwards (for me). The LDEs are calculated based on my train length, which is ~7-8 ft., then doubled to allow for a passing siding while preventing a tail of a train to be in a previous LDE with the head entering the next one.

I think my stumbling block is that I'm (freelancing - no set prototype/railroad) modelling some fictional North American railroad, yet none in specific. Most people have one or two railroads "dear and near to their hearts" from their childhood, but I grew up outside North America, so that connection is missing.

From my understanding, with a set prototype one selects a stretch of railroad they find interesting to them and model that. How does one approach a freelancing kind, without any specific set prototype?

Iterate

Unless you have some very specific prototype to follow you can't really start with a schematic and figure out how to fit it in your room, any more than you can start with the trackplan and then figure out how to operate it.

You need to iterate toward the final design.  Do a sketch to see what physically fits.  Do a schematic to see how it would be for operation.  Do another sketch to try to incorporate fixes for the operational problems you found on the schematic, which may involve reordering, eliminating and/or adding LDEs.  Lather rinse and repeat.  Eventually you should end up with something you're happy with.

How do you want it to look?

Will have a big effect on what you can fit in. Scenery takes up space , more mountains mean less city space for example so if you want lots of mountains you'll have less flat industrial areas. You could build a two deck city scene with no on scene yard and all dense spurs and sidings or a two deck Tehachapi like scene with grades and sidings and no on scene yard. You could make the whole layout a two deck Chicago like rail complex and basically all yard served by staging?  Have you made the choice layout type yet? .....DaveB

Planning

Since I have done it many times, I would say that it is entirely possible.

If you are modeling a prototype, you generally start with a schematic, a map.  No real railroad is configured to fit in a 16 x 24 room.  You start with a long linear plan, then pick the bits and pieces you can fit in your room and twist them to fit the space.

If you are freelancing you start with the schematic, then adjust the pieces you can fit in your room and twist them to fit the space.  In freelancing, even leaving out the parts that don't fit can become part of the backstory, after all if you are modeling a prototype, you have to leave out stuff too.

I've been looking at track plans and figuring out how they can be operated for years.  Its pretty easy to figure "an operation", maybe not "the operation".

Agreed its an iterative process, but you can start with a schematic, what you want, then iterate to what fits.  Think of the schematic as a piece of spaghetti and drape the wet noodle around your benchwork.  You may have to cut stuff to make it fit, but that's part of the iteration.  Same thing happens when modeling from the prototype.  I wanted Chadd's Ford, with its PRR interchange and diamond, had a location and a concept for it, but no matter how I played with it, it just didn't fit right, so I swapped it out for another location that made more sense for me.   

Since design is partially a visualization process, some methods will not work for all people.  I'm sure there are people who don't have the same spatial visualization as I have and can't grasp the whole "wet noodle" idea (not saying my concepts or abilities are better, just different and come naturally to me.)

Listen

You are going through many of the same issues I wrestled with in planning my current layout. I can say from experience, give careful attention to everything Dave Husman says. He was quite instrumental and of great help when it came to finalizing my track plan and the operational aspects of my layout, which is somewhat similar to what you are doing. 

Like you, my layout is freelanced and close to the same size as yours. I chose to model the N&W Pocahontas district because I like Appalachian railroads that haul coal, and many commercial engines and rolling stock were available in that road name. 

I have a lower staging deck that represents a division yard at each end of my "district". The visible yard on my layout is an assembly yard. Mainline trains set out coal/merchandise cars bound for industries modeled on the layout, and pick up OB cars destined for points Eastbound and Westbound. 

I have four helices that connect the decks and provide distance between the visible areas on my layout. When running ops this gives some distance between stations for the engineers. True, the helix is not visibly modeled track work, but that doesn't seem to matter too much to the operators. As they watch the trains traverse through the helix they are looking ahead to the industries they will need to switch, plan their moves, and organize car cards. 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so rather than try to explain everything I'll just provide a link to an operations blog I made that also includes my track plan. Some of the operational aspects I planned in this post are outdated and were changed once I began actual op sessions, but it gives you a good idea how things started out. Perhaps this info will help solidify what things you like/want and don't like/want on your layout, and provide a starting place for your own creativity to take over. 

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/planning-for-operations-on-the-pocahontas-district-12204571

Hope this proves beneficial in your future plans!

An open canvas...

Based on the advices given here, I created an initial schematic diagram, using LDE names from earlier drawings (above). I also updated all of my LDEs above to reflect the current design.

This schematic assumes a "true" South railroad, where East is left and West is right.

But now what - it's an open canvas with nothing in it. How does one decide where to put sidings, industries or scenic areas, etc?

I know that I would like to put the main yard in Newbridge as that is the largest, most suitable, area in the physical space for a city/yard.

My druthers were that I'd like to have quite a few variety of climates such as arid planes, hills with trees and rock formations, some canyons and tunnels, bridges and rivers.

I also wanted a branch line leading to a seaport/pier scene in Lockport, which isn't even in this diagram because I don't think I have room for it now that I've abdicated space below the support columns to general closet space for my spouse.
Could I put Lockport in place of Shorncliffe and all trains must pass through it on their way to Newbridge? That might make sense, as Lockport (presently Shorncliffe) could be the lowest altitude point on my railroad, with tracks slowly climbing up to Highpoint on the upper deck, it being the highest point at tip of the peninsula?

Plan

The schematic helps a lot because its very easy to see the relationships between the various places.

