03-16-2010, 01:14 AM
http://mrsvc.blogspot.com/2010/02/does-t...k-fat.html
It really depends on what you want your yard to be able to do - one operator or several, typical train lengths, typical number of trains arriving or departing per session, era and type of location - steam or diesel engine service facilities or not, cabeese or not, freight or passenger cars, holding yard or classification yard or industry support yard or coal marshalling yard or carfloat yard or produce yard or coach yard or a crew/engine change yard or any of the many other types of locations called yard by a railroad, whether you want your yard to have facilities like a weight track or a RIP track or whatever.
A great place for a lot of information about yards and how to model them is Kalmbach's "The model railroader's guide to freight yards" (http://www.kalmbachstore.com/12248.html) - shows various yards and yard funcitons, discusses different types of yard ladders and all those things.
Kalmbach also has a downloadable PDF with articles by John Armstrong on hos yards work and how to design model railroad yards: http://www.kalmbachstore.com/mrpdf035.html
Craig Bisgeier's list of "10 commendments of yard design" is also good reading - but should be read after reading something like the book above - since his commandments mostly deal with how to make yards efficient (ie fast) on layouts where the yard often becomes a chokepoint, with several operators sitting or standing around waiting for the yard to make up their next train so they can get back on the road.
Yards tend to become chokepoints because run lengths on most layouts is way more heavily compressed than yard lengths, relative to train length - if we want to run 20 car trains, our yard tracks need to be long enough for 20 cars. But few people can afford to have 50 or 100 train lengths between two towns on their layout. So Craigs rules, if applied mechanically to a smaller or modest sized layout with few operators, might result in a yard that gets sized for more traffic than it ever will receive.
Smile,
Stein
It really depends on what you want your yard to be able to do - one operator or several, typical train lengths, typical number of trains arriving or departing per session, era and type of location - steam or diesel engine service facilities or not, cabeese or not, freight or passenger cars, holding yard or classification yard or industry support yard or coal marshalling yard or carfloat yard or produce yard or coach yard or a crew/engine change yard or any of the many other types of locations called yard by a railroad, whether you want your yard to have facilities like a weight track or a RIP track or whatever.
A great place for a lot of information about yards and how to model them is Kalmbach's "The model railroader's guide to freight yards" (http://www.kalmbachstore.com/12248.html) - shows various yards and yard funcitons, discusses different types of yard ladders and all those things.
Kalmbach also has a downloadable PDF with articles by John Armstrong on hos yards work and how to design model railroad yards: http://www.kalmbachstore.com/mrpdf035.html
Craig Bisgeier's list of "10 commendments of yard design" is also good reading - but should be read after reading something like the book above - since his commandments mostly deal with how to make yards efficient (ie fast) on layouts where the yard often becomes a chokepoint, with several operators sitting or standing around waiting for the yard to make up their next train so they can get back on the road.
Yards tend to become chokepoints because run lengths on most layouts is way more heavily compressed than yard lengths, relative to train length - if we want to run 20 car trains, our yard tracks need to be long enough for 20 cars. But few people can afford to have 50 or 100 train lengths between two towns on their layout. So Craigs rules, if applied mechanically to a smaller or modest sized layout with few operators, might result in a yard that gets sized for more traffic than it ever will receive.
Smile,
Stein