Rough operations plan for small switching layout

[steinjr]

Hi Guys --

Just thought this one might make a starting point for some more discussions on operating a small switching layout (the one below is just 8 feet long in N scale, without separate staging). Plan and start of discussion is something I wrote up for a fellow model railroader as a one-on-one private communication. Anyone have comments or suggestions for other things my friend might want to do to get some interesting ops sessions for one person on his layout ?

Here is a sketch that is worked up a little more - still based on Jonathan Jones "Mid-Atlantic and Western".



Some of the changes : have taken shelf depth in from 15" to 12" - would look better to have it a little deeper, but it should work with 12" shelf depth too.

Have added a big industry (Industry A) with three car spotting locations in the center of the layout. One car spot for arriving tank cars of chemicals at the farm left of the lowermost spur, then one or two cars of other arriving stuff next to that, and one or two car spot for stuff to be shipped out by rail on the other spur.

Layout now has yard space for a maximum of 15 cars, plus room for 4-5 cars on the interchange track at the bottom.

A total of 12 industry spots (3 cars spots for elevator, 5 car spots for Industry A, 2 car spots for Industry B and 2 car spots on the transload (team) track.

Central runaround is long enough to run around a cut of 8 or 9 cars.

What we have here is an urban industrial district with it's own little support yard that supports 3 on-line customers plus a few off-line customers (served by the transload track in the lower right hand corner).

The yard is serviced by a switch crew from the city terminal railroad (which is jointly owned by the class 1's that serve the city). The yard also servers as an interchange point between the terminal line and a shortline serving an industrial park on the outskirts of the city.


A typical operating session will consists e.g. of the following moves:

It is morning. The yard is pretty empty - no more than 4-5 cars there, tops. A transfer run of 7-8 cars arrives from the class 1 on on the upper (westbound) main (we postulate that the class 1 has a yard somewhere off to the east - ie right).

The class 1 engine cuts off, moves over to the eastbound (lower) main using the crossover and departs eastbound for it's yard again (ie - it drives behind industry B and stops at the end of the track there, not to be seen again for quite a while).

Local switcher crew comes out from the switcher pocket in the yard. Moves up using the eastbound main, and crosses over to the westbound main, to the right of the cars dropped off by the transfer run. Grabs the first four cars and pulls eastwards before backing them into the yard, then goes back and grabs the rest of the cars and backs those also into the yard.

Next switcher starts pulling outbound cars from industries.

One interesting touch here is to say e.g. that it takes 2 days to empty a car at e.g. industry B, and that one new car loaded car will be arriving every day.

Spotting instructions for industry B says that the full car should always be spotted at the innermost car spot on the track. So a typical spotting sequence for industry B would be:

Pull empty car and half empty car from industry B
Spot full car at industry B, with half empty car on "top" of it (ie closer to switch)
Take empty car back to yard.


And do similar things for the other industries - you could e.g. say that for the elevator, it takes 30 fast minutes to unload a grain hopper, it unloads six grain cars every sessios, and every day you start with three inbound loaded grain hoppers left in the yard by the afternoon shift yesterday, and three new inbound cars coming with the transfer run from the class 1.

So every 30 game minutes you pop over to the elevator and pull the string of 3 car forward one car. When all three cars that started spotted at the elevator has been unloaded, you pull the three empty hoppers, and leave them temporarily on the westbound main, west (left) of the crossover, while you grab three inbound loaded grain cars from the yard and spot them at the elevator. And so the cycle continues.

The transload track (team track) has room for two cars. Here you can spot pretty much anything - including boxcars, flatcars, tank cars, hoppers - it is easy to imagine that a truck will arrive at the concrete apron next to the track and unload the car in some way - using a crane, fork lift, vacum hose attachment or some such thing - allows you to make quite a few different trucks and sets of unloading equipment.

