Do you need a yard ?

I have to agree, you don't need a yard. Remember, it is your layout , your world. But I just can't picture a layout without one. You need a place to set up and set out cars. Place to make trains. I considered it the "heart" of where trains begins or ends. Maybe I am bias since switching is my bag.

No yard, less cars; less

No yard, less cars; less cars, less action.

I believe that's why we tear up the ovals in the first place.

To yard or not to yard

That is the question.

The layout I anticipate building will be my first to have much of a yard...assuming I can make it work.

I feel I have been missing out on past layouts because I did not have a yard.

I think a layout needs a yard if one is going to do much more than run trains.

If I can get the "rights to use some more space" for my layout, I hope to eventually have hidden staging and a visible yard too.

Good topic Byron!

Want a Yard!

Initially I just had a staging yard but then realised that I could adapt it to act as a double-ended yard(let?) simply by adding a couple of extra tracks for storing and forming up trains along with a couple more tracks for holding spare loco's. I even use a Peco Locolift to act as a turntable for turning the loco's for their next workings and also keeping the loco that works in on a freight the same end so that it goes back out in the same direction!

Brian W.

"Yardless" is not an option for me

Interesting topic!  Given the theme of my layout, I really had no choice but to have a yard - in this case an "industrial support" version.  Even if that weren't the case, I'd still have found some excuse to include one, because I really enjoy shuffling and sorting cars on the various tracks.

Visible yards not necessary for engaging ops

No yard, less cars; less cars, less action.

I believe that's why we tear up the ovals in the first place.

Not necessarily true, One can have a lot of operating activity and handle hundreds of cars with no formal visible yard on the layout, if it's designed well. But you do need staging yards if you are goign to handle a lot of trains and/or cars..

"Through" schematic or not doesn't matter, if that's what you mean by "ovals". Personally, I like visible yards. But they are no more an absolute requirement for purposeful operations than are funny hats and vests.
 

Whether visible or staging,

Whether visible or staging, you're still building a yard.

That's the secret - it's all about staging

That's the secret - it's all about staging - and if you want more trains and more action, that's going to be an offstage yard.

But the visible layout could have NO yards - and that's the revelation for some people.

If you like yard operation - then hey, put a yard on your visible layout - but if you don't like yard operation that much, then a yard chews up a lot of space. Without a yard on the visible layout, you now have lots of space back for what you DO enjoy - like more industries or more mainline running.

Notice, you need to get some ops experience to find out.

Consider this ... a nice new loco with sound costs what $200 - $300 these days?

If you join the op sig, I'll bet you can find people doing serious ops close enough to you that a $300 weekend will be a huge education. So for the cost of one really nice loco, you could end up learning enough that you can focus your layout design on what will ultimately be more satisfying to you in the long run.

Is it worth the price of one nice loco to get a layout that will be far more satisfying long term?

I think it's a bargain.

Staging

Indeed, while I want a yard on my layout because I want a yard to operate, I have seen the light too.  I have already presented my case and will be granted right of way to extend my line into uncharted territory so I may have a hidden staging yard off layout.  It's exciting times!

To have or have not

 No yard, less cars; less cars, less action.

I believe that's why we tear up the ovals in the first place.

This say's it al !!!

Engine terminal

 As I plan My mid sixties layout I realized some time ago that even an engine terminal is a yard or really an industry within itself . I know for most of You this is nothing new, but I finally "got it ". Good luck to the OP.

It all comes down to what you want to Build and Operate !!

I have built seven "HO" Scale layouts, Two 4X8 foot "N" Scale layouts and a 10' X 22' "S" Scale Layout in the past 40 years of Model Railroading. Each one has had at least 1 yard except for the my first Two HO shelf layouts 2' X 12' back in my apartment living days. Now I am into HOn3 D&RGW - RGS - Rio Chama Mix. This will Be my largest 30ft X 60ft approximately. This time I'm putting in Two round houses and four different types of yards. Back in the apartment years my first shelf RR was a logging RR with a log pond on one end and the switch back logging operation on the other. All I had was loading and unloading tracks on each end with runarounds and sidings to hold empties or to drop off the full cars. I also had hidden tracks that would take the full cars back to the forested end to give the illusion of Fulls only going to the mill and I used the same Tracks to take the empties back to the Mill. I had many years of fun with that RR before I sold it and moved across country from California to Virginia. I wish I still had all those Trees I made back then. But weather you use a yard or need a yard is totally up to the modeler. Me I have somewhere near 500 cars and 40 steam engines which 80% are not even going to be used because they don't fit the Era I'm Modeling. I am using some duel gauge track and some standard gauge Track but for the most part I'm Hand Laying alot of the or should I say most of the Narrow Gauge track Thanks to "Fast Tracks" and their Fixtures. Yards have become the real challenge and the most fun to assemble. Does every Layout need a yard "NO" the real question should be, Does every Model Railroader "NEED" to Build a Yard on His or Her layout and the answer would be NO. What you Build should be what you Need and want as well as How much space do you have. My best friend has a Model Railroad built on a 3 foot wide and 20 foot long table in his Basement It is all Yard and he will spend hours switching cars building up complete trains only to disassemble and build up a totally different train or 2. It all comes down to what you want to build and Operate!!

