Large Scale Central

The Industrial Siding

Operations
#1

In preparation for the “Canadian Invasion”, the Fall Ops Session" and advancing the KVRwy to the next level, a lot of time and thought is being put in to new industrial sidings on the KVRwy. I’d like to open for discussion, ideas I’ve realized, thoughts, and generally point the discussion toward what works and what doesn’t. This is model railroad practicality, in a limited space, with limited funds and adapting your railroad to a more operational friendly environment.

  1. an industrial siding can be a single track or multiple tracks.

  2. if possible, an industrial siding should hold more then one railroad car and should be long enough to keep the mainline clear.

  3. an industrial siding can serve more than one industry.

  4. if possible, an industrial siding should be accessed from a passing siding instead of the mainline

  5. if an industrial sidng is short, another siding should be nearby to hold the overflow of cars assigned to that location until there is room.

  6. a teamtrack creates a good industrial siding near a station when there is no specific industry to serve in that area.

  7. trackage for an industrial siding does not need to be maintained as well as the mainline.

  8. industrial trackage should have elevation falling away from the mainline, so railcars do not have a tenedency to roll out and fowl the mainline.

  9. a run around needs to be in the area of an industrial siding to allow the motive power to get on the other end of the car.

  10. if a runaround is not nearby or practical, motive power can get to the other end of a car, by going around a loop of track after uncoupling.

  11. a “to and from” philosophy needs to exist. If you have an industrial siding for cars to be assigned and delivered to, then you need another track to provide these cars for the industry or you need a “fiddle yard” or “staging track” to give another destination.

  12. “Operations” can be achieved with minimal trackage. A simple loop of track and two sidings or a point to point railroad with one end being designated the staging yard and the other end being called the industry.

#2

Ric ,
I think that easy access for uncoupling and coupling should be added to that . Or is that taken as read ?
What I’m getting at is not leaning over the main line and derailing everything with your excess body mass . Or worse , Ex Bod M crushing buildings .
Mike M

#3

Good idea, easy access for uncoupling on the industrial siding and easy access to the turnout to keep the frogs and guide rails clear and to throw the points.

#4

I don’t have anything constructive to add since I’m really a beginner at all this. But I will be watching this thread and taking notes. The thought about falling away grade is especially helpful to me right now.

Mike’s point is also well timed. My original indoor layout had yards inside a elongate loop of mainline on a 5x10’ sheet of plywood. While I didn’t have to reach into the middle often, when I did it was a real ordeal.
Outdoors I’ve begun terra-forming for my first industry. By necessity of available land, the siding will be inside a wye. I’ll now look closely to be sure I can access the coupling places and points from a pathway inside the wye away from the main.

JR

#5

Jon,

Sometimes the immediate uncoupling spot is not required if pushing into the siding. You can offset most couplers so you can shove without the possibility of coupling.

#6

I am amazed at all the various cars that are spotted at what would be considered a team track . All sorts of mobile rented equiptment shows up to load / unload the cars spotted on the track ,where just gravel roads / graveled areas , on both sides of the track . Hoppers , both open and covered , with grain type loads , or plastic plant supplies , or gravel , etc , flats cars with all kinds of loads , boxcars of course , and tank cars , and even gondolas . Team tracks are easy to install, no buildings required , and the length can be from 2 or 3 cars , such as Stephens Station was here , close by , but gone now , highway project . Or many cars , such as in Evansville , where this NS bracnch ends . And the spurs are placed by themselves with no run arounds , they just get worked by the local going the correct direction to work them . Team tracks require no structures , but , at Tractor Supply or Rual King stores , they have all sorts of mobile , loading / unloading equiptment to look the part correctly . to set by the track . Best wishes for perfect weather , when the big ops session happens at your place Ric .

#7

I seem to recall some of these being bulletined (or General Ordered) so that a locomotive was not allowed to enter the track at all … to switch cars three or four other cars would be used as a “handle” to reach in and move/spot cars. Often this was because the track geomtery, or just the track condition was so poor that the heavier locomotive risked falling through the gauge or literally ripping up the rail when applying power.

