Frame Work Done - Now some Track Questions

Are you talking about a yard "ladder?" After the first turnout which leads into the yard, it's just a series of turnouts in a row, lined up along the straight legs. For example:

- start with a LH turnout (A)

- to the curved leg of A, attach the straight entry of a RH turnout (B)

- to the straight leg of B, attach the straight entry another RH turnout (C)

- repeat for as many tracks as you want in the yard The tracks from the straight leg of A and the curved legs B, C, etc. will all be parallel.

If you're talking about something else, you'll have to describe it better or post a link to a picture.

Re wiring ... yes, if you use DC, you'll definitely want to wire each track in your yard as a separate block.

-- Bill McC.

Oops! ... apologies for replying to my own message, but I forgot to mention re the wiring ... An alternative to wiring each yard track as a separate DC block is to use power-routing turnouts in the ladder.

-- Bill McC.

It's called a "ladder", and there are lots of ways of building one. A "nice diagonal line" actually takes up a lot space, and the last track will be quite short. Try a fan arrangement, it takes less space.

Depends on whether you're using common rail wiring or not, which is recommended if you sue two or more power packs. (You should have one power pack for each train you want to run at the same time on different parts of the layout.) It's simple in principle, but a lot easier to understand with diagrams. You can find some by appropriate googling, or quite likely some kind soul will give a url.

I think it's time you bought (or borrowed) a book or two. Try "Basic Model Railroading" (Kalmbach 1999, ISBN 0-89024-334-4) and "Basic Wiring for Model Railroaders (Kalmbach 2001, ISBN 0-89024-358-1). Carstens Publishing also puts out handbooks of model railroading, but I find them more suited to the more experienced model railroader who needs some help organising his knowledge and filling in the gaps. You don't sound like you're in that category yet. :-). The books mentioned will answer questions you haven't bumped into yet. And books are a lot quicker and easier to consult than a website. Just leaf througn the pages...

HTH&HF

You may want to do both, power route and wire for blocks. That way more than one train can be stored on track. Train A (with loco) on front half and Train B (with loco) on the back half....

Mostly you are restricted by the space you have available. If your space drives you to a trapzoidal arrangement then you will have progressively shorter tracks. If you can arrange the yard in a parallelogram shape with the leads entering at opposite corners then you tracks will all be of the same length. We are currently rebuild the setup yard at the club and will have 5 tracks in the parallelogram configuration and 4 tracks in the trapazoidal config.

"

Paul

Bill,

Thanks for the help. I followed your instructions and it looks like what I was looking for.

Thanks again

ChrisGW

The prototypes I've run into usually use this symmetrical approach. If your looking for more yard in the same space, post again, asking about fan layout other posters referred to.

-- DW

Think of a turnout as composed of a straight piece of track stuck to a curved piece of track. Just connect all the "straighht" sections together head to tail.

In order to park a locomotive on a yard siding and operate another locomotive you need to remove track power from the siding. If you don't, the locomotive on the siding will power up and start to move when you want it to stay put. You often want to have a number of different trains made up, and ready to run. This permits you to switch trains around and run different ones rather than just cycling the same train around and around. You place the "spare" trains on powered down yard tracks, so they stay put. When it comes time to switch trains, the one on the mainline slips onto a yard siding, and power is switched off to keep it there. Then a flip of a toggle switch applies power to some other yard track and the train there on pulls out onto the main line.

David Starr

I should of posed the second question better. I was wondering if it is best to use separate power packs for each track line, but I have already answered that question for myself, since I have had time to think about it.

ChrisGW