It is also possible to use the transload track to spot more boxcars for Industry B - the Industry could be unloading cars on spur 1 (closest to the industry) first, and then go through the boxcars on spur 1 to reach boxcars on spur 2 (just putting a small iron "bridge plate" between the doors of the boxcars. Also creates interesting spottin - since it means that totally full cars should be left on outermost track, partly empty cars should be respotted to track closest to building.

Lots of opertunities to create some interesting switching with such a small switching layout, and lots of opertunity to do some interesting detailing of things like overpasses, tracks, cars, large industrial buildings (with all the cool vents and pipes and whatever on the roof).

Edit: btw - looking at the track plan, again, I would have said that it would have been more logical if the eastbound main (or eastbound "running track" in this case) had been the top one, with the westbound being the bottom one.

Then industry tracks branching off from both running track would be trailing tracks, the way the railroads generally try to arrange things.

But in this case, if trains had arrived on the westbound (lower) track, and the class 1 engine were supposed to drive off towards the hidden staging behind industry B on the eastbound (upper) track, then that would interfere with switching operations in two ways later.

1) The incoming cut of cars would be on the lower main, blocking the exit from the yard - so either the yard switcher would have had to wait in a siding somewhere along the top of the layout, to pop out and grab the inbound cars after the class 1 engine had departed, or the class 1 engine would have had to push the inbound cut into the yard. Not a biggie - just adds a bit of operating interest


2) But worse - the class 1 engine, while in staging, would be taking up space we really need (at the right end of the uppermost running track), instead of space we have to spare (at the right end of the lowermost main).

Still - you could always claim that you only have one main/running track (the lower), and that the uppermost track is a long siding or some such thing.

Smile,
Stein

[foulrift]

Stein-very nice layout. I do have a couple of questions-In order to switch industry A in the top left wouldn't the upper most right track have to be empty? Also wouldn't the number of cars that the lower interchange track be affected due to the location of the switcher pocket?
Other than that I see that this could be a fun layout to operate.
Bob

[Gary S]

Stein: Thank you for taking the time to post this. The more insight into operations I get, the better.

[LynnB]

It would make a real nice addition to a module layout .

[steinjr]

Stein-very nice layout. I do have a couple of questions-

In order to switch industry A in the top left wouldn't the upper most right track have to be empty?

Yes, it would. If we say left is west and right is east, westbound trains on the main/running track at the start of the session are modeled as "having just arrived" at the rightmost end of the uppermost track, facing left, and sessions end with an eastbound trains "just about to depart" with an engine on the left end on the lowermost of the two main/running tracks.

After dropping off cars on the uppermost track, the transfer engine changes over to the eastbound (lowermost) track and "head back to the yard" (ie drives in behind industry B and stops there).

Do you see any better way of handling arriving/departing transfer runs ?

Also wouldn't the number of cars that the lower interchange track be affected due to the location of the switcher pocket?

Absolutely. I discussed with my friend whether it made sense to have an engine track there, but sacrificing a few car spots on the interchange track allows a place to park a switcher engine. It is of course also possible to have the switcher duck into the spur that heads for Industry B and the team track, instead of using that switcher pocket.

Other than that I see that this could be a fun layout to operate.

Hope so - he has started building it already :-)

Smile,
Stein

[Brakie]

Stein,Nice scenario.

[Russ Bellinis]

Stein, the railroad you described is very much like the Los Angeles Junction Railway. The LAJ is a wholly owned subsidiary of the BNSF, formally owned by the SF. They service industries in the cities of Vernon and City Of Commerce, and historically received cars from the UP, SP, and SF. Now of course they receive cars only from the BNSF or UP. I would just mention that they do not use an interchange track. The class one railroads all had yards nearby, and the UP and BNSF currently have yards located on either side of Washington Blvd in Vernon or L.A., I'm not sure exactly where the border is. The LAJ will bring a cut of cars to go out on the BNSF to Hobart Yard or a cut of cars to go out on the UP to the Washington Blvd Yard, and pick up cuts left for them by the class one railroad. They will take the fresh cars back to one of their yards to sort them and work them. They drop the cuts off at the class one yards without sorting them allowing the class ones to classify them as needed. Such an operating scheme could free up another track for more industries or make more room at an already existing industry.