Welcome to freelancing.  That's what makes modeling a prototype railroad or area easy, all that stuff has already been decided by history.  With freelancing its up to you to figure it out.  Passing sidings depend on how long the trains are and how much single track you want between sidings.

That would put the yard in the middle, more or less of the layout.  That affects your operations.  You also don't have to have the yard IN a city.  The yard could be at Newbridge and the city at Jutland.  

With the yard in the middle you sorta have two basic concepts of how railroads operate.  Newbridge could be a (for lack of a better term) division point yard and it would block through freights, make pick ups and set outs and run out locals.  Lets call the north end staging Kansas City (KC) and Des Moines and the south end staging Houston and New Orleans (NOLA) just for giggles.  "Blocking through freights" means that trains from KC and Des Moines come into Newbridge, are switched and run out on trains to Houston and NOLA.  KC will generate cars for Newbridge,  Houston and NOLA, they will put those cars on a train all mixed up, run it to Newbridge, who will separate them, keep the Newbridge cars and run the others out on a train that originates with pure Houstons and another with pure NOLA cars.  Vice versa going north.  Then Newbridge takes the "Newbridge" cars (which are actually cars that go on any local or industry job out of Newbridge) and builds locals and switchers.

Or....

One mile north of where the north end helix/staging is there is a big switching yard, North Yard and one mile south of the south end helix/staging is there is a big switching yard, South Yard.  In the middle between them is a medium sized yard, Newbridge.  N Yard and S Yard build through trains that run between them and also builds a few trains that carry industry cars to Newbridge.  There are a few long through freights between Denver  and NOLA that have a set out for Newbridge.  Then Newbridge takes the "Newbridge" cars (which are actually cars that go on any local or industry job out of Newbridge) and builds locals and switchers.  The pulls from industry come back to Newbridge, are made into trains for N or S Yards and pick ups for the trains between Denver and NOLA.

That's up to you, but the wilder the combination of stuff the harder it is to make a coherent story.  For deserts, mountains and ports all in the same 100-200 mile range, you are pretty much modeling something in California.

Wherever Lockport is you can either put a small yard there and through freights set out and pick up, or Newbridge builds a train that specifically runs between Newbridge and Lockport that carries the cars to and from the port.  The rest of the railroad sends the cars to Newbridge, Newbridge runs the NBLP train which returns as the LPNB train.  Switchers at Lockport spot and pull the cars from the port.  If you put Lockport on a very short branch that would force the cars to go to Newbridge because the through freights go BY Lockport, but not THRU Lockport.

Oregon

Oooo. Oooo.  Oregon into Idaho.  

South end staging is Seattle.  South two LDE’s are along Columbia River.  South station just has siding on main and Lockport is in that LDE, right along river on a branch that connects to 2nd LDE. Lockport has a grain elevator and some rail to barge facilities.  The upper level starts in a mountainous forested region with a lumber mill and a plywood mill.  It gradually transitions to an arid region in Idaho will soda ash or potash mines.

Intermodal trains run thru staging to staging.  Potash/soda ash runs in both directions.  Grain runs loaded south and empty north.

You don’t have to call it Oregon or Seattle or the Columbia river, but using the concept helps you get ideas on terrain and industries.

0r Cali

  low staging is Oaktown or LA , on scene yard is Sac or San Berdoo, hill donner or Cajon, staging all points east 

Rough story

Hi,

do you have some kind of "story" you want to realize with your layout? I found that helped me...

Do you have some industries you want to model on your layout, e.g. a brewery and a "unobtainium processing plant" or a yard or some passenger operation? Or is there a prototype region that you'd like to lean on for inspiration, like "between Idaho and Texas"? Anything that gives you a guide line of what you want to achieve?

Use that story to provide yourself with some rough concept - and you'll find it easier to design the layout. It worked for me, even though I adapted my own backstory (and some industries) twice now, my layout still makes sense for me.

Just check the past issues of MRH for the articles on the Yosemite valley railroad, or Mike Confalone's articles - that is some stories transformed into very nice layouts. It doesn't matter they're different than yours. Your story doesn't have to be as detailed as theirs, but it should make sense in the first place.

Have fun!

PS: I like that diagram with the LDEs drawn to your benchwork - and the paper schematic of it. You have a great starting point for your design.

PPS: you can still go "TOMA" on your layout, once you've built your benchwork just drop a loop of track and run a train. As you build each LDE, move your track to the right position, cut it and put turnouts in... That way you can adapt your design as you go... Your staging level should feed the layout very nicely...

MIA

Hi everyone,

I apologize for MIA. Life happened...then I got a flu, so that's about it for the past two weeks. Though, I did a bit of work on my layout, finishing the benchwork, and now in the process of fitting remaining top surfaces on the staging deck.

Also, I received all of the track and turnouts for the staging, as you've seen it in this thread. I opted for stub-ended tracks on the peninsula instead of double-ended as shown, to maximizing the key track length there.

I started reading about KC area and it appears that's an epicentre of activity of all major railroads - had no idea. I like the concepts that dave1905 talked about and would like to do more DD because there's so much potential there, regardless of what my railroad will be called. The fact there are so many railroads intersecting would allow for running of all kinds of freight and consists, which I was going to do anyway, but now I would have a reason for it.

The Oregon/Idaho, or California, are also contenders, and I will do more research about them as well, and then start another thread about all of that. I'm not sure if I can come up with some story behind my railroad - I feel that might narrow things down too much and I'd like to keep it broad, but we'll see.

Thank you again for your ideas here, they've set me on a path now. More to come soon...