I would not put more than one route in each direction.

There should be no reason to need a 4 track mainline through a yard.  In fact, it would be better if the mainline does not go through the yard.  Just have a single lead off of the main to alow trains to enter the yard and have it continue out the other side, but should only be used to make up or break up a train, so that the train does not go through the yard.  Is your railroad really going to be so busy that you are making up or breaking down more than one train at a time?

My Preliminary List of Trains through South Erie Yard

South Erie Yard is the Northern Terminus for the P&A Railroad.  So except for entire the some of the Coal Extra's eventually heading to the Port Facilities on the South Erie, Titansburg & Ironton RR all P&A trains arriving in South Erie need to be broken down and all P&A trains departing South Erie need to be created.  

So not only does the Yard Crews needs to be able to get to the trains to reclassify the cars and spot the outgoing P&A trains on the Southbound A/D tracks but the road engines need to be able to get to/from these A/D tracks to the Power Yard.

Add to that the SET&I Trains from that RR which has a massive Integrated Steel Mill, a Port Facility, and other Industries.  

The majority of the cars that the P&A Southbound trains originate from the NYC.  I plan on having several of the scheduled NYC trains add South Erie Yard as a Station Stop for them.  (Since the P&A is owned and operated by the NYC).  So there will be Eastbound and Westbound trains, entering the yard, the Engine power cut off, and park in a "pocket siding" in the yard, while the yard crews switch out the cars destined to the P&A and add cars either heading East to Buffalo or West to Cleveland/Chicago and when done, the Engine power couples to the trains, pump's air, etc and proceeds back to the NYC Main.  

So there will be plenty of "movement" in the yard and I don't want unnecessary delays because there is only one path and it's fouled by a train so any other movement on that end of the yard can't happen.  On the other hand, having 3 or 4 paths might be too many.  I'm trying to figure out how the prototype decide such things.

Ken L. 

 

Yard operations.

Sounds like you need dedicated arrival departure tracks. These tracks are specifically for trains to land and trains to depart, switching does not generally occur in these tracks. Also remember that switching cannot be scaled so planning the session ahead of time so the switch crew is working on the next session not the current session. 

Example, train arrives in the designated departure track, the road crew takes the power to the engine house lead and hands it off to the roundhouse crew of secures the power. The inbound crew would hand in their paperwork and a yard clerk would go verify the train. After the cars are verified switch lists would be created for the switch job to break the cars down to switch. 

If you have a drill track the switch jobs can be pulling cuts out of the switching yard and sorting cars for the next departing train. Once they build the train, or run out of room, they will then shove these into the departure yard. Once the switch crew has all the cars assigned to that train they will let the yard know. At that point power could be brought from the engine house. The caboose would then be added by the switch job, the the train would be air tested if there was no yard air. 

By this time the train crew would have been called and would arrive, get their paperwork, check their orders and get ready to depart the yard. 

A yard itself is a dance, good yardmasters can keep trains arriving and departing, keep lists up for the switch jobs, work with the hostlers, set the Carmen up to do their jobs. 

Some yard track help - pocket tracks- these are usually a set of crossovers that a switch crew or set of road power to duck out of the way to allow other moves to occur. What you are talking about is a engine track or ready track.  Railroad try not to waste time, so if they are going to cut the power and set it over this will allow them to service the power and make running inspections. 
 

It also sounds like you may be trying to push too much into this yard.  A yard needs to be able to handle the traffic of all the regular jobs, setouts, pickups, and allow for enough open tracks to move around. Of course some days are heavy some days light.

Looking forward to seeing your drawings.

The NYC power does not need to be serviced...

The NYC Power is either coming from Chicago or Buffalo, so South Erie (located a less than 2 miles southwest of Erie PA) doesn't need to be serviced at South Erie.  It just needs to get out of the way for the yard crews to take care of the cars.  Having them go all the way to the Power Yard would foul things up even more, with needing to find a route to go from the either the EB or WB A/D Tracks to the Power Yard and back.  The pocket tracks are directly connected to the A/D tracks so they are within 200' of their trains.  

