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IDEAS FOR PROTOTYPICAL LAYOUT OPERATION A SUPPLEMENT TO MODEL RAILROADER MAGAZINE Workshop tips Layout design for operation by Andy Sperandeo Track 1 EAST PORT MARQUETTE YARD, North Western Transfer just arrived Track 6 WEST Chicago & North Western Rockford and west Milwaukee Road Williams Bay/Winter Hill/Lake Beulah Soo Line Hales Corners/Big Bend/Mukwonago Milwaukee deliveries Kansas City and west via Santa Fe Williams Bay block to go on RFX for setout by Williams Bay Switcher, WBS Rockford Extra, symbol “RFX” After classification of NW Transfer Mukwonago Turn, MUT Soo Line Santa Fe Run- Milwaukee Road Through West, SFW Milwaukee deliveries • How a busy model railroad freight yard works • Learn how to reproduce realistic engine terminal and caboose activities • Types of staging yards and tips on how to use them effectively • Prototype passenger train servicing activities that you can model 618262 2015 Layout Planning Ideas 1 © 2015 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. www.ModelRailroader.com SUBSCRIBERALL-NEW! EXCLUSIVE THE OPERATORS Layout design for operation What makes one track plan better for an operating layout than another? Here are some things I look for in pub- lished track plans, plans I design myself, and plans my friends show me. Then on the following pages I’ll describe opera- tional features both prototype and model that can be planned into our layouts. Staging. It’s a given that any model railroad can represent only part of a major railroad, let alone the continental railroad network. So any operating lay- out needs offstage tracks to represent the distant places our trains come from and go to when they aren’t passing across our too-short main lines. In general I’m open to any of the three main types of staging – stub- ended, reversing loop, or through. Each has its applications, and my only concern On a single-track main line, passing sidings determine operating flexibility and is that the staging is suited to the kind of train length. We’re looking down the main track at Black, Texas, on Jay Miller’s railroading to be practiced. HO scale Panhandle & Santa Fe. The passing track is on the left. Jay Miller photo If the plan is for a mainline railroad, I prefer that the staging define the ends some flexibility in meeting trains, and One way to think of it is that the yard Get Your of the main route between A and B. the length of these sidings sets the maxi- needs the capacity to store as many Shortline, branchline, and terminal rail- mum length of most trains. (Yard and cabooses as there are road locomotives roads may need only one staging yard to staging tracks also need to hold trains of in the engine terminal. If it’s a crew- represent “everywhere else.” that length.) Ideally I like to see at least change point where cabooses are The very smallest layouts may make 1½ train lengths of main line between swapped on through trains, it might ALL-ACCESS PASS do with on-layout staging – that’s been passing sidings, to avoid crowding and need to store even more of them. sufficient for our operating sessions on allow some cross-country running. I’ve also learned to appreciate the im- Model Railroader’s Milwaukee Road While it may seem heresy to some, portance of yard auxiliaries such as RIP To Model Railroader Magazine Beer Line. Recently I designed an N scale double track would be a good choice for (repair-in-place) tracks, scale tracks, icing industrial railroad based on a Santa Fe the traffic density of many model rail- tracks, and stock resting tracks (adjacent prototype where a car float connecting roads. It also happens to be prototypical to pens for resting, feeding, and watering For only $4.95 per month, enjoy access to: to a float bridge at one corner of the 4 x 8 for a lot of busy mainline railroads, livestock in transit). These add interest layout is the staging beyond the layout. including the part of the Santa Fe that and realistic action, so the more of them I model. Usually double-track railroads in a track plan the better. Access. Walk-in access is a must. Lift- need passing sidings too, unless Central- And even as a confirmed “yard guy,” Model Railroader Model Railroader Online extras outs or gates to allow walking in are ized Traffic Control allows running I’ll admit that you don’t have to have a All-Time Digital Video Plus, a video like track plans, product okay, especially if someone else has to either way on either track (really two yard. Our managing editor David Popp subscription website that reviews, and build them! I’ll accept a limited amount main tracks instead of double track). used to have a yard-less Soo Line layout Archive, an