Caboose Tracks

[CBQ Fan]

How do you have your service tracks set up on your layout?

[mark dance]

- Traffic volume justified only a single caboose track
- The proto's track was single ended but I am a fan of double ended caboose tracks and the C&W's traffic density is higher thanits proto's
- We assign specific cabs to trains as conductors had their own cabs on the prototye
- The caboose track is easily accessible by either the East or West end yard switcher. And from the east and west ladders for the arrival/departure yard
- Nelson is a division point and cabooses are changed here as needed. We tend to keep cabeese for the eastern sub at the east end of the cab track and vice versa
- The wye (which *was* on the proto but as part of the shop trackage and so not available to the  yard crews) is helpful as the west end switcher (on the right) can push outbound cabs on to the wye tail track where they can be retrieved by the east end switcher (on the left). Inverse for setting out inbound cabs

Hope that all makes sense.

md

[LKOrailroad]

Caboose track is alongside west yard lead similar to prototype.

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[C855B]

[davefoxx]

Along the lines of what @C855B has done, on my former N scale expanded version of the Seaboard Central 2.0, I had a double-ended caboose track that paralleled the yard ladder.  That allowed easy access to either end of the caboose track to get any caboose out and to get on the right end of the caboose for more efficient switching.

DFF

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I had a double ended siding along the service building & yard office. The switch at the one end was out of service though and Conrail wasn't fixing it because in 1985 they DGAF about caboose efficiency.

[davefoxx]

Damn, that yard looked good as a Conrail yard in 1985, Ed.  I'll miss that layout.

DFF

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Damn, that yard looked good as a Conrail yard in 1985, Ed.  I'll miss that layout.

DFF

I do every day.

[p51]

When you model a RR that only had one caboose in the timeframe you model, the very idea of a caboose track becomes a little... odd.

[CBQ Fan]

Great ideas from everyone, thank you!

[mu26aeh]

When you model the modern era, you don't need caboose tracks.  So you make them power tracks.



This depicts the storage tracks at CSX Hagerstown Yard.  During the Western Maryland/Chessie System days, this is where caboose(ee) would be stored/serviced.  Located on the east end of the yard, within a wye.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.643653,-77.7333711,221m/data=!3m1!1e3

[Mark5]

Some guidance here: https://www.nmra.org/sites/default/files/d3h1.pdf

For me, I look to what the prototype did in the region I model. If that doesn't fit - I improvise! 

[wazzou]

I've always strived to have access to it from both ends.
I see that is predominant in other's responses also. 
It just makes sense when you consider the first one in is the first one serviced and ready for the road.

[Mark5]

I've always strived to have access to it from both ends.

Definitely

[Cajonpassfan]

Well, it depends. In the days when cabooses stayed within an assigned territory (Division), they peddled back and forth between division points and it was useful to have caboose tracks at each end of the yard. Periodically, a switch engine would grab a group of cabooses, take them to the other end of the yard and swap them. This is rarely modeled in our compressed world, but caboose assignments should be considered even with room for just one set of caboose tracks.
Otto K.