At the moment there are the following tracks.

7 Classification Tracks (with it's own Lead)
10 A/D Tracks (2 for EB (NYC) Trains, 2 for (NYC) WB Trains, 3 for NB (P&A) Trains, 3 for SB (P&A Trains)
1 Runaround Track (to facilitate moving locomotives to/from West End of Yard to Power Yard
Plus the Mainline Track, which might as well be a second runaround track, since no trains run through passed the yard.  All trains in this area will enter/leave the yard.  

Due to linear space restrictions, the A/D Tracks need to be next to the Classification Tracks.  

The major fouling "events" will be:

A) Motive Power moving between Power Yard and their trains
b) Freight Cars from P&A Trains being taken from A/D Tracks to Classification Tracks and vice-versa
C) Freight Cars for/from NYC being added to/taken from EB/WB Trains from/to Classification Tracks

Having the trains move in and out of the yard itself is not much of an issue at all.  It's all of the activity that needs to be done before these trains leave the yard that is the reason for looking into having multiple routes to move within the yard.

Ken L


 

  "Designing the South Erie

You could study some prototype yards similar to what you are trying to create and see the patterns they use. It's really not that big a deal as whatever gets built will be used to move the trains even if it's not ideal. You could just run the mainline on through and lay turnouts at each end of the future yard and then fill in the yard tracks as you see how much traffic you actually model.Stuff costs money and takes time ( lots of each) so you might end up with a smaller yard than you initially visualize.....DaveB

I haven't seen a drawing of your layout,

but it sounds like you are trying to put 10#s in a 5# sack.  There are a lot of things the prototype does that we can't model.  If you have 10 a/d tracks it sounds like you need a lot more classification tracks.  Also how many yard hostlers will you have at an operating session?  How much room do they have to work in without getting in each other's way?  I think you are planning to model something that will turn into a real pain to operate.

The Drawing is coming...

...In the meantime, the Yard will have Crew Aisles on both sides.  Road Crews will be on one side with a 5' aisle, and the Yard Crews will have their own aisle.  

As for the number of A/D tracks, I don't expect every A/D track to be filled but to facilitate traffic flow, in the various scenarios I have written out, I figure 2 tracks for the EB and 2 tracks for the WB would be appropriate.  And since South Erie Terminates and Originates all P&A Trains, 6 A/D tracks should be sufficient.  

Ken L

Yard

Much of this is not going to be helpful without knowing what the yard looks like, but you have an unusual yard configuration.  Is this a staging yard too?

In a normal freight yard there are 2-3 times as many class tracks as A/D tracks.  For example the flat switching yard at Spring TX where I was Asst Trainmaster had 6 AD tracks and 16 class tracks.  The hump yard at N Little Rock had 18 AD tracks and 64 class tracks.

If you go to Google Books, search for "Freight Terminals and Trains", by John Droege.  There is a 1925 edition, that should have lots of examples of how prototype flat yards were designed.

sounds like real work

... and I hope you are getting paid for it. 

Seriously, if it is becoming a nightmare, it's beyond that point you were asking about. You have achieved too much realism in your model railroading.

I would suggest you look up the 10 commandments of yard design

http://www.housatonicrr.com/yard_des.html    It will give you a clearer understanding of how yards work, and especially what works on a model. Then adjust the guidelines to fit your situation. And a track plan is worth a thousand words.

10 commandments

While the "10 commandments" are useful, they aren't required and the prototype varies from them quite often.

The biggest mistake I see is people go berserk with crossovers and connections for "flexibility" and don't really remember what they are actually doing in the yard.  They end up with a yard that can make any move they want without interference, so the train isn't delayed the 5 times a session when a move is made, but the lead is so long and convoluted that when they switch cars, 200 times a session it takes twice as long.  