Dizzy

 No yard, less cars; less cars, less action.

I believe that's why we tear up the ovals in the first place.

 This say's it al !!!

I think the reason ovals get torn up is because watching a train go around and around and around leads the crewmen to go out on strike due to epidemic dizziness! (and it can get kind of boring after a while).

Charlie

I have ridden on railroads

I have ridden on railroads that resembled that loop in 1:1.  At no time did I get dizzy.

But it sure did get boring looking at the same scene every ten seconds...And we couldn't change the train at all, not even to set out a bad car.

We get bored of the loop because it offers no variety.  We expand our layouts to add capacity.  The more capacity we have, the greater our operational variety becomes.  Mind you, I am holding fast to continious run style layout because it offers the longest protential run [you can run until the engine dies!!]  you can have in ANY amount of space!

See, if you have ONE track, you can only have ONE train where a train is the engine OR a car and everything connected to that engine OR car.  V = 1.  Your capacity is the ability to move the car, so on a single line strip of track C is then small.

The maximum capacity is met by a continious loop.  Continious loop: V = 1, Capacity = 1

If you have an industrial siding, you can now have an extra car in addition to your one train.  V = 1+1, C = 1

Or you can use the siding to add another engine.  If you have two engines, you can have two Trains. If the engines are facing opposite directions, you effectively have two trains, one in each "direction," and if they face in the same direction, then you have two trains in one direction -or perhaps they doublehead to make one train again.   Regardless, only one train can move at a time so you still have a ONE TRAIN layout!  V = [1+1] , C = 1

When you add a siding, you can now set up a second train in addition to the cars and engines you have stuck in spur sidings.  But the layout is a ONE train layout because you can only run one train at a time.   V = 1+ 1, C = 1 + [0.25]

Now if you add a second passing siding on the other side of the layout, you now have a TWO train layout.  You can run these two trains in opposite directions, but one must stop once around the layout each time as one is passing around the other via the siding.    V = 2, C = 1 + [0.5]

When you add a second mainline, or double track the first mainline [effectively the same thing] you then have room for not just one train but TWO trains to run simultaneously!! This is slightly better then two passing sidings because neither train blocks the other.  V = 2, C = 1 + 1

So in conclusion:

A Stub yard is nothing more than a collected bunch of spurs.

A stub yard adds VARIETY [or VOLUME].

A Doubled ended yard is nothing more than a collected group of passing sidings.

A double ended yard adds CAPACITY.

And as you increase each in number, you yeild a railroad with higher POTENTIAL.

In general terms we can express our layout POTENTIAL P as V + C, where  V = 1+ [OO], C = 1 + [oo] where [OO] is the number of individual spurs on the layout and [oo] is the number of passing sidings.

Now if you are a great dispatcher, you can further increase the Operation potential by increasing the FREQUENCY of activity - but there are finite constraints on even frequency as you decrease the number of spurs and sidings.  Frequency is dependent on the volume of VARIETY and CAPACITY and LENGTH, where the length of sidings, spurs and mainline tracks will all impact how much dispatching you can do in a specific area.

F = aV+bC+cL where each are multiplied by a weight coefficient as not all variables are created equal!!

Joe has a wonderful method for calculating the operational potential of your railraod, I suggest looking it up.

So, do we NEED yards?  No, we don't NEED yards, but then we don't NEED model trains either!!!  Do we want yards?  Waddayathink?  We want yards like we want model trains for Christmas!!!! 

Huh?

"In general terms we can express our layout POTENTIAL P as V + C, where  V = 1+ [OO], C = 1 + [oo] where [OO] is the number of individual spurs on the layout and [oo] is the number of passing sidings."

Benny...man what are you smoking?  :o)

Nothing at all - it's just

Nothing at all - it's just simple mathematical variable expression!!

Joe is going to have to dig up his railroad calculator for us!!

