Classification yard

[danny5]

How dose a yard work ? do they have one set of tracks for north bound cars and another for south and so on ? Or maybe a link that i could see how it done!
Danny5

 

[cascaderailroad]

Some yards have approach passing sidings outside of town, where many trains can wait their turn into the yards. Trains usually come in on a receiving yard track...the mainline loco's are removed, and the drafts of cars are stored there. Then they are pulled by switcher locomotives, and are shoved, kicked, or gravity shunted down a hill (Hump), and are broken down by their intended destination towards various inbound classification tracks, where individual trains are made up. Some large yards have outbound departure classification tracks where trains further moved, and are stored until locos are dispatched for them. Altoona once had 17+ classification, inbound, outbound yards, and scale tracks where cars were weighed. The loco repair/maintenance/assembly/refueling facilities were a couple miles long, and employed thousands of workers. There were teams of "oilers" on both sides of incomming trains, some of who opened the axle friction bearing journal box lids, oiled them, repacked them, inspected, and knocked brass bearing wedges back into place, then the last man closed the journal box lids...all the while the train was still moving at @ 1 mph. Defective bad order cars are pulled, and are sent to rip tracks (repair in place), or are sent to the heavy maintenance shops.

 

[simking1]

Wkipedia has some good write ups on yards and such.
google is your friend

 

[bl4882]

You might want to get hold of John Armstrong's Track Planning for Realistic Operation. He has a good section on prototype yards that is geared to the modeller, as well as a lot of other good, basic information. It's not too expensive, either.

http://www.amazon.com/Track-Planning-Realistic-Operation-Railroader/dp/0890242275

Bernie

 

[Dap]

In my opinion, the best book is "Freight Terminals & Trains" by John A. Droege, 1925. It is available as a reprint from NMRA.
Kalmbach Memorial Library

 

[insulfrog]

There is another railway simulator for the PC that specialises in classification yards, it is called 'Freight Yard Manager' and it's quite good, plus there is a Yahoo group on it as well if you are interested. If you want to know more about classficatin yards, this is the perfect sim to find out .