The key is to understand what the yard is going to do, then build it to do that.  If its primarily a staging yard, design it to do that.  If its a class yard design it to do that.  

For example having 6 AD tracks and 7 class tracks.  How long is it going to take to switch one train?  How long will it take to turn over the yard?  Are you really going to have that many trains to switch at the same time?

If you can switch one train and build one train in an hour, that means that you can only process 3 trains per 3 hour session.  You could get by with 2 AD tracks and turn them 3 times.  Add one more AD track for slack.

If you are planning on switching 10 trains in and building 10 trains out, that is a  train in and out every 18 minutes.  Can your yard process a train every 18 minutes?  Can you physically switch a 20-25 car train (or whatever your train size is) in 18 minutes?

Salvage what I have thus far, or start over again?

There are two main purposes for this yard, interchange with the NYCS, NKP, and SET&I and the origination of SB P&A and termination of NB P&A trains.  Due to the fact I can’t have a yard that is 100’ long or one that is as wide as it is now.  (It’s now at 39” at its’ widest point - which would be ok with an aisle on either side, but the yard crews can’t reach 3’ to manually throw turnouts at for the SB “A/D” tracks – it narrows at both ends to 21”).  I am left with the only option of abandoning the idea of having NYCS trains coming into the yard, dropping off and picking up cars, but this leads to another problem.  This had been something I had wanted to include in this yard as it the most logical of options.  The P&A would have built the yard in South Erie to achieve the connections it needed to the other Railroads.   I seem to recall years ago having a discussion (which I believe Dave H was a part of) that having an interchange yard in one place and the South Erie Yard in another place was not plausible.  I can’t recall what the reason was, but from that point on the logical choice was to place the yard as close to the NYCS and NKP Mainline as possible. 

Cars for trains have to come from somewhere.  South Erie is at MP 2 (not sure how the railroad would exactly designate the MP marker since at South Erie there is the WYE with one branch going West (to the NYCS heading to Buffalo), one going East (to the NYCS heading to Chicago and to the NKP heading to Conneaut, OH) and one going South (to Pittsburgh via the P&A) – but the yard here is less than 2 miles away from the NYCS mainline.   So cars from Northbound P&A trains have to go somewhere and cars for South Bound P&A trains have to come from somewhere.

There is the South Erie, Titansburg & Ironton.  The more I think about how much freight car traffic will go where, I am now thinking 20%-30% of the freight cars will be to/from the SET&I RR, with much of that being Coal Hopper Traffic.

Setting aside what I wanted to see on the model, speaking from what would an actual RR do.  Would the railroad not place one yard at the point where it needed to receive cars from the other railroads, and since the NYCS owns the P&A, is it really “interchange”.  If the P&A was absorbed into the NYCS completely and was part of the NYCS and this was a yard where this N-S mainline connected to the E-W Mainline it wouldn’t be considered an interchange yard.  So although yes, technically it is an “interchange yard”, that’s only because the P&A is being run independently from the NYCS (like the NYCS did with the P&LE).  Since up to 60-70% of the freight cars for P&A Trains (and that percentage still may change in the future, but I want it a solid majority of the cars, not just a plurality) comes from the NYCS to say the P&A yard would need to receive cars from the NYCS and then to block them for SB P&A Trains and to take cars from NB P&A trains to block them for the NYCS trains stopping to pick them up. 

