A Bump Yard?
The hump yard idea has really created some interesting comments. Most suggestions seem to be applicable to an automated hump yard. My idea however is to build a converted 'rider hump' which among other things doesn't always have a retarder system and is usually a bump instead of a hump.
Instead of having cars not running at all or taking off at light speed, I hope to have cars that need to be shoved into a track or those that roll along at a good pace. Any retarding can be provided by a simple brass strip placed between the rails which can be raised or lowered to provide more or less (or no) resistance.
Someone noted in an earlier post the model railroad equipment can stand a greater shock than prototype can, without damage. In that respect science in on our side. Will the whole thing look like tyco gone wild? It's possible, the whole idea started with the frustration at not being able to kick cars in HO scale; but then it's easy to convert to a flat switching yard too.
This is totally off the wall, but it came to me as I was reading the comments about building a working hump yard:
Suppose you place a small length of track inside each side of a small stretch, much like the inner rails seen on bridges, each side attached to a switch mechanism or something similar, and both wired to work together, pushing the extra rails inwards just enough to create friction on the wheels between the inner and outer rails? Would that work to retard them without causing a lot of other problems? Frankly, I have no idea how to build something like that, but I'm sure there are those who could figure out a simple way to do it.
Really, really dumb idea...?ops:
The hump yard idea has really created some interesting comments. Most suggestions seem to be applicable to an automated hump yard. My idea however is to build a converted 'rider hump' which among other things doesn't always have a retarder system and is usually a bump instead of a hump.
Instead of having cars not running at all or taking off at light speed, I hope to have cars that need to be shoved into a track or those that roll along at a good pace. Any retarding can be provided by a simple brass strip placed between the rails which can be raised or lowered to provide more or less (or no) resistance.
Someone noted in an earlier post the model railroad equipment can stand a greater shock than prototype can, without damage. In that respect science in on our side. Will the whole thing look like tyco gone wild? It's possible, the whole idea started with the frustration at not being able to kick cars in HO scale; but then it's easy to convert to a flat switching yard too.