I still like the story I once heard of a 44 tonner and crew switching on industrial STREET trackage on a foggy night … shoving several cars ahead of the locomotive in near zero visibility … and just getting the feeling that something wasn’t right … and suddenly realizing the problem. The siding being shoved into made a 90 degree right turn at an intersection. At the critical moment, the lead car had stepped off the rail due to a filled up flangeway or something, and continued more or less in a straight line down the street ahead, leaving flange-cut ruts in the pavement. The car behind followed suit, all the easier because now the ruts were cut, and the car behind that, and so on, until the locomotive arrived and realized that the train had missed the turn! After a great deal of discussion and scratching of heads on the part of the crew, it was decided to simply reverse direction, and hope that everything would work the same way in reverse … which, it did. The flangeway was cleared, the move was completed, and nobody ever said anything about the ruts in the street, which eventually either wore back in, or were appropriately patched…

The only move I can think of that tops this, primarily because there IS no track involved, is the story from (Canada?) where the locomotive was deliberately run off the end of a siding, and walked several blocks down the street in a similar manner to the above, to provide generator power for (a hospital?) in the middle of a long ice storm related blackout…

The SCRY has at least two “team tracks” in the plan, one in the yard, and one at Midway. The Midway one will probably also have a ramp for loading horses, as well as truck pickup for bulk goods. These will also double as sidings for trains to pass each other at the station, as the run-around will likely not be long enough to pass two full trains.

Matthew (OV)

#8

The use of extra cars between the engine and the cars to be placed or picked is quite common in the 1:1 world of trains. “Idlers” are used on car floats to keep an engine off the floating portion of a ramp before a barge or car ferry would be loaded or unloaded. On a trestle not strong enough to hold the weight of an engine or very carefully on a radius that is too tight for an engine to operate on, but an idler car could.

On the KVRwy, we use idler cars to turn cars around on wyes that the trackage that does not have power and the switching is being operated by a track powered engine. There are actually 3 wyes on the KVRwy, two outside and one inside. All have power on two legs, but the third leg is isolated to prevent the reverse power lead problem. Now to the battery powered engines this means nothing, but for the track powered engines, idler cars allow functions to be carried out without new problems being created.

#9

Yup - Idler cars can be a real help in our model world.

I have several storage tracks that have R1 switches in the lead - some forming S curves as well. Only my small switchers can negotiate this track when coupled to cars. Using idler cars I’m able to reach in with my larger engines to spot or pick cars. Do it on almost every run.

JR

#10

Team tracks, and local sidings, are neat things. The town I grew up in in the late 60s, early 70s, had a small team track across from the station, that held 2 cars. Boxcars of lumber or other things would show up, and be there for a couple days, then get switched out again. Often there were flats of machinery, or other things.

The next town over, up until the early 1980s, still had their coal dock (though it was no longer connected to the line). When I was about 12, I measured it and took lots of detail photos, they’re somewhere in my folks basement in a box, I hope. But this coal dock would have held 3 cars, it was fairly large. I assume the coal dealer served the surrounding towns, since it was the only coal dock that I ever found.

#11

Of course , you could always use Capstan shunting , Rope shunting or Pole shunting, none of which I have ever seen modelled .
Mike

#12

Mike,

The KVRwy does use pole shunting ( chopstick whittled down works great) and for chain snatching, we use a piece of piano wire about 12 inches long, bent to a 1/4 inch 90 degree hook on each end. I think it is a lot of fun, but most of our guys think it is too tedious and like to shove or pick up with the 0-5-0.

#13

Hey , Ric , that sounds like great fun . Yes , it is difficult and fiddly . I never tried the wire trick . I must do so .
It also shows how damn dangerous it is using things other than locos to do the propelling . I saw a historic photo somewhwere in a safety forum , it showed a crew man speared by a broken pole shaft . Our ancestors must have been hard men indeed . But they helped build a great country in America .
Mike

#14

I have photos taken this year of the local freight job using a cable to get around a car on parallel siding. Neat stuff, so long as the car brakes don’t fail.

I’ve tried poling indoors on a small layout set up to test some switches. It was fun, but a bit tedious because the stock didn’t have working pole pockets. If this was going to be a regular operation, it would be quite simple to adapt something on the engine and cars to keep the pole from dropping when slight slack occurs. The wire trick for cable/chain sounds like a great idea.

