RBL Trackplan Features - Marina Yard
Saturday, February 9, 2008 at 11:31AM This post provides some detail about my design choices and compromises for the N Scale Richmond Belt Line (RBLC) which is heavily influenced by the Richmond Pacific (RPRC), a local Class 3 short line in Richmond California.
Richmond Pacific’s 23rd Street Yard
The Richmond Pacific relies on several small yards in the Richmond area to sort cars ahead of industry switching or interchange work. The RBLC plan captures some of the RPRC’s yards, each yard is included on the RBLC layout because of the functionality it adds to operations. The Richmond Belt Line Marina yard is based on RPRC’s 23rd Street yard. The prototype is generally linear in design with interesting curved throats at each end. You can see the yard in the center of the Google Earth satellite image below.
Marina Yard will be the organizing hub of the RBLC layout. Here’s the track layout of the RBLC Marina Yard (1 foot grid). I’ve deliberately chosen a very simple design for this yard.
The RBLC Marina yard has six tracks vs. the RPRC’s nine. The six tracks provide enough space to accommodate the classifications for the different switching destinations but are not expected to be a locations to store cars. That is handled elsewhere on the RBLC. The BNSF lead and the BNSF interchange track can be seen at the top of the drawing in pink ballast, running along the back of the yard and joining the RBLC tracks at the left hand (east) throat.
The longest tracks in the RBLC yard are about 80 inches long and can accommodate about 20 cars which is manageable from a yard drill perspective and, like the prototype, the RBLC Marina yard can be worked from either end.
West End Throat
The west end throat and associated trackage serves a number of key functions: classification, engine service, access to BNSF interchange and access to port siding which doubles as the west yard lead.
The yard throat is laid out so that a car at the foul point of each track won’t obscure the switch for the track behind it. This means that as long as cars don’t foul switches, all the switches remain visible during yard operations. This is good for operators, especially for visiting operators, and is intended to lead to smoother operation of the yard by making couplings more observable, thereby minimizing a source of derailments.
The two sidings on the far side of the dirt road are a compact engine service facility not much smaller that the RPRC’s engine service at the Levin Terminal on 4th Street. The dirt road provides a little visual separation of the engine service tracks and the rest of the yard.
Port of Richmond Lead
Beyond the west throat, the double track leading west (away from the viewer) is Port siding which is used when switching the Port of Richmond located further around to the right. The east end of the port siding is just behind the engine service area and the west end is in the Port area out of view to the right. Port siding is 55” long with is good for about eleven cars. The Port lead track is about 100 inches long (8’ 4”) which comfortably accommodates a “pull” of all cars from any track.
Ideally, a single track lead would have been used to connect Marina yard to the port area. The desire here is to prevent the yard and port areas merging visually and have them appear and function as separated locations. Space ended up being tight at this end of the layout and it wasn’t an option to move the yard further east or to shorten it so I favored operation over realism here and went with Port siding beginning at the west throat of Marina Yard.
Running a single track lead from Marina yard around to the port would have looked better, but would also have meant virtually no runaround capability for switching the port. Without a runaround option, Port operators would be forced to rely on Marina yard to organize cuts of cars and get the engine on the right end. In my mind this would have fused the yard and the Port operationally which detracts from the illusion of distance and tangles the operations of the two areas which is especially problematic when on operator is working the west end and another is working the port at the same time.
It turns out that usually only a switch engine without cars that needs to come to the east end to make a runaround move. So the Port operator doesn’t really spend much time operating near the west yard throat. There’ll be a need to coordinate switching the west end of Marina yard and the port so the lead track is available when needed. Quite acceptable in my mind.
BNSF Interchange
On the Richmond Pacific, the pickup point for the BNSF occurs at Safeway siding which is along the RPRC’s “main” line east of the 23rd St Yard. From a model perspective, that takes up a lot of linear space and largely precludes that track from serving other industries because they would often be blocked by the BNSF cars set out there, waiting to be collected. I saved space on the RBLC by locating the interchange along the rear of Marina yard, thus freeing up about eight feet of RBLC main track east of the yard to serve industries.