No, unless a run-around track counts as a yard

In a 10by15 space for an HO layout, I am planning two "yards," each consisting of a run-around track so locomotives can escape and fully or partially assemble/disassemble trains for cars located on nearby industrial sidings.  Nevertheless, there are two turntables planned.  One for reversing  locomotives at a branchline terminus and one on the mainline for helper engines as well as to reverse locomotives for the next operating session.  All storage will consist of complete trains in staging except for privately-owned cars stored at the company's plant.  The staging is hidden so there is no sorting of cars there.

Beyond running trains on the branch and mainline's main tracks, operation will largely consist of switching industrial tracks.  There will be no shuffling of cars as is done in a classification yard except blocking cars destined for drop-off for mainline trains, to keep hazardous loads some distance away from people on the trains and to keep loaded stock cars immediately behind the locomotive.  Yards take space away from industry and scenery, and I'm not a "yard person." 

There are two kinds of model

Has no relationship to the real or model world

The idea that a simple-minded numerical progression could contain any meaning in terms of real-life or well-designed model railroad yards makes 0+0 sense. 

I think it's all in how you define it

If by yard you mean a big, multi-track classification operation with in-bound and out-bound tracks, RIP tracks, engine servicing, an dthe like, then I'd so, not every layout needs a yard.  This is especially true for layouts in smaller spaces.

On the other hand,  lots of industries are, essentially, mini-yards.  If you have arefinery complex, TOFC/COFC facility, auto rack unloading ramp, car repair industry, ore dock . . . you probably get my point.  So, I'd say look at what you want to do, and look for yard like industries that mihgt allow you to do some classification work, but not take the space a full yard takes.

Jurgen, runners want yards

Jurgen, runners want yards too - a full yard offers a wider range of stuff to run on a moment's notice than persay a single track mainline.

Byron, you may disagree with the numbers.  But when the numbers consistantly predict certain results over and over and over again, I start suggesting maybe there is more in those numbers than seen at first glance.  You have taken the meaning of a number of be simple, which in this case is dangerous as well because those numbers have very real meaning in terms of how much energy must be expended to get different configurations on the railroad[the inverse of potential].  In this case the simple numbers each represent something simplistic in railroad terms but the end quotient provides a value of significance because it provides a real sense of of the layout.  When taken backwards, we then find the impact of each little individual component on the overall picture.  In all cases, even though the numbers may look simple, the meaning is no less complicated as any other mathematical expression/equation.

Instead of simply saying the operational potential of a railroad increases with the number of spurs and sidings you add, I made each spur and each siding a numerical quantity.  The higher that numerical quantity, the higher my operational coefficient is.  So a high number, in this case, would denote a railroad with more operational potential, and thus a layout less likely to become boring before dinner time.  As I noted before, isn't this why we tore down the ovals in the first place?

Layman terms aren't enough to produce quantifiable measurements because they are not quantifiable.  If you look at the foundation for physics, for example, it starts with fundamental simplicity; they start by defining gravity, force, mass, length, etc and so forth, and then build up from those definitions.  Before you know it you have an equaiton that actually describes velocity, momentum, distance, time, and if you go far enough, the potential difference between one position and another.

If we want to know just how much more effective one layout is over another, these calculations become increasingly useful.  these calculations are both empiracle and objective, which means we arrive at an answer that is consistent regardless of how individuals may feel about the problem or about the individual layouts.  We may swoon over the scenery and thus color our review more positively; we may laugh and shy away from another layout because the scenery is goofy or horrendous.  In both cases the formula is cold and has no feelings concerning any part of the layout.

Phil, I took it all the way down to the ground - and started with a single track spur and a singe track siding.  Both could very well be called yards in the simplest of senses, for that is all a yard is: a collection of spurs and/or sidings.

Here's why the numbers won't ever tell the story

Yards and yard tracks work well (or not) because of the way they are designed and the way they connect and interact with the rest of the layout and the operational scheme. For the exact same value of your convoluted computations, one could design two completely different yards and layouts, one that worked great and one that didn't work at all, since you take only the number of tracks into consideration for all that effort.

So carry on for as long as you like, but it won't make it true. Or useful.

I don't have to because Joe

I don't have to because Joe has already gone and done it for us.

http://siskiyou.railfan.net/model/layoutDesign/layout.html

Yes, the whole hobby can be reduced to a string of numbers and characters...but without human insight into what the numbers mean, the whole equation is meaningless.

The way Spurs and Passing Sidings work does not change no matter how you design the layout.  A poorly designed layout could indeed have the same operational potential as a neatly designed layout; Notice I am saying POTENTIAL [as in, potential for operation], not Ease of Operation.

Hmmm ...

Byron,

Gettin' kinda cantankerous there in our old age aren't we? [wink]