If I follow prototype practices, there would be no designated A/D tracks for this flat yard. I remember one of the first clinics I ever went to at my first NMRA National Convention was on Freight Yard Design, and one of the first things the clinician (who worked at a Freight Yard for I believe Conrail for over 20 years) was there was no such thing as A/D yards or official A/D tracks in a flat yard.  For a hump yard there is only because you have to have a place to receive the cars before you classify them in the hump yard but his focus was on flat yards, which is what South Erie is).  There are 18 tracks in this yard plus the mainline – which as I said before acts more as a runaround track as no train actually traverses the track to get passed the yard, and Freight Train heading into South Erie is heading into the Yard.  The Passenger and other Class 1 Trains continue on, through the other leg of the WYE avoiding the Yard).  The only “model railroad” amendments to following prototype practices in the design thus far is adding a few additional crossovers because Yards tend to be bottlenecks, and given yard switching takes longer than any other task on the RR (compared to a road crew operating a mainline train), giving in to this non-prototype addition to the design is to help alleviate further delays in the yard caused by route’s being blocked.   My designating the Tracks as A/D tracks for this thread indicates where I have added a long lead and crossover to allow for separate switching cars to/from trains. Which is why the OP focuses on how much of having these multiple switching/movement routes should I be concerned. 

Obviously I have one (or most likely more than one) thing in error here.  And I appreciate everyone’s feedback here.  As I’m about to scrap what I have so far for South Erie and start with a blank piece of paper again.  Before I do, here is what the West End of the South Erie Yard looks like thus far.  I also have the East End drawn, but in order for it to be turned into an image that can be visible, I have to export screen images and then cut and past them together, and the East end is another 15 images, and I don’t have the patience to cut and past them all, especially if I’m about to scrap the whole concept and start with a blank sheet of paper for the ten millionth time! SIGH.

     

If I do choose to start from scratch, I believe the first thing I will need to decide is, where do the cars in this yard come from and where do they go.  Obviously two types of trains on that list are the P&A Southbound Trains that are created in this yard, and the P&A Northbound Trains that terminate in this yard.  The bigger question is, how do I get those cars to the SET&I, NKP, and most importantly, and perhaps the root cause of my problems in designing this yard, the NYCS.

Thanks again.

Ken L.

Separating the Interchange Yard From Classification Yard????

OK, 

The more and more I think about it, the more I am being "forced" into the direction of creating an entirely independent Yard to handle the "interchange" with at the very least the Freight Cars from the NYCS.

The Interchange Yard would most likely be represented by Staging, with actual Transfer Runs, done by the Yard Crews, over the Mainline (under Yard Limit Rules) to.from the South Erie Classification Yard to this new "yard".  The Interchange Yard Crew would classify/block the cars east and west so the South Erie Yard Crew only has to worry about classifying "NYCS" Cars, and not deal with direction, or blocking for the NYCS Through Freights.  The Interchange Yard is jointly operated between the NYCS and the P&A (again not a huge deal since the P&A is owned by the NYCS but this is getting into minutia that doesn't effect operations on the Layout, so I am satisfied with the "backstory" explaining where and how the NYCS cars get from the NYC to the P&A.  It means I will have to abandon this portion of operations on the Layout, but this yard was getting far too complicated for it to function reliably and have multiple tasks.  This means I can take the tracks used for the EB and WB trains, reduce them down to three (3) tracks, and re-purpose them for SB trains.  I can eliminate the current 3 SB tracks.  This should shorten the yard significantly as there are a few crossovers (especially on the East end of the Yard) that added at least 20' of length the the Yard.  So if the depth is kept at 39" after the reconfiguration, where the benchwork is less wider (@21" instead of 39") I would have a total of 18 Yard track (6 for A/D Tracks 12 Classification).  It also might allow to have a small storage stub ended Storage yard as well. 

BTW, does anyone know of any Yard Facility with it's engine service facility reached via a 180 degree curve?  

I don't want tracks crossing over the aisle, but if I could locate the Engine Service Facility on the opposite side of the aisle and have the power yard at the very end of the Classification Yard and  A/D Tracks, it would be much easier.  It's justifying the 180 curve that I am nervous about.  

Thanks again everyone.

Ken L.

 

AD tracks

I would agree that most flat yards are smaller yards so don't necessarily have dedicated receiving and departure tracks.  Having said that, I have worked in or around flat yards that did have receiving and departure tracks, both Lloyd Yard at Spring, TX and Settegast Yard at Houston (Kirkpatrick & Ley Rds) were flat yards that had receiving tracks separate from the classification tracks. 

