Yard

Obviously you cut out some of the stuff.  The prototype yard has 20 track and you are going to cut those to 1/4 so that's 5 tracks.

The prototype yard has 3 cleaning tracks, 3 hold/BO/Storage tracks, 3 R&D tracks.  Combining the cleaning track, BO and hold track into one track cuts 5 tracks.  Going to one R&D track cuts 2 tracks.  That leaves you with 3 class tracks (for example: east, west and local).

Done.

You will have to run fewer trains into the yard than the prototype.  The hard part about condensing the yard is actually condensing the operations.  In order to make this work, and still run the number of trains you will probably want to run, you will have to turn over the yard pretty much each session. 

On a real yard they might run a train to a particular destination once a day so all the cars gathered over the previous 24 hours would depart on that train.  We normally don't have the capacity to do that so we have to adjust the traffic and train volumes to accommodate our reduced space.

Or.....

We have to carefully bill cars going into the yard on the shift before the train runs.  The west local only runs on first shift, then you only bill cars to the west local on trains terminating on 3rd shift so they will be switched and ready for 1st shift.

...

You could very easily double the number of yard tracks to 10 and make the left hand side of the yard the East end of Yard X and the Right hand side of the yard the West end of Yard Y, with tracks cutting off from the mainline route in either direction towards staging.  In this setup, your eastbound train would exit to the left, run through your model railroad, and then enter into the yard from the right where elements are removed for that local area and then the rest is attached to the Westbound through freight where it heads out of the east end of the yard and instead of continuing through the layout, it hits a switch where it is then cut off towards staging.

You essentially get one yard that is effectively acting as two yards but visually looks like one yard, and with the inbound/outbound behavior looks and acts like One yard even though is it conceptually two yards.

Some operators have a hard time grasping the concept, and your yard master position is two, with one at either end of the yard.

How you approach it

Your approach started with fixing the compression of the yard (1/4 the tracks/size) then asking what operation you could fit in that.

The opposite approach is to decide what operation you want and then decide how many tracks you need.

The approach in the middle is to build it as big as space allows and then figure out what operation you can support with that size yard (more or less the approach I took).

Math error

If your modeled yard is 1/4 the length and 1/4 the width it is 1/16th the size of its prototype, not 1/8th.  So you have even less room to work in.

When I discuss yard design with people, I try to impress on them that length is not as critical as width.  Tracks have "jobs".  Those jobs might change over time but generally not from day to day.  Tracks are used to sort cars and build trains, and many of those trains only run once a day if that.  Think locals.  So if this yard is going to represent its prototype in any meaningful fashion you'll need more tracks.  You might get away with half as many tracks, but not less than that.

You can fit about ten HO tracks in a shelf about 28" to 30" deep.  Remember, you don't have to regularly reach the middle of the back tracks, only the ladder ends.  So depending on the ladders' shape you might not have that great a reach most of the time.  Of course, yard height and your operators' heights effect this as well.

Scott Chatfield

" length is not as critical as width."

  I tend toward the opposite viewpoint. Unless I'm modeling a compact big city terminal I like to make the yard as long as possible as I think long cuts of cars look more realistic than short cuts of cars in a wide yard( prototype yards tend to be longer than they are wide). For the yard considered here I'd see how much length I had available then make it as wide as necessary to do the job but not so wide as to conflict with the feel of the prototype. If I didn't have the length to make the yard look like a recognizable representation of the real one  I'd choose another more suitable prototype for the space.....DaveB

The yard needs to fit the traffic

Can you probably cut a lot of those tracks out, but you need to do it carefully based on what trains you’re going to run, and how you’re going to run them.  If op sessions are going to follow a strict sequence you can probably plan around fewer tracks.  If you’ll have some uncertainty in op sessions, the yard may need to be able to act as a bit of a buffer, in which case you’ll need more track.  The R/D tracks are the buffer between the yard and the rest of the railroad - if you run out of A/D tracks in an op session other parts of the yard get loused up pretty quick, and it can cascade to other areas on the railroad.

