azathoth92
New member
I'm working with the "Cumberland to Connellsville" route and trying to make sense of yard operations at B&O Cumberland yard.
The way the route is done there is a hump-yard on the east side of the main and a regular yard with Engine facilities on the on the west side of the main.
How would these two yards be used together?
What is the point of the regular yard?
The way the HUMP YARD is laid out, there are no crossovers between the four staging tracks at either end of the hump yard except for the two middle staging tracks on the east side of the yard witch allows both access to the upper half of the bowl.
The lack of crossovers makes it difficult to cut off or add power and caboose in the Hump yard. It also cuts the bowl in two - this along with what appear to be hump towers at either end seem to imply that you would hump traffic in both directions. Is that reasonable?
Below is the layout of the hump yard. The single track at each end connects to the double tracked mainline. Four staging tracks lead into the bowl from either side.
Again, the regular yard is on the other side of the main and not shown in the diagram.
My best guess for operations is that trains enter the regular yard, have power and caboose cut off to their service tracks that switch off of that yard (though I don't see a convenient caboose track). Then a yard switcher brings the train across to the appropriate bowl to be sorted. That same switcher would then bring strings of sorted cars out of the bowl back over to the regular yard to make up new trains, add power, and caboose. Does this make sense?
The problem that I see with this is it will necessitate a lot of moves over the main that splits the two yards (with no other yard-bypass available to through traffic), and there is no reason to split the hump yard in two directions as all sorted trains will have to go back across the main for power and caboose to be added in the regular yard before continuing east or west.
Either I'm not understanding the purpose of the yard configuration, or the track-work on the route is not sufficient for operations. I suppose one is as likely as the other. I wanted to get some opinions from the forum before I started ripping up track work and redoing the yard.
I'm looking forward to your comments.
Thanks.
Harry Campbell
The way the route is done there is a hump-yard on the east side of the main and a regular yard with Engine facilities on the on the west side of the main.
How would these two yards be used together?
What is the point of the regular yard?
The way the HUMP YARD is laid out, there are no crossovers between the four staging tracks at either end of the hump yard except for the two middle staging tracks on the east side of the yard witch allows both access to the upper half of the bowl.
The lack of crossovers makes it difficult to cut off or add power and caboose in the Hump yard. It also cuts the bowl in two - this along with what appear to be hump towers at either end seem to imply that you would hump traffic in both directions. Is that reasonable?
Below is the layout of the hump yard. The single track at each end connects to the double tracked mainline. Four staging tracks lead into the bowl from either side.
Again, the regular yard is on the other side of the main and not shown in the diagram.
Code:
/--------\-----\
/----------\ \
/------------\ \
/--------------\ \
/----------------\ \
/------------------\ ----------\
-------------------------------------v--------------\
\---------------------------------^---------------\
\----------------------------------------------------
\-----------------------------/
\----------------/
\--------------/
\------------/
\----------/
\--------/
\------/My best guess for operations is that trains enter the regular yard, have power and caboose cut off to their service tracks that switch off of that yard (though I don't see a convenient caboose track). Then a yard switcher brings the train across to the appropriate bowl to be sorted. That same switcher would then bring strings of sorted cars out of the bowl back over to the regular yard to make up new trains, add power, and caboose. Does this make sense?
The problem that I see with this is it will necessitate a lot of moves over the main that splits the two yards (with no other yard-bypass available to through traffic), and there is no reason to split the hump yard in two directions as all sorted trains will have to go back across the main for power and caboose to be added in the regular yard before continuing east or west.
Either I'm not understanding the purpose of the yard configuration, or the track-work on the route is not sufficient for operations. I suppose one is as likely as the other. I wanted to get some opinions from the forum before I started ripping up track work and redoing the yard.
I'm looking forward to your comments.
Thanks.
Harry Campbell