A lot of it depends on the age of the yard, the size of the yard and how recently it was upgraded.

Interchange and 180 degr curve

You are way overthinking this, interchange is just a destination that is not your own railroad, everything coming to you is just another cut to switch, no different than any other train.  Stop worrying whether it's interchange or not, it's JAFT, Just Another Friendly Train.  The inbound scatters to everyplace except other railroads, the outbound just has one block, not here.

N Platte, NE, has a 180 degree lead to the WWD departure yard that goes over the eastward run through tracks.  It is affectionately known as the "sheep jump".

So how should I deal with the NYCS destined cars?

If the NYCS Trains stop at the South Erie Yard to drop off and pick up cars, I'm left with a yard that is getting too big for the space it needs to fit in.  Is it plausible for there to be a separate yard at the junction with the NYCS mainline where the cars are interchanged between the P&A and NYCS.  It wouldn't be a major yard, but busy enough to justify it's existence.  I don't have to worry about what it would look like because it is represented by staging.  But having actual "Transfer runs" of cars from the South Erie Yard to this Junction would be easier to do.  UNLESS, there is no way the prototype would do such a thing.  

And thank you for clarifying A/D Tracks/Yards.

Ken L. 

Basics

Basic questions.

A yard can have two ends.  Do you plan on having a double ended yard?

What will each end do?

Is it one big yard or will have separate, serial or parallel, yards for each direction?

How many blocks are you going to make?

(PS: your track diagrams really don't help, unless I print it out and bunch of sheets of a paper and literally cut and paste it together it isn't very clear.)  A simple sketch might be better.

Also...

Don't forget that this is a model railroad. I know you're trying to make it as realistic as possible, but there's a limit to what can be done. You're twisting yourself into knots trying to make this absolutely realistic - but those who actually model a prototype have it just as bad (or possibly even worse), since there is just no way to have our models literally to scale. (Assuming that one doesn't have the resources of a billionaire.)

???

I'm lost.  If you have a train with a NYC set out 20 cars in the yard it will overload it.  If you have a transfer set out 20 cars in the yard it will be OK.

What's the difference?

The same 20 cars end up in the yard.  The only difference I see is what name you call the train.

 If you are expecting to

If you are expecting to handle all those trains at once then you will need a huge yard. The yard may need multiple lead tracks and be all double ended tracks. This would require multiple operators and space considerations for them. That level of yard planning is way beyond me. 
 

If the trains are separated by an hour or two between arriving/ departing then you can have a much smaller yard and fewer A/D tracks. One or two switchers could be working constantly to sort the cars. What is the schedule? 
 

You could build the largest yard you can in the space and then work backwards to figure out how many trains can go through at a time and adjust the schedule accordingly. This avoids any complicated problem solving at the risk of not getting what you want from the yard design when finished.

 

Complicated (as I always seem to complicate things :-\) Answers

A yard can have two ends.  Do you plan on having a double ended yard?< < <

YES, double ended (with the exception of the Storage Tracks).

This means for every crossover it adds about 6' of distance (two #8 turnouts, with 15" in between each set at both ends)
 

Activity at both ends:

If I have the NYCS Mainline Trains do the interchange:

- Trains are going to be coming/going in both directions.  Eastbound trains enter the yard from the West End of the Yard drops off/picks up cars, and then leaves the yard at the East End.

- Yard Crews will spot cars for NYCS Mainline trains to pick up on "Pocket tracks" next to EB/WB A/D tracks so NYCS Crews don't have to foul either Classification Yard Ladder Tracks to pick up/drop off cars.   In other words there are two tracks at either end of the EB/WB A/D Tracks (one at each end for cars being picked up, one at each end for cars being dropped off.  