Referring to the view above, the BNSF lead (pink ballast) from the BNSF Richmond Terminal runs along the far side of the RBLC Marina Yard. The interchange track (also pink ballast) is the track between the BNSF lead and the furthest Marina yard track. The BNSF interchange is 80 inches long and holds about 18-20 cars.
During operations, the BNSF will drop off cars early in the session to one of the Marina yard tracks. Yard operators will have to leave a track open to receive them. Later in the session, the BNSF will collect the cars that the RBLC has left on the BNSF interchange track and head west (away from the viewer in the rendering above) to staging on the lower level representing the BNSF Richmond Terminal.
Access from the BNSF lead to the BNSF interchange track is important. The BNSF tracks carry larger, heavier road units that normally would be not allowed into the yard, especially six-axle units with rigid trucks. The Richmond Pacific doesn’t allow these types of units to enter their yard trackage without permission. From the BNSF perspective, the BNSF interchange track looks like a siding and is laid with longer switches than the rest of the RBLC yard. That way, the BNSF units can collect and drop off cars without entering the RBLC yard.
East End Throat
The east end throat is much simpler than the west end. It is based on the Marina Bay Parkway end of Richmond Pacific’s main yard. The RPRC’s 23rd Street Yard east throat has a visually pleasing and interesting S-curve to it as shown below. The BNSF Siberia Lead also shows clearly just north (above) the ladder.
The grade crossing can be seen just beyond the first switch in the ladder to the right. The road crossing the RPRC track is Marina Bay Parkway where many of my local video clips and pictures of the BNSF and the RPRC have been taken.
I tried dozens of times to come up with a way to incorporate the distinctive S-curve shape of this ladder into Marina Yard’s track configuration. To make this shape work on relatively narrow layout shelves required locating it at a corner or other location on the layout where the bench changes width.
As much as I would have liked it, I decided there isn’t the bench width or length needed for the curvy ladder and I wasn’t prepared to dump other layout features in order to ensure this feature was included on the main yard. I’m also leery that the curves in the yard tracks could make life difficult for body mounted couplers even on broad curves. I’ll leave that challenge for another layout and keep this yard simple to build, maintain and operate. I think east end throat looks okay on the 3D renderings with more conventional straight ladder.
I was able to capture some of the character of the 23rd Street Yard east ladder by putting most of the tracks on one side of the yard.This ladder is also laid out so that cars at the foul point don’t obscure a switch behind them.
The train at the rear of the layout is sitting on the BNSF lead. The BNSF will make use of RBLC tracks for two daily local turns as well as stack trains and bare table trains and the occasional light engine move. This particular train is about 35 cars which is not so long that it overwhelms the scene.
The design can be operated in 3rd Plan It’s 3D mode and I’m very happy with the way it operates, especially the long track capacity. It is nice to be able to drill cuts that are 15+ cars long and not have to think constantly about which switch leads to which track and how close is the tail to the throat at the other end.
I expect Marina Yard to be a central part of Richmond Belt Line operations so I’ve laid the tracks out with a simple design to maximize clean operations and provide access for maintenance and visibility to operators.
- Coxy
Reader Comments (2)
Great stuff! In the classic chicken-or-the-egg debate, do you think the curve came before the yard, or the yard defined the prototype curve? ...Ed
Good question Ed. I'll make some inquiries.
I do know that in the late 1990's a lot of redevelopment and construction went on in that local area resulting in the buildings you now see south (below) the current 23rd street yard tracks. This is mostly old SP trackage which had an extensive turn of the century infrastructure servicing the Kaiser shipyards and other local industry.
I suspect the present yard is the northern part of a more symetrical yard configuration where the tracks that were on south side of the present tracks were removed. There could also have been more than one yard in the area and what we now see today is a kind of "frankenyard" cobbled together from various part of the prior trackage.
I'd really like to model this yard more faithfully some day. There'd be a few challenges but it would be really distinctive. The yard I have lined up for the RBL will do the job and I particularly want it to be very functional as well as economic on bench space so the beautiful curves had to go for now. Sniff!!
Cheers and thanks for stopping by!
- Steve