The Cleveland yard on my layout was a hodge podge of cheap turnouts and mixed track, both brass and nickel silver. The design was ok, but after building two other yards and getting a better understanding for operations and switching running my layout for years, I knew eventually I wanted to upgrade it.
The yard was the first thing I built on my layout and it showed. There were two runarounds practically next to each other (the first design had none, so I over compensated and put in two!) and the service tracks didn't function well. There was also an auto loading platform at the end of two track that ate valuable space for an auto operation I had long since abandoned as impractical.
The one thing that couldn't move was my roundhouse, because it's pretty much permanently attached to the base, so that had to stay put. I also did not want to lose the two tracks that serviced the port, because that was a major part of my operations and because of the size, generated a lot of traffic both coming and going.
So with the roundhouse and port anchoring both ends, I started fiddling around with various layouts using a combination of turnouts printed on paper (see the Peco site for these if you use Peco turnouts) and actual turnouts I had on hand. This told me how many more turnouts I needed and allowed me to try various configurations.
Once I settled on a design, the hard part began -- tearing up completed layout real estate. Let me tell you, pulling up that first section of track was difficult. This was the oldest part of the layout and it had sentimental value -- but the more I thought about how it would be even better when done, the easier it became.
Here's documentation of my progress thus far:
I wanted to save as many of the stub end tracks as possible because they weren't moving, were already wired and obviously already ballasted. So most of the work is on the throat and the upper (to the right on this picture) part of the yard. Here, demo work has begun, and you'll notice track and turnouts in various places -- this is my design and I keep it in place until ready to do demo work, otherwise I would completely forget what design I was going for!
Work on the runaround at the bottom of the pic and part of the throat...
Here's a better view of the throat. The repair shop is in a new location with the fuel rack broken into two short sections instead of one long one. Not sure if I'll be able to fit the overhead crane in or not. May have to cut it down. The throat was a bit challenging because not everything went together exactly as I wanted originally, so I had to make some adjustments on the fly.
Another view...
Repair shop area...
And the new diamond that allows access from the yard to the shop area and on to the turntable and roundhouse. I use the hoppers to hold nails and other larger debris that I pull up.
Tools of the trade -- a couple of box cars to check clearances. The wood chisel works really well for scraping up old ballast. I remove the temporary track, scrape up the old ballast, then lay the new track. I don't nail anything down until everything is in place. I want to be able to fine tune each track once I see what the final layout will look like. I also started working from top to bottom (left to right in this photo) because I have more flexibility (space) at the top to adjust. The mainline on the far left wasn't moving, so if something was off coming the other way, it would be impossible to fix. So if you are tearing up existing trackwork, keep things like that in mind when deciding where to start.
A little HO scale dynamite took care of the plaster transition from the port to the yard.
Some of the track is now in, but not nailed down.
More progress on the main stub tracks as we work our way toward the backdrop.
And now the tricky diamond is done. There were four tracks coming off it and I didn't have much flexibility between the port (which wasn't changing) and the top stub track, so I took plenty of time making sure everything was lined up.
A lood down the stubs. There are a few stray pieces of track, but otherwise, all the stub tracks are now in. I'll adjust the straightness and even everything out once I'm sure everything else fits.
Probably adding a longer service track where the old double-ended caboose track used to be (the deadend track closest to the shop off the roundhouse). I'm hoping my cabooses can go elsewhere (have a couple of tracks that might work near the port) and can store my worktrain on this track, which is currently in a drawer due to lack of space. I can't run the worktrain, because the crane doesn't fit under my rolling lift bridge.
A view of the shop with more of the track down. There will be two tracks that run through the shop to the turntable and one track on the outside that serves as a RIP track (which may get moved near the cabooses) and for deliveries to the shop of fuel and parts. That diagonal track near the fence will connect to what used to be a deadend for the shortline that serves the flats, eliminating a delivery issue over there. It's now a lot easier to get things to the warehouse in the flats.
The pile of junk turnouts I removed. They were the old electric switches that I have operated manually for years. Some were brass and some were NS. I also had sections of brass track that were impossible to keep clean. Gone, gone, gone!