- Road Power will need to go to/from either end of the yard (west end from terminated Northbound Trains Road Power to the Power Yard, east end from Power Yard to "new" Southbound Trains)


Activity at Each End:

East End Yard Crew will classify cars from inbound trains and cars from Westbound NYCS Trains

Classification of Cars for P&A Through Freight Trains will be done by the East End Yard Crew.   East End Crew will Classify Cars for P&A trains without blocking.

West End Yard Crew will Block cars for Local.  (By splitting the duties will keep both crews busy and uses both ladder  thereby increasing Sorting capacity.  Again this may be totally off the wall so I welcome a dose of Prototype Reality)
 

< < <

This is one huge yard handling trains in all directions, UNLESS I decide to create a separate Yard to handle EB/WB trains and like the NKP did at Frankfort, "transfer" cars from one yard to the other (i.e. at Frankfort from time to time, the Westbound Yard Crew would bring cars over to the Eastbound Yard, and vice versa)  The EB/WB Yard most likely be staging.  Though I really would like to keep this one big yard if I can figure a way.

If I keep the NYCS Mainline trains doing the interchange in the yard, there are the NYCS EB/WB trains entering and leaving the yard. 

For every shift (i.e. Operating Session)

There is one (1), possibly two (2) P&A Northbound trains (in addition to the trains that don't need reclassification at South Erie that are proceeding to the SET&I Yard, such as the Coal Extra's)  And the reverse with SET&I crews bringing cars from the SET&I Yard to the South Erie Yard.  

There are four (4) scheduled P&A Southbound Through Freights.  There most likely two (2) or more  will have more than one section.  

There is one (1) P&A Southbound Local


< < <

For the Local, there are 9 towns with customers for the P&A, and some towns only have two (2) or three (3) customers to serve and do not need service every day, so I figure 5 tracks would be sufficient to classify cars  for the Local at one end on the Yard.

So I figure I will need 8 tracks* on the other end of the Yard to Block Cars as follows:

- P&A Fast Freight - Southbound (Pittsburgh)
- P&A Fast Freight - Southbound (Harrisburg)
- P&A Through Freight - Southbound (Pittsburgh)
- P&A Through Freight - Southbound (Harrisburg)
- Cars to SET&I
- Cars to NYCS
- Cars to NKP

* When first figuring out how many tracks for Classification I forgot the SET&I cars so I found a way to add an eight Classification Track in the Yard.

< < <

Sorry about that.  I have yet to figure out to find a place to have this huge file of the exported JPG that is one file and to share it on MRH forums.  When my ISP was Time Warner I had access to storage on the internet, but ever since Spectrum took over, that service was eliminated.  :-  

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From other Post:
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What's the difference?

The same 20 cars end up in the yard.  The only difference I see is what name you call the train.< < <

Here is the difference (as I see it, again this is me most likely overthinking things).

Transfer run is one of 25-35 cars run from Staging to Freight Yard and Freight Yard to Staging (not getting into minutia about Labor Contracts, unless this is a glaring, no way would this happen on prototype, the same crew from Staging (i.e. Interchange Yard) every 2-3 hours.  

Transfer Run could literally pull into Classification Yard 

VERSUS

NYCS 2-3 Mainline trains (which are running from Buffalo to Chicago and vice versa) stopping every 2-3 dropping off and picking up 10-15 cars.

So the difference is the amount of "activity" to deliver and pick up these cars.  If it was one train pulling into the yard and one train pulling out of the train, then I would agree with you.  But it's one train versus multiple trains, and if it's multiple trains, how does one design a yard to deal with all that activity and not causing a huge stoppage in work as the various trains enter/leave the yard.


 

Shawn...

As I shared in the previous post, that is the list of scheduled trains I plan on having to deal with.  How many of the NYC trains is more or less based on how many cars I need to create the four (4) plus Local trains for each shift.  I may try redesigning it as you have suggested, but that will cut down on how many trains available.  I came up with what I want on the schedule for P&A trains, and have been slowly working of defining more precisely as time goes on the number of trains to support that level of traffic.  So we'll see I guess.

