How Many Freight Cars on a Given Layout?

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I have been building my fleet since 2001 with the hopes of a basement sized layout. Now that I am starting to see this through, I realize that my early purchases may not have been the best.

Currently I have 116 active engines. That is to say they are painted, weathered and "done" for the most part. I will need to convert all these to DCC over the next few years, but that is not the priority right now. I also have 40 or so inactive engines which means these are in various stages of construction, painting or storage.

Conrail units take up about 80% of the fleet. Providence & Worcester about 7%, Guilford about 5% and the rest is split between shortlines seen on the Boston Line.

I have about 600 weathered freight cars. Only about 100-200 are what I would count as passsable with this group. A lot of the cars are older MDC/Roundhouse boxes, and I can't help but wonder if I should purge those from the roster.

There are other cars not on the roster, mostly intermodal and cars that need painting, or serious work (I'm looking at you TLT Newsprrints). All told, I probably have about 800 cars total.

So when am I done? I fugure Worcester will hold about 200-300 cars. Boston about 150-175. Nevins would hold about 60-80, with Framingham and Westboro each holding about 100. This is not capacity, but target for cars parked or being worked on during a standard opps session. So thats 500-750 right there. Add a few 50+ car trains, a few commuter trains and the Lakeshore and you  could easily see 1000 cars on the session.

Now I want to be able to "pack and go" with a session. That means should someone in the area (I'm looking at you Ian) ever make the western side of the Boston Line, I could pack my Westbound trains and continue the operating session at another location. I would want some variety with equipment so we would not get bored doing the same session with the same cars so I figure a 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 ration of cars to what is needed would be a good number.

That, my friends would bring my ultimate goal to about 3000 freight cars, two Lakeshore trains, and about 7-8 full commuter trains.

[PAL_Houston]

Hi, Kiz: 

I am finally getting around to responding to your post.  I have a spreadsheet (that I got off of one of the Ops groups -- I forget which now) that lets one (forces one?) to estimate the number of cars on the layout depending on the layout configuration, and some other factors.  It also calculates the number of waybills you'll need for operations.

Contact me via PM and I will happily send  you a copy.

[Bsklarski]

Does Palmer to Selkirk count as "Western" part of the B&A?

[daniel_leavitt2000]

That it does. Anything past Worcester would work.

[bryan9]

Here's a perspective from an N scaler who's modeling a bridge line (D&RGW's Soldier Summit, in 1965). The point of my layout is to get 8 trains (2 passenger, 6 freight) up the grade to Summit, in the face of the uncomfortable fact that there are an additional 8 trains (again, 2 passenger, 6 freight) trying to get down the grade... not to mention the returning helper units, which also need to get down. My layout has 2 precent grades (slightly less than the prototype). I've found that I can operate trains with 24 cars without risk of derailment.  So, for the bridge line staging alone, I need, at the minimum, 288 freight cars.

To model the mid-1960s-era Summit traffic realistically, though, I need more than 288. During the mid-1960s, a typical Rio Grande manifest freight included something like 20 percent SP equipment and an additional 10 percent each (roughly)  from the Grande and its other interchange partners (WP, CB&Q, CRI&P, and MP). The additional 30 percent could be from -- well, anywhere.  Every one of these trains was unique and surprising -- you just never knew what you'd see in the consist! To come up with sufficient variety to compose realistic-looking trains, with a surprise or two in each consist, I find that I need at least another 100 cars.

There is some switching on my planned layout, involving coal hoppers.  For the Castle Gate coal mine, I need about 35 -50 hoppers to realistically simulate the movement of empties through the mine to the yard for loaded cars, waiting for a local to pick them up. To model Helper's Upper Yard realistically, I need another 75-100.

Bryan Pfaffenberger
Charlottesville, VA