Of course, for either pole or rope to work, the grades have to be running the right direction.

Mike - What is Capstan shunting?

JR

#15

A fairly common practise in the UK , I know of a couple that were within 5 miles of where I was dragged up in Birmingham .
Sited in large coal sidings , both of these comprised a thing very like a ship’s capstan without the belaying pin holes at the top , standing so that its buried electric motor drive turned the capstan enabling it to pull loaded wagons , usually at less than walking pace . Unpowered capstan heads (no , they didn’t pee there ) were strategically anchored around the yard to allow for pulling over several parallel tracks . This trick saved the use of one shunting engine , and was bloody dangerous for the unwary . A wire rope accidentally coming off the capstan whipped across the yard at knee height .
I remember watching this in action one time with a chap free roping the capstan , just like the chaps on board ship seem to do .
He walked to the wagons dragging the wire , hooked up , then looped the free end (actually about 100 feet free) around the already rotating capstan , and pulled hard on it to get the wire to bite . He was quite adept at it , because once started , he just kept hauling hand over hand until the wagon was where he wanted it . I saw other blokes “walk” the free end to keep tension on . That worked as welll , but involved a lot of walking Some chickened out and wound the rope round then engaged the capstan power . That , I recall , caused a lot of smoke from the rope . Handy trick , though .
I seem to recall that the practise came about because of the subsidence caused by mine workings , leaving the track a bit up and down like a switchback , and also likely to drop under the weight of a loco . The local main railway lines around there were so affected by subsidence that you could watch from track level and see an engine in the distance disappear in the dips in the track .This led to some interesting exhaust beats .
Mike

#16

OK Mike, now I know exactly what you mean.

We have a stone transfer plant here that uses cable around what I would call a pulley (rather than a capstan which I think is correct since it is unpowered) to lower hopper loads down the grade to the unloading chute, then pull the empties back up.

Due to vegetation and terrain, I’ve never been able to get close enough to see the business end where the cable is attached to the car. From watching, I believe their motor and control is in the unloading shed and is probably a cable winch, with the cable running underground out to the end of siding pulley, then above ground where it is attached to the last car.

Your capstan is more of a manual process involving a constantly moving wheel, where in my example the only rope handling done is making the connection to the car. Slight variations on the same theme.

JR

#17

Hi guys…On the subject of industrial sidings; I don’t know if the pictures are posted on our web site yet, or not. But, the new sidings at Mt…St.Helens, are a good example of one way to put some in.

#18

While an industrial spur is ireally suited off a pasing track, geography and finances do not always allow this.
We have some that are not.
One that the pasing track IS an industrial siding (log cars).

You do your runaround at the last passing track, and PUSH the car into the siding.

Pit Bull Run Maintenance spur, Upper Concentrator, High Point’s Logging outfit (Hughes Logging), and Mehus Dairy spring readily to mind.

Then there is the Retail Oil Depot spur at the west end of Whiterock.
I like to watch and see how folks figure that one out.

There is always Rule 6.

TOC

#19

"Pit Bull Run Maintenance spur, Upper Concentrator, High Point’s Logging outfit (Hughes Logging), and Mehus Dairy spring readily to mind.

Then there is the Retail Oil Depot spur at the west end of Whiterock.
I like to watch and see how folks figure that one out.

There is always Rule 6."

Guys, I even have a copy of Dave’s railroad track plan and couldn’t find the answers to all of that. And I don’t have a copy of his rule book, but it might have something to do with being on duty or reporting for duty while under the influence of medication or other substances that might alter the employees alertness, coordination, reaction , responsibilty or safety.

Dave’s right on the passing siding. Nice to have the industries off of the passing siding, but it isn’t always possible. Sometimes the sidings are on the south side of the mainline and the passing siding is on the north.
While the industries are being worked, the mainline remains open by using the passing siding for run throughs.

On the CSX running through Carlyle, we have a short runaround track and then 8 miles west of here is a couple of industry sidings. 9 miles the other side of these industrial sidings is a long passing siding. So the motive power can get in the right place in relation to the sidng and the direction of the train.

Also on this CSX line, the daily local comes from the east and works the trailing point turnouts westbound, leaving the facing point turnouts until he make his run back east and then he works those former facing point turnouts because now they are the trailing points.