John,
You never said (or did you?) WHY you wanted a yard. Are you into operations? What do you plan to DO with the yard?
Here’s my first design, it’s being tweaked a bit now, but it’s a double-ended yard.
The leftmost track is the main… in the far right and near right are switching leads (the near one is too short, I know, but it can do a few things.
There is a wye into the yard for turning trains. the body tracks are only about 15 feet each, all I could do…
Greg
Bruce Chandler said:
John,
You never said (or did you?) WHY you wanted a yard. Are you into operations? What do you plan to DO with the yard?
Bruce, I would like to run operations at some point, but at the moment I have no operating locos! (To change by Tuesday!) I expect my cousins - whom live next door - will join me in operating soon, but for now they are a bit young. It’d be nice to have a proper yard for all the rolling stock. I’m not super serious about prototypical operation, I think I already have a few different scales of rolling stock… But, I would like it to be fairly realistic.
Greg, I saw that on your site. What’s your min radius?
John Wilda said:
Bruce Chandler said:
John,
You never said (or did you?) WHY you wanted a yard. Are you into operations? What do you plan to DO with the yard?
Bruce, I would like to run operations at some point, but at the moment I have no operating locos! (To change by Tuesday!) I expect my cousins - whom live next door - will join me in operating soon, but for now they are a bit young. It’d be nice to have a proper yard for all the rolling stock. I’m not super serious about prototypical operation, I think I already have a few different scales of rolling stock… But, I would like it to be fairly realistic.
Well, I can certainly understand wanting a yard. I wanted one as well and I have one at one end of my layout: Green Springs Yard - here train #1 is made up during an operations session. Locomotives can use the turntable to switch directions.
It’s NOT a very big yard, and I’ve tried to enlarge it once or twice, but I seem to be limited by my lot size. (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)
At the other “end” of my layout, I have Lexington. No yard there, but that’s where train #2 starts (and train #1 ends). It’s really just a “staging” track - actually a passing siding, or is that two? Train #2 is already built at the start of an ops session, in place and ready to roll, but train #1 will end up on the siding next to it. Train #2 will end up in the yard.
When I did my yard, I found out that I needed just a bit longer Arrival/Departure track and ended up moving a switch to accomplish that.
But, for the most part, you don’t REALLY need a yard for operations. It all depends on what you mean by operations, I guess. (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
John, the yard body is Aristo wide radius switches, basically match a 10’ diameter, and about #4 frog.
The switches on the mainline are normally #6, and the crossover into the yard lead is #6.
The track nearby is minimum 10’ diameter, the outer mainline is 14’ diameter.
Greg
Is all your rolling stock boxcars, Bruce? haha
Greg, I wish I had that kind of space! I’m trying to keep a min radius R3 (8’ diameter), but, sadly, I have a few R1 curves. Luckily I’ve managed to remove almost all my R1s from the mainline.
Good progress… if it does not hurt you are not trying hard enough!
I’m in the process of moving that entire structure 18 inches to the right, flush to the house, and the walking path on the left… It’s been some work!
Greg
Neil Erickson said:
Still trying to figure out how to post an image.
Neil
When you joined, Bob gave you space in a freight shed for pics, upload them there. it’s suggested 800 pixels wide. You can resize at insertion, but that wastes Shed space, I size on my laptop. After loaded to FS, open a pic and put your cursor on the pic, right click and save pic location. Using the mountain/moon icon, paste in the pop up and ok. Your cursor will set the location. After inserting the pic, click Enter on your keyboard to move cursor past the pic and repeat as necessary.
I’ve noticed that the editor likes ‘landscape’ style pics, portraits get turned sideways … Wider than tall…
I hope this helps, there are Stickys and threads on the subject in the site forum …
Neil,
I worked your photos and uploaded to my own FS to post them here. Feel free to use them…
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Looking at these photos made me wince at the concrete color so I got some stain today at HD. While there I also got some vinyl “binder” to try holding ballast in place. I have a bag of #9 clean ”sand” but the pieces are pretty big even for our scale. Perhaps just #4 sand with fines would be best?
Secondary tracks might just be sand without the chunks. Our beach sand is black but has a lot of salt. Has anybody tried washing sand for use on the railway?
Thanks!
Neil