You haven’t said much about the layout of the yard, but since you’re following a specific prototype I’d guess you probably have some idea what that will be.  Maybe posting a sketch might help people help better.

Thanks

Thanks everyone.

This layout is 10 or 15 years in the future. I'm just getting my daily railroad fix by asking these questions now.

Once I figure out what space I have and narrow my focus, your answers will go a long way to helping me compress the prototype.

Yards

Having operated on different layouts over the years I have some worked better than others. Some important considerations are:

1. Keep the drill track separate from all other tracks. Switching cars on a layout takes about as much time as it does on the prototype. If the yard crew has to make way for locomotives heading into the engine terminal, or clearing for trains entering or leaving the yard can cause a cascade of problems through out the layout. Design your yard so the yard crew can continually drill cars no matter what else is going on in the yard. They will thank you and you will be much happier with the operations

2. Make the yard double ended. At a minimum this will allow trains leaving the opposite end of the yard the ability to head out on to the main with out causing any problems for the yard crew. All they will need to do is to tack a caboose on the end of the train and its good to go.

3. Have a minimum of two, if not three, arrival / departure tracks. These tracks need to allow the road crew to cut their locomotive from the train and run to the engine terminal with out interfering with the yard crew. The yard crew can then pull the cars from the arrival / departure tracks when they are ready for them.

4. Make the connection between the drill track and the arrival / departure tracks as simple as possible. This will allow the yard crew to easily access the tracks for either pulling cars or setting cars for an outbound train on the tracks

Yard tracks can do double and triple duty, so don’t be afraid to allow the yard crew to classify multiple destinations on one track. The layout I operate on the owner has a white board with a series of rows, one for each track. The yard crew then marks which destinations are used in each track. This allows the yard crew the flexibility to use the tracks as cars for one destination arrive. With the random nature of car cards, a whole lot of cars for one destination can arrive all at once overwhelming the ability of one track to hold them all.

Hope this helps

Jason Shron

If you are on facebook, I would reach out and find the kingston sub facebook page.  Jason Shron of Rapido trains is also building this in his basement.  He might be of some help

Random car cards

Car cards aren't necessarily any more random than any other system, and there are ways to properly plan out the moves and also play with the system to either balance or add variability on your layout.

I think another question to ask is how many industries on layout

How many industries with how many car spots are going to be on the layout?  If you have 50 spots for industries, but only 25 spots available in the yard, your yard will become a bottle neck for your operators.

Another possibility is to use "Y" switches for your yard ladders instead of the typical switch with one leg straight and one curving either right or left.  The "Y" switches take up 1/2 of the space of a conventional switch I think.  I would use conventional L/R switches only on the arrival/departure tracks.

Car cards are not random

This statement doesn't line up with 26 years of experience using car cards and waybills on my Siskiyou Line.

On my Siskiyou Line, I make up say 20 waybills for an industry that holds 3 cars. We’re talking 4 position waybills now, with the pattern:

1. Route to industry from off layout
2. Route from industry to off layout
3. Route to industry from off layout
4. Route from industry to off layout

I know the industry can hold 3 cars, so I assign 3 waybills routing cars to that industry from staging for op session 1. This is deliberate, not random.

For op session 2, I assign two more waybills routing cars to that industry from staging, again, deliberate, not random.

For op session 3, I assign three more waybills routing cars to that industry from staging. Notice, deliberate, not random.

Now I watch that industry. Does the spur serving it ever become over full? Then replace one of the waybills at the industry with a waybill that has routing through staging back to a different industry. Does the spur serving that industry seem to never be full to capacity? Then add another waybill routing a car to that industry from staging.

Notice this is never random. All I need to do is watch the industry spur traffic level and tune the traffic up or down as desired by adding or replacing waybills into the mix.

I find car cards to allow very good fine tuning control of traffic levels and to be anything but purely random.

Cars Backing Up...

It was said:

 To which was replied:

To which I say:

Not according to my years of railroading experience. It depends on who is ordering the cars! Some car managers are good at it, others suck.

