Conrail Windsor St Yard (York PA) Engineering Report

[Bob Bufkin]

Hey Ed, check your Facebook page.  Just sent you some modeling info for York (LOL)

[Dave V]

The return loop can be scenicked to look like the NCRR in the wilds.  Add a second track and some catenary to it and now it's the York Haven line.

[wm3798]

You're excuses are tantamount to blaspheme. 

1.  You're still young and dumb.  You can't keep hiding behind that fact.  The phantom trains were the number one problem in terms of bottling up the layout and the yard.  And my layout at least had some distance to try to work it out.  Your design is much smaller, and therefore, must be more efficient.  Running trains through your limited infrastructure, and having to do so during an ops session, will be a hellish nightmare.  You might as well wear a hockey mask and replace your throttle with a chain saw.

2.  If the return loop "kinda sucks" a little now while it's just on paper, it's not going to get any better.  From a purely visual standpoint, it kills the effect of your trains actually going someplace.  The yard is set up to generate trains of 20-30 cars.  You'll only ever see half of them going in one direction, and that will make everyone cranky.

3.  A duck under.  Really.  In the 21st century.

4.  Carpeted?  Perfect!  Two quick slits with a utility knife and you have a portal.  When the trains are removed to a larger house, you flap it back over and it's done.  The bumpout will create a "photographers curve" and doesn't have to be a straight shot, or even terribly wide.  It certainly doesn't have to be an 18" return loop.  As for the storage area underneath, build a channel for the track so stuff doesn't get in the way of the train, but you can still access in the event of disaster.  Put the track down carefully, and don't ask for trouble with switches or grades, and it should serve you well.

5.  You talked about building staging behind the wall in the utility area of the basement.  Is that still on the table or is this half-baked scheme your staging solution?

[wm3798]

The return loop can be scenicked to look like the NCRR in the wilds.  Add a second track and some catenary to it and now it's the York Haven line.

I'm looking at the NCR route on the Googles, and I'm having a hard time finding the 180 degree loop...  If ever there was a long straight run through what Ed likes to call "nothing"... it's the NCR.  That loop absolutely murders it.

[Dave V]

I'm looking at the NCR route on the Googles, and I'm having a hard time finding the 180 degree loop...  If ever there was a long straight run through what Ed likes to call "nothing"... it's the NCR.  That loop absolutely murders it.

There's this crazy thing you can do with scenery called "view blocks" where you use tress and hills to hide part of the curve.  Pretty new stuff...   

[jmarley76]

You might as well wear a hockey mask and replace your throttle with a chain saw.

Best. Ops. Session. Ever. 

[mcjaco]

[seusscaboose]

It's only inaccessible if you're @seusscaboose. The rest of us will be able to duck under and get to it. That's why there's no benchwork in that area

I see what you did there

[wm3798]

Your view block idea is indeed not new, and there is a short tunnel somewhere in the wilds of York County that might suffice.  But it won't change the fact that the front end of EVERY train will be crossing the back end of itself based on the balloon track he's drawn.

Again, we're looking at train lengths in the neighborhood of 20+ cars, and a proposed volume of traffic that's pretty high... which will now be increased by at least a third to account for the phantoms.

If the glory hole in the stairway isn't the answer, then consider going into your return loop with both feet, and make it a helix to go up to a higher shelf that can go back over the yard.  No switching or ops up there, just an extended run so you have some room to breath between trains.

Since the helix would be in that high visibility area near the entry to the room, I suggest you take a cue from JustTrainCrazy (Kevin Beck) and enclose with something dazzling and museum quality...



While a helix would add considerably to the Pain the  Construction factor, it would solve numerous other problems... to wit:

1.  Trains would actually appear to leave York.

2.  The time it takes to traverse the helix will add considerably to the time the yard crew has to build the next train... without having to play Ghost Busters with the phantoms...

3.  You would gain some badly needed run time overall, plus an exotic stretch of extremely photogenic negative space on the new upper deck.

4.  You can move the new Baltimore staging yard to the end of the upper run and into the back utility room, so the fiddle yard crew can work at eye level without having to crack their heads open, hobble their knees, or upend every piece of rolling stock when they bang into the benchwork at a duck under.

5.  You will solve the layout's challenges with engineering rather than with stubborn adherence to preconceived notions.  America needs more of this.

Now go sharpen your pencil and come back with some better ideas.

Lee

[davefoxx]

@wm3798 is pretty good about suggesting that others remodel their entire house to fit their dream layout under roof, but ask him to remove one closet door . . . 

DFF

[wm3798]

Up yours, Gustafson.

[davefoxx]

We're having fun giving Lee a hard time, but he does make a great case for a second level, assuming ops are important to Ed.  I'm on board with what you're preachin', Lee, but that's easy for me to say.  I don't have to build or pay for it.

DFF

[davefoxx]

Up yours, Gustafson.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!  I knew I got you good!

DFF

[Ed Kapuscinski]

We're having fun giving Lee a hard time, but he does make a great case for a second level, assuming ops are important to Ed.  I'm on board with what you're preachin', Lee, but that's easy for me to say.  I don't have to build or pay for it.

DFF

Oh, I understand the arguments for a second level, and if my goal here were to model as much of the NCR as possible, that's what I'd do.

But that's not what I'm trying to do here.

Really, what I'm trying to do here is add some distance outside the yard so that crews can navigate it, but that's it.

I'm not trying to run all 20 trains that run each day in an ops session. Maybe we'll just do 4.

And the layout isn't being designed to entertain a dozen people. Or even half a dozen. Maybe half a half a dozen. Or maybe just me.

I think that's something Lee isn't getting: I'm not trying to recreate a whole railroad, just a SMALL slice of it, a much smaller slice than most modelers do. Think of this as more Lance Mindheim switching layout and less Virginia and Ohio, just in a mainline setting.

Hell, I'm even thinking about using a 1:1 (notso) fast clock.

[davefoxx]

If the purpose is to operate the yard, and then just get the outgoing trains out of the way, then, yeah, I understand what you're after.  Lee's right about the trains coming right back at you, unless your plan is to move them out and park them for later use as an inbound.  Almost like you're merely hostling the trains in and out of the yard, rather than really having operators set as a full-time mainline engineer job.

DFF