Revising Outer Station Yard Operations

Every so often, I decide to revise the way in which some part of my HO scale Hanley Spur layout functions. In this case, it's the five-track yard at Kingston's Outer Station. 

Previously, I'd just bring cars from the mainline interchange at 'Queens' and push them into whichever of the yard tracks were emptiest. When it was time to make up one of the three CN switching runs that serve  in rotation the Outer Station area, Rideau Street area or Wellington Street area, I'd just pull out one trackful of cars at a time, cherry-picking the cars I needed and placing them on the run-around track before adding a caboose. That was really boring and I decided there was a better way.

(Though I've never seen photos of the prototype Outer Station yard anywhere near full of cars, I'm sure there was some system of organization therein. Most cars for area customers seemed to arrive from the mainline before being taken away be spotted, then put on a mainline eastbound or westbound freight as soon as they were brought back to the yard.)

So, I proceeded to designate one yard track for each of the above-mentioned runs, with a fourth track for overflow - if more cars are brought from interchange than fit in the track. The fifth track is used for company service cars, cabooses, or hold cars for Northern Telecom.

The tracks I designated (top to bottom):

• Outer Station (marked C)
• Rideau Street
• Wellington Street
• Overflow
• OCS/cabooses

I decided to put cars in the first 'Outer Station' track, even though that's needed for switching Frontenac Floor & Wall Tile and Presland Steel. I figured that the cars on that track would be the ones to be switched, meaning that track would be clear when needed for switching moves.

This revised system has worked well in practice. I've made up about five switching runs since its implementation. It's also a very easy way of seeing which runs/customers need more cars, since that track will now be empty.