When you have too many cars piling up waiting for their turn on a limited capacity industrial siding, the solution is pretty straight forward: You stuff them where you can. This includes holding them in the yard if space is available. Basically, you do whatever it takes to work through the backlog. It happens, and can happen often.

Andre

Swamped with cars

I’ve seen layouts on which the owner does as Joe describes and things pretty much always work smoothly.  And other layouts on which the owner just sets up the cycle and lets it run, and that’s where you can get some problems.  So pay attention to what Joe says if you want to host sessions where things always work smoothly!

On one layout we would occasionally get into a mode where most of the cars headed for one end of the railroad one session, and the other end the next session, alternating overwhelming the yards and occasionally staging.  

Part of the problem was there was a fixed schedule of trains which we didn’t always get completely through each session, but instead of picking up where we left off next session, the schedule was reset to start from the beginning.  But not the car locations / billings.  Once we switched over to picking up where we left off at the next session things improved a bit.

Another fix was very simple - putting hard limits on train length.  I forget the exact numbers, but it’s something like 10 cars for locals and 15 for through trains.  That’s enough for average traffic, but it dampens out the big swings.  That helped a lot.

Writing the industry capacity on a cheat sheet for the yardmaster who makes up the locals should have completely solved the too many cars for an industry problem, but newer yardmasters tend to overlook that fine detail if they’re feeling a bit swamped.  I should mention that on this layout there was no space for off spots at or near most of the industries.

The other way to solve the too many cars for the spots at an industry problem is to design in space on the industry leads to hold a few extra cars if necessary.  But that’s not something you can fix after the fact.

Glad You Started This Thread

Because I'm in a similar situation: contemplating modeling a major yard, but not immediately. Good discussion. 

I use blocking sheets,  It

I use blocking sheets,  It helps a lot more than you think.  It looks complex at 1st but after 1 round most everyone gets the hang of it.  Also if the train is properly blocked when arriving at the destination what might take a person several hours to tdo can be done in 30 minutes or less just having the cars in the proper order when the train arrive.

As joe said  I never exceed the number of car cards than the industry has spots.   On my layout it has been found that Number of spots x 4 (Waybill Turns) seems to be just about perfect and gives an average around 75% capacity for most industries.

Blocking sheet

Nice blocking sheet AzBaja - a lot more detailed than the little cheat sheets we have for the railroad I mentioned above.  The priority columns are a nice addition - helps the yardmaster along with decisions a bit.

Blocking sheet

How do you use the blocking sheet?  What is its purpose?

Just not paying attention

That’s not the fault of the car cards system, it’s the one assigning the waybills to the cars not paying attention and not doing proper follow up. The solution is simple — look around the layout for industries that are under capacity on cars and replace some waybills at the over capacity industry with waybills for the under capacity industry.

If all industries are over capacity, then there’s too many cars going to locations on the railroad, time to move a few cars to through trains that run from staging-to-staging. If staging is full too or the railroad doesn’t have through trains, then move some cars off the layout to the display case or storage.

Bottom line, if you’re constantly getting too many cars at an industry, then fix it! It’s not hard to do.

That said, it’s very prototypical to occasionally have an overflow situation, and it can be an interesting challenge to need to store an extra car or two somewhere nearby for a session until the traffic level eases. But not an overflow situation all the time or at nearly every industry — in that case, wake up and take the very simple steps needed to restore balance to the layout traffic. 

CC&WB work like the sands of an hourglass

Obi-Wan:
"You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them. bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness."

Industries work like a funnel or hourglass full of sand.  If you have too much sand/cars waiting to go in remove them at the mouth of the funnel.  As the layout runs it cycles everything will slowly work it's way around and even out,  if an industry only has 4 spots that go out ever session,  that is very self regulating it will never change.  If you have 12 cars trying to fill the 4 spots,  remove about half the cars in waiting.  You will always pull 4 cars out of the industry. Control the input.  if you have done it correctly after about 4 to 6 cycles of the layout everything will even out.  

​Start with about half the cars you think you need,  you might be surprised how well that works.  If you need more cars and waybills added them as need.  But if you Yard is full of Cars/Sand,  you just have way too much on the layout.  Do not overfill your hourglass.

