A railroad is a large enterprise comprising a huge amount of real estate and physical property. Because it provides its own roadways, structures and equipment, the railroad expends a large part of
its assets maintaining itself. Compare a trucking company, whose freight terminal generally includes a gravel-paved yard, loading dock, warehouse, small maintenance garage and a couple of offices.
The trucking outfit does not maintain the roads it uses, nor the signals or communications along the road. State and local governments take care of roads, while telephone service is in the hands of
private utilities. Railroads have to maintain their track, their signals and their communications, among other things.
A railroad has locomotive shops for repair of its prime movers, and car shops to maintain rolling stock. There is often a separate electrical department for the wiring inside locomotives. A signal
department maintains and repairs signals, while the track department is responsible for roadbed, switches, and the condition of track. The shops of shortlines are small, with crews handling a variety
of specialties. By contrast, Class 1 railroads have small armies of workers grouped by specialties, supported by massive shops loaded with the latest machinery.
Finding yards to model is not easy as most yards take up a lot of realty estate and most layouts will not be able to use the complete yard. Now prototype yards handle thousands of cars each day
and if your layout doesn't have that many you will be able to cut back on the size of the yard by including only those design features that you want to include.
Your yard might only consist of two or three sidings along the main line or it might be the entire layout and used for switching and making up different trains for each session.
Using the web site at http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ will let you find a yard nearby you that you can print out and pick the best features for your
layout.
WARNING these could take a couple minutes each to load. You can make the load time faster by looking at less. Click on the green SML on the left to change size. Also, many of these are not zoomed in
all the way, so if you want more detail click on it and it should get in closer)
Going to the Interesting railroad sites using terrasever page will give you some links that others have found.
I have built a small industrial junction on my layout. I plan to use a dedicated switcher to breakdown incoming trains, assemble outbounds and move cars around industry tracks. What type of modern
diesels are prototypically used for this type of work? Are they usually single or lashed together in two's? Where would the switcher typically be stored when not in operation, on a siding or would
the railroad have a dedicated service/storage track?
It depends on your era. If you are modelling a contemporary railroad, it will often be something like an SW-1500, or, in many cases an old road switcher like a GP-7 or GP-9 living out the last of
it's useful life in more humble duties. Before the Wisconsin Central took over the old SOO line, our local Waukesha switcher was a GP-30! About the only loco's you may NOT find doing switching work
would be "Covered Wagons" ("F" or "E" units, the "streamlined" ones) or heavy 6 axle power.
Older switchers that are still often running wiould be SW-7's, 9's and 1200's, or even old Alco's like S-2's and S-4's. Vintage switchers would be SW-1's, NW-2's, Baldwin S-12's and FM H-10-44's (I'm
listing locomotives currently available in HO from Athearn, Kato, Atlas, Life-Like, Walthers etc., there were many other models also built)
If it's a private industry, with their own switcher, a popular model would be the GE 44 tonner (45 tons is/was the ICC cutoff point for where a locomotive could be run by one man. Heavier units also
require(d) a fireman.
Switchers usually only ran as single units, although for "transfer service" or "Hump yard" diuties, a "Cow and Calf" (Athearn's SW-7 cow/calf together is actually an EMD TR-4 set), or a road unit and
a "slug" (a heavily weighted chassis with no prime mover, getting it's power from the main engine) are often used.
As far as where to park it? Anywhere off the mainline where it's out of the way.
Don
Depends on the railroad I would think. Most would not have a dedicated switcher stationed at the junction. The power on the trains dropping off and picking up the cars would do the switching.
If a switcher is assigned and is there all the time that means railroad has personal there all the time (at least a watchman) since engine will not be left alone.
Modern, current day, assigned power would most likely be a GP of some kind (GP38-2, GP15, etc). If the railroad still has swicthers (many do not) they would be SW1500's most likely. Perhaps a SW1200.
If heavy loads are involved you might even see something like a SD38-2.
If a engine is left there it will most likely be on a short siding. If there is no fueling facility within a reasonable distance, a basic fueling setup would be needed.
Charles F Seyferlich