I'm planning a small engine yard. I know I need / want:
- Shed with a couple of tracks with access pits below the rails
- Ash pit
- Water tower - though aren't these often found at the platforms?
I'm also going to have a turntable. I know they were rare on narrow gauge railways (there was a discussion about this a year or two ago) but I want one. (I will have an operating rule that engines run the mainline chimney-first.)
Is anything else missing?
Hi Tom, some sort of provision should be provided for coal or oil depending on the type of motive power used.
Lots of clutter on the ground, tools, wheelbarrows, piles of ash, bits of chain.....
Look at photographs of most engine servicing areas and they are anything but tidy!
Julian
Quote from: Tom Haythornthwaite on November 23, 2023, 01:24Water tower - though aren't these often found at the platforms?
If the loco yard is big enough you might have a large water tank somewhere high up (built into the roof of the loco shed?) feeding water by gravity to one or more water cranes placed at convenient points both within the yard and on the station platform (so a loco on a through train that need to top up its water supply doesn't need to uncouple and shuffle into the yard to do so).
Other suggestions for additions would be a mess room for loco crews (could be a 'proper' building for a large yard, a partitioned area within the loco shed or a grounded carriage or van body) that might also serve as somewhere for crew to book on at the start of a shift (and 'clock off at the end).
Good luck with the turntable.
They are very hard to build in 009.
The isssues are many, linning the tracks up as it turns, keeping the deck flat and the rails on it level with the exit rails and also the electrical connections.
It can be done but it is not easy.
Thank you Robin. I feel silly for forgetting coaling. (I have steam locos.) So that could be something like a raised platform with a back and two sides, eh?
Thank you Julian. Certainly all the best layouts have messy engine yards.
Thank you Julien. I've never thought enough about where the water for the water cranes come from. And yes, I do need that mess room.
Thank you Brian. I hope to overcome those challenges and even write about my methods. (But it's still early days.)
So that's two types of mess, coal, water, and a fiddly turntable.
Maybe a bin of timber for lighting up?
David.
Dry sand is essential, this might be just loaded into the engines by bucket but a larger shed would have something more sophisticated.
(https://playingtrains.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/cuarto-scenery-29-6-23-1.jpg)
Right to left, storage bin, drying house and dispensing tower.
(Apologies for the wrong scale, photo used for explanation only)
Assuming your trains carry oil lamps then a small shed set a safe distance away from other buildings could be designated as the lamp hut. Brick or wriggly tin would be better than wood because there'd be paraffin stored inside as well as spare lamps, wicks and trimming tools. It doesn't need to be lineside because the lamps can easily be carried some distance before being placed on the engines.
Don't forget a spare siding for parking incoming loads/outgoing empties to and from the coal stage/fuel tanks.