Prototype handling of car surges

Surges of cars is not at all unrealistic, and it can be interesting to model, but you need to plan ahead when building your layout to provide storage space.  Here is a fascinating description in gory detail about how corn syrup arrives at an interchange in surges, gets moved to a storage track, and then into the unload spots at an industry written up by a real railroad employee.

http://oscalewcor.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-corn-syrup-flows.html

For the purposes of this discussion I think there are a few key points:

• Cars arrive at the interchange at a varying rate.
• The industry unloads the cars at a fairly constant rate
• Cars are spotted in the order they arrived at the interchange - oldest first.

The storage track acts as a buffer for irregular car surges, and adds operating interest.

(Note there's a lot of other very good prototype information on that same blog  http://oscalewcor.blogspot.com/, hasn't been updated for a long time but the posts that are there are definitely worth a read.)

Ken Rice

I actual have copied that exact thing from that blog on my layout in Adobe Pass for the industry of Sucrocorp.  You need to still treat the storage track as a separate industries.  Granted it feeds the Corn Syrup facility that overflow tracks on my layout only has 8 spots.  So cars need to be metered into that location if they are not they just build up in the yard.  Just to run that and make it all work takes forty 17.6k gal Tank Cars.  It is surprising how many cars it take to fill out the complete cycle of 1 industry if done correctly.

So it is a Yes and No thing,  but the overflow track needs to be treated like a industry that feeds into Sucrocorp,  if not cars will just start to backup and clogging up the yard,

Layouts are not real world,  they needed to be looked at and treated like those old number tile sliding puzzle games.  You have only so much space and spots,  to make room for one new tile you need to move another.  The more open spots to move tiles the easier it is to complete the puzzle.  If you fill up all the squares in the tile puzzle nothing will move an everything is locked up.

Once you layout is in balance you will know.  When it is out of balance you will also know everything will be more difficult to do or locked up.  You need to find that point from when it goes from to easy, to fun, to hard and then just no fun at all.

May be we need severals arrival track and one or two split track

I prepare to construct a huge yard on the extansion of my N scale layout now in Québec.

I have had the chance to operate some magnificient layout, with European or American design.

But the most suffer from the same  two troubles generaly, the arriving track is small or in any way can't absorb quickly the arriving trains or groups of cars which need to be classified on the yard.

When you use a time table, for example,  train A reach the yard at 10.00 and train B arrive at 10.30, well we have not really the time to clear the siding on the main or the arrivial track of the yard for train B and dispatch all the cars ont he waybills track of the train A.

This occurs in the real thing too,  in Europe most of the yard have a small size compared to US ones.

But many  arriving track are double, parts of the yard and it's also exist "split track" next to them to make a first or a second cut in the arriving train and from these split track the cars are assigned to the waybills track in the yard to be classified

I will use this on my design of my new yard in N scale, this don't take a lot of place to double the arriving track or to make a "split" track; along the yard even three parallel track  for arriving trains in both side (north and south) are enough to dispatch any arriving trains, split it a first time on the third track and put the cars on the waybills tracks

I think is really a necessity to well operate a big yard and made a good balance between the incoming cars and arrival trains.

When I see @joebaker design and the needs of such waybills tracks I'm a ferm beleiver he needs a good arrivals track; lot of movements but the starting point is the arrival train to be split in the yard.

If severals arriving trains are needed to give eat to the yard ( the cars) you need place to receive them before you send them on the waybills tracks

If you havn't place to store these arriving trains, first you stop traffic on the main line with waiting trains and in the siding of the yard and the whole system is no more operationable.

And to compress the yard, first forget the ladder design to put the turnouts, a diamond design win place, second if you need a big yard, you can put it around a corner of the room, in place to take a long wall;  you can obtain the same lenght of track by designing your yard around the corner, but try to use broad curves if possible.

The lenght is divided by two and the yard don't eat a long wall of the room; this is the way I would follow in my design

Lots of Good Discussion and Advice

Lots of good discussion and advice still coming in. I'm reading it and banking it for later.

Thanks everyone for your input.