In fooling around with designs, I needed to know how many cars fit in each siding. This information lurks around the various forums in lots of different forms, so I decided to work it out for myself. My results are based on Ric Golding’s declaration that the “correct scale” of his railroad (and mine too) as 1:21.4

Actually, I’m using 18" per car since most all of my stock falls within that length. Your results may vary.

It was still confusing, so I whipped up this table in excell…

1:21.4 Sectional Track Car Loading			
			
Based on average of 18" Track required per car			
and sectional track in .5, 1, 2 & 5 foot lengths			

Track	          Length        Length	Total
Sections 	     Feet           Inches	Cars

1ft+6in	            1.5	       18"	    1
2ft+1ft	            3.0	       36"	    2
2ea 2ft+6in          4.5           54"  	  3
3ea 2ft	            6.0           72"  	  4
5ft+2ft+6in          7.5	       90" 	   5
5ft+2ea 2ft          9.0	      108"	   6
5'+2ea 2'+1'+6"  10.5         126"	   7
2ea 5ft+2ft         12.0         144"	   8
2ea 5'+2'+1'+6"  13.5	    162"	    9
5 ft x 3	           15.0	    180"	  10

Hope this helps someone

JR

PS Table formatting in the forum is a pain in the butt. What you see is about the best I can get it to do.

Thats why I settled on a 21" carlength and most sidings and tracks are about a 6 car capacity…Course…when each car is 21" long…a 6 car train is quite impressive…

Jon,

18" per car is the rule of thumb I also came up with. It works out quite well when using Llagas Creek’s 6 ft track sections to minimize cutting and waste. Too the end of a stub track is an ideal place to use up some of the inevitable short end cuttings left over from track laying.

I also figure 30" on a passing siding for a locomotive which is plenty for my roster as long as I don’t have any Mikes or similar. Thus a 12 ft siding can accomodate an engine, caboose and a 5 car train with a small bit of “slack”. I usually try for around a 14 to 15 ft passing siding if possible keeping 12 as a minimum.

This is why the Midway station’s passing siding is becoming more of a double siding with a double switch … the passing siding will only accomodate four cars or so… WITHOUT a locomotive! By adding a “house track” at each end, at the very least a train coming from either direction will be able to pull (or back) into a siding to clear another train … and there will be the option to pass a very short cut for switching purposes or whatever …

This was about the best I could do in the small inside space I had!

Hopefully there’ll be a longer set of sidings at the mine that can be used to pass a train without a switch engine assisting… but that’s not this month’s project!

Matthew (OV)