Conrail Windsor St Yard (York PA) Engineering Report

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Yikes. Yeah.

I think single tracking is starting to look more and more appealing.

[davefoxx]

It seems to me that you could easily slide the bridge and the turnout to the H-D warehouse down the line just a bit to make room for a standard crossover that allows the mainline tracks to pass through on the straight routes of the turnouts.

If necessary, you could always put a turnout on the bridge Philip-style.   

[DKS]

It seems to me that you could easily slide the bridge and the turnout to the H-D warehouse down the line just a bit to make room for a standard crossover that allows the mainline tracks to pass through on the straight routes of the turnouts.

Yes, you can. The only thing is, the further you push the crossover down the line, the more awkward it tends to look in relation to the other crossover at the end of the yard--or not; it just feels a little awkward. The other trade-offs are that the mainline curvature becomes slightly sharper, and the switches in front of H-D become more angled--not that these are necessarily bad things.



The other thing you can do is completely reconfigure the line as it exits the yard, with the second crossover right there, and straighten out the rest of the line. The downside is you lose separation between upper and lower lines; the upside is the mainline is a lot smoother, and H-D can become bigger--bordering on massive. I've also drawn it with one half of the crossover running "wrong"; it can be made "right" but the line then extends out straight even further and really starts to squeeze Mt. Wolf at that point.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Yeah, that S-Currve is ugly.

I don't mind encroaching closer to the lower main at that point, but I think this is one of those scenarios that just gets uglier the more you mess with it.

And, I really am liking the idea of taking the Conrailesque approach and just single tracking it (crew time is cheap, right?).

[DKS]

Here's a single-tracked version. I think it would be cool to leave the bridges intact as double-track, so it's obvious the line has been "conrailed." Left a passing siding at Mt. Wolf which, of course, is optional.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Love it. That was my plan. I've actually done that on the shelf, and so it's going to carry over here too.

[Ian MacMillan]

Single tracking is just plain hot. Do it. You'll like it

[conrail98]

Ok, I'm going to be the lone voice here on not single tracking. You want an area on the approach that is long enough to hold a train. Right now, you don't really have that as the siding in the single track example is too far away to be an affective holding siding for the yard. I know we've talked offline about some traffic flow and the like but you're essentially creating a bottle next for yourself. You are right that Conrail would take double down to single in many places, but not in the areas immediately adjacent to a yard. If anything, that siding would probably go before anything next to the yard. I also would worry about the S-curve there in the 2nd example from DKS. You're going into a yard, the operator shouldn't be going more then 10-15 scale mph and if they are, then they can pick up the cars as they come off the track. I think if you single track it you'll regret it later,

Phil

[jpec]

I think taking a variation on Ian's approach might work...set it up for double track but only lay the single and see how it tests out and drop in the second if needed. On the other hand, if an inbound or outbound train has to wait a few minutes,  so be it - not like it doesn't happen in the real world.

Jeff

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Phil makes a REALLY good point, and that's the whole reason I'm agonizing over it. Exactly the whole reason. I keep taking solace in the idea that that stretch of railroad only sees ~10 trains through the course of the day, and they'll be somewhat bunched up.

ENBA/BAEN
SEPY/PYSE
BAPI/PIBA
Amtrak
A coal train
The Local

I like Jeff's reasoning here. I think that's the approach I'll take for now.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Single tracking is just plain hot. Do it. You'll like it

Oh, I know. I've done it on my shelf.

In this case, the ROW has been slightly encroached by vegetation, but you can see it's wide enough for two tracks:

[Rich_S]

Phil makes a REALLY good point, and that's the whole reason I'm agonizing over it. Exactly the whole reason. I keep taking solace in the idea that that stretch of railroad only sees ~10 trains through the course of the day, and they'll be somewhat bunched up.

ENBA/BAEN
SEPY/PYSE
BAPI/PIBA
Amtrak
A coal train
The Local

I like Jeff's reasoning here. I think that's the approach I'll take for now.

Nice, a Conway train in the mix  I also like the look of former double track mains that have been singled tracked. You end up with a Ho Chi Men trail beside the current single track main. You have to keep the bridges as double track minus the second track. In my opinion, it's a easy way to show how things have changed since the original railroad laid the tracks.

 

[seusscaboose]

Dibs on the through passenger job
 

[rswinnerton]

I wanna work the yard and wander off half way through.

[Ian MacMillan]

Oh, I know. I've done it on my shelf.

In this case, the ROW has been slightly encroached by vegetation, but you can see it's wide enough for two tracks:

Eh.... Not enough removed track 2 hotness.  Need to move track 1 over.