[steinjr]

I would just mention that they do not use an interchange track. The class one railroads all had yards nearby, and the UP and BNSF currently have yards located on either side of Washington Blvd in Vernon or L.A., I'm not sure exactly where the border is. The LAJ will bring a cut of cars to go out on the BNSF to Hobart Yard or a cut of cars to go out on the UP to the Washington Blvd Yard, and pick up cuts left for them by the class one railroad. They will take the fresh cars back to one of their yards to sort them and work them. They drop the cuts off at the class one yards without sorting them allowing the class ones to classify them as needed. Such an operating scheme could free up another track for more industries or make more room at an already existing industry.

Mmmm - I don't quite see how freeing up the interchange track at the bottom of the yard would make more room at an already existing industry - how would that work ?

It certainly would be easy enough to use that track for extra yard storage, if you need or want that. A yard track is a yard track - you can spot anything at any track in the yard, if it works for you.

Likewise, it is perfectly possible to mentally just decide that for the current operating session the lowermost yard track really is serving an industry "in the aisle".

Calling it an interchange track was to remind my friend that one possible move would be to have an engine come into the visible part of the layout (from the hidden area behind industry B) to pick up some outbound cars, towards the end of the operating scenario. If you make industry B a little longer, you could probably sneak an engine and a couple of cars behind industry B. Or something.

Smile,
Stein

[Russ Bellinis]

Your right, I hadn't looked closely enough at the layout to see that the "interchange track" was actually part of the yard.

[Brakie]

Stein,Looking over your track plan there is one thing I would add to make my crew happy-a short run around.I would add a crossover just beyond the export elevator switch..

[steinjr]

Stein,Looking over your track plan there is one thing I would add to make my crew hahppy-a short run around.I would add a crossover just beyond the export elevator switch..

Umm - there is already a crossover just beyond (ie - to the left of) the export elevator turnout.

Do you mean putting yet another crossover to the *right* of the elevator turnout ?

Stein

[Brakie]

Stein,Looking over your track plan there is one thing I would add to make my crew hahppy-a short run around.I would add a crossover just beyond the export elevator switch..

Umm - there is already a crossover just beyond (ie - to the left of) the export elevator turnout.

Do you mean putting yet another crossover to the *right* of the elevator turnout ?

Stein

Yes,that would be your short run around.It saves time and the need to interfere with the industry(the flat building) loading/unloading their cars.

[steinjr]

Do you mean putting yet another crossover to the *right* of the elevator turnout ?

Stein

Yes,that would be your short run around.It saves time and the need to interfere with the industry(the flat building) loading/unloading their cars.

Now I see what you are saying.

Those flats at the rear right are not railserved industries - they are just background buildings - part of the urban scenery. That Uppermost track in the rear right is available for switching moves - e.g to get stuff in and out of Industry A (center rear). Both of those tracks back there supposedly continues off the layout towards the right - could be two parallel lies (easbound and westbound), or one of the tracks could be part of a double ended siding that extends both to the right and to the left of the modeled scene.

But certainly - one could put a second crossover in the middle of the existing runaround, to create a shorter runaround for when you don't need to run around quite that many cars.

More of a look and feel issue than a matter of efficiency on such a small layout - it matters little if a runaround move takes 30 seconds or a minute when you only do a few such moves in a session, and you actually want your session to last a while (as opposed to on a real railroad, when you want to finish work quickly, so you can get home to your bed and catch some sleep)

Smile,
Stein

[Brakie]

Stein wrote:More of a look and feel issue than a matter of efficiency on such a small layout - it matters little if a runaround move takes 30 seconds or a minute when you only do a few such moves in a session, and you actually want your session to last a while (as opposed to on a real railroad, when you want to finish work quickly, so you can get home to your bed and catch some sleep).
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Indeed and I agree..

I always suspected one of the curses one pays for working on the railroad is seeing everything from a railroaders view..