Got plenty of experience

Got plenty of experience working one on the 1:1 scale version. 

In a nut shell it somewhat depends on the type of car. Bi level v Tri level and the cars/trucks/van that are being loaded. Another option to the "auto plant would be what NS refers to here as a sorting facility. Any given day there may be Hyundai, Fords, Jeeps. Yu get the drift. 

Each of the 6 tracks hold between 6 and 10 cars (no automax) sometimes we would pull all tracks others only two or three would be released. Again when it came to setting out the cars it would depend on the facility as to what they wanted. The cool thing about a sorting facility os all you need is something to rep. a parking lot and some new cars. the other thing  is that cars come in loaded and empty so it can always be somethign different.

"The cool thing about a

     There's a facility like that at the north end of the Martinez/Benicia bridge on the east side of the highway , lots of auto racks and cars in a big lot.....DaveB 

Auto racks

Switching varies by inbound or outbound.

Outbound the racks are sorted by bi or tri.  They used to be sorted by how the tie downs were arranged (different arrangement for different makes/models), then they had adjustable tiedowns, now they use adjustible chocks.

The cars are spotted in groups of 6-8 cars (don't want longer cuts, tend to increase damage driving cars autos thru racks.

Inbound the cars are sorted by bi and tri and then by facing direction. Cars are spotted in groups of 6-8 all vehicles pointed in same direction and spaced apart where portable ramps can be put against the cars. All spotting is done shove to rest.

Scale Operations

Gents,

Thank you for your responses.  I can definitely use this for sorting cars cars.

I work just down the road from the Toyota plant in Cambridge, Ontario; they get everything in there due to the Lexus SUV being built there.

That said, what about on a model railroad?

Would an operator be designated to switch out the individual cars?

Or

Would an operator just set out the inbound cars and pick up the outbound string with static cars on the load/unload tracks that rarely ever get switched out?

Cheers,

Dave

Auto plant or auto unloading facility?

Which one of these are you looking to model and duplicate?  It might help those of us with experience running these jobs answer the proper question. Where I work we have a small unloading facility and it is a great industry to Model. It's almost a nightly chess game getting the proper cars on the three available tracks. 

Greg Dahl, who reads these forums, is building a huge auto plant that requires switching the cars ( vans) as they are built, and the process to handle inbound auto racks. 

In the early 1970s worked the

In the early 1970s worked the releasing yard at Chrysler plant in Newark Delaware while going to college (had my Teamster's card) - my father in law was President of the releasing yard company.

We had six tracks that held 6 or 7 cars. Big deal when the RR shoved one car too many into a track and it rolled onto the paved pad. We received vehicles and shipped out both Bi-level and tri-level. Loads were driven off then chains reset and loads driven on. Because of the overhead wires on the Pennsy main, once in a while we would get a burned out car that had popped a tie down chain and hit the wire. 

GM had a plant down the road and it sucked when you got one of their racks - had to change out the chains to have the right hooks.

Our ramp was portable and you had to be careful on top deck of tri-level as angle was odd and long wheel base cars like Chrysler New Yorker didn't like the hump - you could kick the ramp plate askew. 440 and Hemi engine cars were the most fun.

The metal decks were HOT in the summer and COLD in the winter. Can't possibly compare to the new enclosed vandal proof cars though.

Bill Uffelman

"what about on a model

      Either way depending on how much space you have and how involved you want to get with the auto rack operations.  This is a typical layout decision. I'm working on a plan for the SP Clovis/Friant branchline now that had a quarry out near the end, and since quarries take up a lot of room I'm not modeling it just running a track out in the direction it would be to a staging shelf with a runaround at the end so the train can leave the modeled part with empty hoppers and return with loaded hoppers....DaveB

Mixing center

I worked a Ford mixing center many times on the NS. There was an outer receiving yard with 13 tracks.  In some cases we would put a whole train away in there or sometimes go power light and take an entire train out (about 50 or 60 racks). When putting a train away or making a large set off it was coming to double over to another track. A lot of times we would set off or pick up a block normally 10-40 racks. 

The facility had their own switcher so we never switched out specific cars, we would just set off or pickup. There were never any locals doing this, all the mixing center work was done by road trains. Hope this helps.

I have an auto rack facility...

Hi Dave,

While my railroad is not large, I do have a small autorack unloading facility with 3 tracks. Each track has capacity for 6 auto racks and / or automax cars. The move(s) that are done by the operator involves bringing the autorack train that is in staging (lower level) up to the autorack track lead. Take out the empties and drop off the loads. The lead is long enough to drop off 10 racks, take out the empties, put them on the run around track, move the loads in, and take the empties away (back to staging). It's a nice move for the operator(s) doing this train.

Neal