For South Erie, I plan on having a:

Yardmaster
East End Switching Crew
West End Switching Crew
Hostler
Yard Clerk*

*Though not a typical Model RR position, from what I have heard for those who have (or had) one (such as when Chuck Hitchcock had a Clerk Position for his second ATSF layout - sorry I can't recall what the name of it was, his first one, his Argentine Div. was my favorite) and from what I have been told by Chuck and some of his Operators that I have met, although yes it was a "Desk Job" it was fun.  Not sure how that would work out for a Yard Clerk for a Freight Yard (Chuck's clerk was to handle the large industry - IIRC a Grain Mill???).  The Yard Clerk would work with the Agent Clerk (who will represent the Clerks for all of the Town's that have customers.  This position is found on several model railroads, and it's an intriguing position that most consider fun.  They will tell the Yard Clerk who would tell the Yardmaster what towns in the Division need empty cars.  The Yard Clerk would sort all of the Waybills.

The Yard Clerk will have his own work desk.  The Yard Crews will have their own aisle to work in, and the Road Crews will be in the aisle on the other side of the yard.  This is how I am able to have such a deep yard, as long as each Crew can reach what they need to do get the job done.

Thanks for the input

Ken L.

 

C and O Fan...

...you have some valid points.  Though I know of one successful "selective compression" of the huge freight yard in Frankfort, IN.  Tony K., with help from retired NKP Employee's and experienced track planners were able to come together did it and though there are delays, come to find out the delays experienced on the model (as I found out the one time I was on a road crew on a train on the NKP 3rd Sub with Don Daily as my conductor) was the same as it was on the prototype.  I sure do miss listening or reading the stories he would tell about operating on the 3rd Sub.  He, like Dave H. on here, was always willing to answer questions and many of us learned a TON from him.  I'm thankful that we have Dave H and others who have worked on the prototype and willing to share their 1st hand experiences working on the railroad.

There is no perfect design.  But what I'm trying to figure out is, how did the prototype, if designing a new yard, balanced traffic flow vs. size/cost etc.  IIRC, Frankfort developed as two different Railroads with two separate yards, that eventually became a larger yard but still functioned as two separate yards (an eastbound yard and westbound yard).  But the traffic in that case was fairly even with the same number of trains heading East and West.  With my Yard, that isn't the same.  Most of the cars being classified into trains are Southbound, with EB and WB trains delivering cars for those trains.  As the cars coming from the Northbound trains are being classified for their destination (most into staging representing the NYCS system).

Thanks for the feedback.

Ken L. 

Yard

I was going to answer in detail, but I don't want to spend that much time typing.

Make the interchange with the NYC a "transfer", that simplifies a whole bunch of stuff and gets rid of the pocket tracks.  If the NYC has a yard in Erie, why would it even be having through freights setting out and picking up like that.

Consider having one end of the yard do ALL the switching (classification) and the other end of the yard do ALL the trimming (building).

Your options are:

1. Having one end do all the switching for all the destinations and the other end do all the trimming
2. Having each end do both switching and trimming for selected traffic (i.e. through & local)
3. Having each end do both switching and trimming for selected direction

Most of the yards I have worked in did option #1.  Options #2 and 3 require internal transfers between the ends that have to be reswitched.

Consider using smaller switches in the yard, large switches allow higher speeds, you are in a yard, all the movements will be low speed, you don't need huge switches.  Real class yards use #10, #8, even #7 switches in yards.  The UP had #10 trailing point crossovers in the main track in double track. If you want your yard to work, don't use anything larger than a #6 on the switching lead or your switch engines will never be able to keep up with the volume.  Model railroads don't switch like real railroads.  Model railroads switch like every car is a load of dynamite, real railroads don't do that.  The distance a switcher has to travel to get from track to track is critical, using large switches increases that distance and slows down production.  Going from a #6 to a #8 switch on the lead means your switcher handles 25-30% fewer cars.