a model gravity shunting yard

[Boris]

Why not just have your train pre-split into the portions you require before propelling it over the hump, worked for me when I tried to model a hump yard. I must also dig out the video of someone trying to take a class 40 over a hump (Toton?), they stop it just as the leading pony leaves the rail!

[L49]

I remember when I was a kid we went to a show in Hove and they had a hump yard there which they were using as the 'drive your own' layout. It was so much better than the thomas the tank whizzing round that we see for the children at shows these days. IIRC it was O gauge, with an 08 propelling some really brightly coloured open wagons.

 

The child(ren) didn't actually get to drive the loco, instead you sat in front of a miniature lever frame, and had to try to get the wagons to go to the corresponding coloured stop blocks. It actually took some thinking about as I think there were four roads to use, so each move demanded at least two points to be set correctly (not rocket science, but pretty cool when you are only 5 or 6)

 

One of these days I might actually get around to building something similar to use at our little show.

[Barry O]

It is easier with a gravity yard than a hump as modelling the braking systems in a hump yard however you do it is a problem (wagons have to slow to a stop not stop dead in either type of yard).

 

The Gravity yard's gradients allow you to get a realistic speed while maintaining a "slowing down" track length - this only fails if:

 

1 Joe Public stops it with their hand(s)

2 You send a wagon into a full road which has a very heavy wagon ( like a Ks Palvan) at the top end ( ie nearest the control points) of the yard

 

Number 1 involves a large stick

Number 2 is solved by removing wagons which are too heavy by using teh gravity yard (top or bottom end) shunter.

 

It also helps if the loco used has no flywheel