up-to-date of stooping, but if “duckunder” means that was a lot of fun to run. To make it digital library of all connects you with a team more! crawling, I would prefer not to. Yards. I explained most of my criteria work, you have to be able to set up all Model Railroader of experienced modelers Even better than walk-in is walk- for yards in my article “13 tips for freight the trains you’ll need in staging or in a around, meaning the ability to follow a yard operation and design” in the June fiddle yard. It can be done, even though magazines since 1934. and more than 1,000 train along every part of its run. Modern 2010 MR. I’ll just add a couple of ideas I wouldn’t necessarily want to. HD-quality videos. command control systems make this here. I’ve learned that engine terminals practical, and onboard sound effects give can slow yard operations unless there’s Looking for more? Model Railroad us even more reason to want to be up adequate track capacity to handle Planning magazine as a rule approaches close to the action. incoming and outgoing locomotives layout design from an operational per- simultaneously. A turntable with only spective. I share the feeling of the late Passing tracks. Most model railroads a single lead track, for example, will be a John Armstrong that all model railroads have single track main lines and so need choke point at a busy yard. should be designed as if they were going Upgrade to the All-Access Pass today! passing tracks where trains in opposing For any era when a caboose was still to be operated, at least to some degree. directions can meet. An operating layout a part of every freight train, a caboose To me this just makes any layout look needs enough passing tracks to allow track (or two) is pretty much a must. more like a railroad. P24788 Visit ModelRailroader.com/AllAccess Layout design for operation 3 THE OPERATORS In and out of staging West Mesa operator’s territory MESA WEST MESA EAST HILL Illustration by Rick Johnson Many layouts have a major yard con- on our call board, so we stopped trying operator. When needed to move trains necting to a staging yard at one end. If to get engineers to sign up for them. between Mesa and West Mesa, this per- the on-scene yard is also a crew-change Instead, operators picked the mainline son functioned as a kind of yard hostler, point, a place where engineers start and runs they wanted, but all of those didn’t shifting trains between the classification end their runs over the layout’s main leave immediately when the session yard and the mainline fueling and line, a question comes up in regard to started. That meant we usually had at inspection sidings, which is how David crew assignments: Who will run the least one or two engineers with time to thought of his open staging yard. trains between the on-scene yards and kill until their next road job, and they When not shifting eastward or west- off-scene staging? gladly worked the transfers to have ward trains, the West Mesa operator When you’re concerned about provid- something to do. worked as a second yard engineer at Mesa, ing realistic railroad jobs on your layout, helping with classification or industrial that question isn’t trivial. Ideally these Fiddle operator. Where there’s some switching. It was an interesting job with movements will be handled by someone form of active staging, such as a fiddle at least some prototypical basis, and it let other than the road engineers whose job yard restaging trains during the session, road crews work over a realistic district is running trains across your layout. the fiddle yard operator may run trains between Mesa and East Hill. Actually changing operators makes the between the offstage tracks and the on- crew change more significant. stage yard. On Bill Darnaby’s HO Mau- Automation? For some, the ultimate On some layouts the answer to this mee Route, that’s usually Bill himself. He answer might be to automate movements question is “the yard guy.” When I’ve runs freights and “pullers” (yard trans- in and out of staging with a combination been in that position, I usually haven’t fers) between the fiddle yards and his on- of command control and a computer found moving trains in and out of stag- scene freight yards. And he runs passen- interface. This has its own challenges, ing to be an objectionable burden. How- ger trains to and from the stations at especially since realism may require the ever, this approach fails in terms of a each end of the main line, where the software-driven “crews” to hostle realistic job description for the yard- crew change would ordinarily be made engines between the yard and the master or yard engineer.

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