Layout & Operations Description

Converting a “Display” Railroad to an “Operations” Railroad

Shortly after moving from New York to our new home in Virginia, I began construction of my latest model railroad in the basement, a spacious 1260 square feet! Not expecting to meet any other model railroaders in our rural little county of only 26,000 people, I planned a “display” type railroad which would amuse visitors and accommodate grandchildren. The basement dimensions and layout were ideal for my plans: walkout to the back yard for easy delivery of lumber, electrical supplies and ceiling components; centrally located interior stairway, freeing up all four walls for benchwork, high ceilings to create an aura of spaciousness and maybe even a multi-level design and plumbing available for sink and toilet.

My wish list for the railroad room included; no duck-unders, no wiring across floors, separate switch controlled electrical circuits for track power, scenery and lighting effects, and room lighting, and another always-on circuit for construction and maintenance purposes. My wish list for the layout itself included: all steam power; at least 6 independent, but interconnected track circuits to allow up to 6 people at once to operate trains without running into each other; mountainous terrain for operational interest; a logging area to employ my Shay and Climax locomotives, and several operating coal, log, gravel or lumber loading /unloading facilities to add operational interest beyond the movement of the trains around the layout.

After a year or two of construction, open houses and family visits, I was amazed to find out that there were other model railroaders in central Virginia and that they invited strangers to come to “operating sessions” on their railroads. Naturally, I invited them to come and “run trains” on my layout. We had fun, but it soon became apparent that some changes were needed in the basement if these “run” sessions were to generate interest in regular visits from fellow model railroaders. Changes were needed if the railroad was to evolve from a “display” layout to an “operations” layout.

LCL Concept

The most serious problem in my layout design was that I did not have many sidings for switching operations. I had many industries that could be served by freight cars, and many stations that could provide a reason for a passenger train to stop, but most were on one of the six mainlines. This led to the birth of the “LCL” or “Less than Car Load” idea.

My operational design uses the Micro-Mark car card system for car control. When a piece of rolling stock is dropped off, its car card is also dropped off by the crew in a box near the industry. The car card holds a “waybill” indicating the commodity or freight in the car, its’ point of origin and its intended delivery point. Similarly, when a piece of rolling stock is picked up, its car card and waybill is picked up by the crew. With one exception, Crews, including yard masters, do not handle or switch the waybills in car cards during a session. The exception is the LCL or “Less than Car Load” stop. When an industry is located on the mainline, you cannot leave a piece of rolling stock on the track and wait for someone to unload it. In this case, the crew makes a brief stop ( 5 fast clock minutes), simulating the quick loading or unloading of freight, removes the waybill from the car card representing the delivered freight, drops off the waybill in the box near the industry and picks up a waybill representing picked up freight. The picked up waybill goes back in the same car card so that car can be dropped off elsewhere or used for another LCL stop in a later session. In this way, industries can be located on the mainline without the need for a spur track or siding, and the crew has things to do on their way to areas where switching of cars will also be accomplished. Now freight trains could make brief stops at industries on the mainline, drop off or pick up small loads, and continue on.

Additional Switching Areas

The next change I made was to add two industrial areas for switching operations to a lower level staging area. The original design used the lower level only as a staging area to hold rolling stock not needed for run sessions. Inspired by the complexity of track designs I saw on my friends’, railroads, I created these two new areas alongside of the lower level staging area. These two areas are roughly pie-shaped and provide enough room for 8-10 small industries each, and include run-around trackage. “Sebastian” occupies a space west of Trinley Yard about 8 feet long, 1 foot wide on one end and 3 feet wide on the other end. “Wyatt” is contained in a similarly shaped space east of Trinley Yard.

Converting Staging Areas to Classification Yards

Another change I made was to convert three areas I had designed as staging yards into Staging/classification yards.

1. The Frankburg yard, which is the easternmost staging area, was originally a stub-end yard. Track was added so that trains could enter and leave from both ends, instead of having to back into the yard to return.

2. In the Trinley Yard, the westernmost staging area, a return loop was already present allowing trains to enter or depart from either end. Since this yard sits at the bottom of a helix connecting the yard to the rest of the railroad, a simple convention was adopted requiring all trains to depart from the east end of the yard and arrive at the west end. No trains ever back down the helix. Since these yards are accessible from both ends, returning rolling stock can be resorted from either direction. Cars can be backed into classification tracks from the east end or pushed into the same tracks from the west end.

3.The Bethany yard is situated in the middle of the railroad, and was already accessible from both ends. This was converted from a staging yard to a mid- railroad passenger terminal and pre-sorting yard. Connected by an interchange with the Main line, Bethany can be used to “block “ returning trains for easier re-classification by the Trinley and Frankburg yardmasters.

Creating a Transfer Station

The last change I made was the addition of another mid-layout switching and sorting area, or "Transfer Station." ( This is not shown on the track plan above yet). The railroad runs through my wood shop using a double track mainline against the walls to connect the east and west ends of the layout. Moving my rarely-used radial arm saw and shop vac up to the garage freed up 32 square feet of space in this area., and still left plenty of room for my shop. This space now holds a 3-track car float, a 5 track holding/classification yard and 7 spur tracks for two industry complexes. The car float simulates transfer of traffic to a friend's railroad. providing several more theoretical destinations for freight and passengers. This area can be entered from either direction, and provides another interesting yardmaster operation. This turned out to be the most popular job on the railroad, and has been functioning for the last 20 formal operating sessions.

With these changes, my operating sessions now can employ 3-4 yardmasters, a dispatcher, up to 4 road crews and up to 4 “through” train crews.