Work has ceased for now because I ran out of track and rail joiners, but I have more on order. The track has gone down much quicker than anticipated, but I will need to do soldering of joints and add some more wiring connections to keep everything running smoothly.
The yard was the first thing I built on my layout and it showed. There were two runarounds practically next to each other (the first design had none, so I over compensated and put in two!) and the service tracks didn't function well. There was also an auto loading platform at the end of two track that ate valuable space for an auto operation I had long since abandoned as impractical.
The one thing that couldn't move was my roundhouse, because it's pretty much permanently attached to the base, so that had to stay put. I also did not want to lose the two tracks that serviced the port, because that was a major part of my operations and because of the size, generated a lot of traffic both coming and going.
So with the roundhouse and port anchoring both ends, I started fiddling around with various layouts using a combination of turnouts printed on paper (see the Peco site for these if you use Peco turnouts) and actual turnouts I had on hand. This told me how many more turnouts I needed and allowed me to try various configurations.
Once I settled on a design, the hard part began -- tearing up completed layout real estate. Let me tell you, pulling up that first section of track was difficult. This was the oldest part of the layout and it had sentimental value -- but the more I thought about how it would be even better when done, the easier it became.
Here's documentation of my progress thus far:
I wanted to save as many of the stub end tracks as possible because they weren't moving, were already wired and obviously already ballasted. So most of the work is on the throat and the upper (to the right on this picture) part of the yard. Here, demo work has begun, and you'll notice track and turnouts in various places -- this is my design and I keep it in place until ready to do demo work, otherwise I would completely forget what design I was going for!
Work on the runaround at the bottom of the pic and part of the throat...
Here's a better view of the throat. The repair shop is in a new location with the fuel rack broken into two short sections instead of one long one. Not sure if I'll be able to fit the overhead crane in or not. May have to cut it down. The throat was a bit challenging because not everything went together exactly as I wanted originally, so I had to make some adjustments on the fly.
Another view...
Repair shop area...
And the new diamond that allows access from the yard to the shop area and on to the turntable and roundhouse. I use the hoppers to hold nails and other larger debris that I pull up.
Tools of the trade -- a couple of box cars to check clearances. The wood chisel works really well for scraping up old ballast. I remove the temporary track, scrape up the old ballast, then lay the new track. I don't nail anything down until everything is in place. I want to be able to fine tune each track once I see what the final layout will look like. I also started working from top to bottom (left to right in this photo) because I have more flexibility (space) at the top to adjust. The mainline on the far left wasn't moving, so if something was off coming the other way, it would be impossible to fix. So if you are tearing up existing trackwork, keep things like that in mind when deciding where to start.
A little HO scale dynamite took care of the plaster transition from the port to the yard.
Some of the track is now in, but not nailed down.
More progress on the main stub tracks as we work our way toward the backdrop.
And now the tricky diamond is done. There were four tracks coming off it and I didn't have much flexibility between the port (which wasn't changing) and the top stub track, so I took plenty of time making sure everything was lined up.
A lood down the stubs. There are a few stray pieces of track, but otherwise, all the stub tracks are now in. I'll adjust the straightness and even everything out once I'm sure everything else fits.
Probably adding a longer service track where the old double-ended caboose track used to be (the deadend track closest to the shop off the roundhouse). I'm hoping my cabooses can go elsewhere (have a couple of tracks that might work near the port) and can store my worktrain on this track, which is currently in a drawer due to lack of space. I can't run the worktrain, because the crane doesn't fit under my rolling lift bridge.
A view of the shop with more of the track down. There will be two tracks that run through the shop to the turntable and one track on the outside that serves as a RIP track (which may get moved near the cabooses) and for deliveries to the shop of fuel and parts. That diagonal track near the fence will connect to what used to be a deadend for the shortline that serves the flats, eliminating a delivery issue over there. It's now a lot easier to get things to the warehouse in the flats.
The pile of junk turnouts I removed. They were the old electric switches that I have operated manually for years. Some were brass and some were NS. I also had sections of brass track that were impossible to keep clean. Gone, gone, gone!
Work has ceased for now because I ran out of track and rail joiners, but I have more on order. The track has gone down much quicker than anticipated, but I will need to do soldering of joints and add some more wiring connections to keep everything running smoothly.
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