What’s the Baltimore & Ohio West 26th Street Station without a rail yard? I had it on my plan from the very beginning but never gave any thoughts how I could fit a few tracks into a limited space. Let alone how I could make it prototypically looking.
Some History
The Baltimore and Ohio West 26th Street Station yard was significantly extended after 1930 when the railroad acquired the entire block between West 24 and 25th Street. The yard completely changed the track layout when it extended over two blocks. I therefore had to stick to a simpler pre-1930 plan as shown on the Manhattan 1930 Land Book map (Plate 52) published by G. W. Bromley. That map still has a double track leading diagonally from the NW corner entrance at Thirteenth Avenue/W26th to the center of the block and from there a single track to W25th Street and Eleventh Avenue. Those tracks that originate at the B&O Marine Station across Thirteenth Avenue connect to several stub tracks used for car storage and loading leading to both Eleventh and Thirteenth Avenue. They also connect to the two tracks freight tracks inside the warehouse building.
The available space on my 24″ deep shelf layout does not give me many choices to capture the character of the rail yard. First of all, there’s no space to connect the freight tracks in the building to the diagonal main tracks. Also, to avoid a bunch of isolated tracks in the yard, I need to connect the yard to my street-level track on Tenth Avenue (or what would be Eleventh Avenue). The prototype does not have any connection on the east side to any tracks on Eleventh Avenue (the tracks of the Eleventh Avenue railroad in 1930 ended with the freight tracks going through the Terminal Warehouse between W28th and W27th Street).
Designing the Rail Yard
It took me several attempts to find a track plan that 1) connects easily to my Tenth Avenue tracks, 2) includes both diagonal double tracks and sub tracks parallel to W25th Street and 3) that allows for some minimal freight operation with a switcher and at least one freight car. I had to give up my initial requirement to use sectional track (Atlas or Peco Code 55). There simply isn’t enough space for a #5 turnout based yard. My ultimate track plan has five #4 turnouts and a 40 degree crossing. Connecting the two center tracks of the yard to the Tenth Avenue track with a crossing results in a bigger radius. The wye configuration makes the construction more complicated but will pay off when operating it.
With this design I was able to cram in four tracks. The diagonal tracks are offset at a 22.5 degrees angle against the storage tracks. The track closest to the warehouse building can be considered as an off-layout storage track. It branches off from the western end of the diagonal tracks but its turnout is too close to the wall. With all the turnouts so close together, I had to carefully integrate them observing minimal distances between throwbars and frogs of adjacent switches. PCB ties that extend over two turnouts and over three and in one case even four tracks will help with a precise construction. To avoid kinks when joining rails I will use long sections of flex tracks such that they only end at frogs. Keeping the flex track ties in place where possible ensures a proper gauge. And finally, they also served me as jigs for the frogs.
To reduce pressure in curves I removed rails from the ties, bent them with the FastTracks rail roller and reinserted them into the ties. This method usually works well as long as the tie plate and spike details are not damaged. Carefully filing the end of a cut rail usually avoids such damage. While the rail yard has cobblestone driveways, photos show that larger portions of the real yard were actually ballasted. This also allowed me to use the flex track ties and reduced the amount of hand laid track needed. As a side benefit, I was able to use the design in Inkscape to laser-engrave and cut a basswood jig. It wouldgreatly simplify the construction and will make sure I will precisely stick to the plan.
Construction
Once I had cut the flex track sections to the proper length I began connecting them to the filed frogs. I used the jig to place them at the right position to get the correct geometry. At the same time I began stabilizing the connected pieces by soldering them on PCB ties. One by one I added the frogs. The correctly placed frogs also allowed me to locate the exact positions where I had to file the stock rails. In a linear approach where I would build one turnout by one I’d have used the point and stock rail aids from Fast Tracks. There was no way I could use them with my integrated approach. That only left me with the Dremel tool to file the rails.
After a few days I had a complete outline of the tracks. I had connected all the rails with frogs and reinforced with a few soldered PCB ties. It was time now to solder more ties around the frogs and the throwbar. After I had added all the ties, I began cutting, filing, fitting and soldering the stock rails, followed by adding the guard rails. Maintaining the track gauge and the correct distances of guard and wing rails is tedious and time consuming. Fortunately, I had some wiggle room with the stock rails. I still could unsolder them from the PCB ties and move them a fraction of a millimeter to the correct gauge. The Micro Engineering 3-point track gauge is an absolutely essential testing tool at this point. So are the NMRA standards gauge, a truck with Fox Valley Models metal wheels and a MicroTrains 40′ Box Car.
Finishing the Track Work
All five turnouts were now complete and I could proceed to the last step, cutting gaps to insulate frogs. It’s a tricky task that bears some risks to have to redo some of the work. I tried to keep the frogs as small as possible so I wouldn’t have to use frog juicers. My frogs usually extend over two PCB ties, not more, and the wing rails over three. Another challenge here was that I had the entire yard as one big piece. When I planned the track work I was confident that I could reach with my jewelers saw at all gaps. In fact, it did not turn out to be an issue.
Cutting the gaps into the first three turnouts went smoothly. At the fourth, the frog fell apart and the two quarter inch long fragments of rail separated. Bad work! Soldering the first piece into its place went well. When I grabbed the second one with tweezers it flew away and I had to recreate it from scratch. Fixing that problem caused me some sweat but after half an hour I had the new frog in place and it worked wonderfully.
Testing and Clean-up
Testing continuity, I found two problems where the gaps filed into PCB ties were not clean. They caused a short – and I thought I had tested every single tie! The Dremel tool helped me to fix those problems swiftly. Finally, I was able to do a test run with my Kato NW-2 switcher and a 9 Volt battery. I was still not done completely as the yard still missed track feeders. Instead of adding feeders to every track, I use the underside of PCB ties to connect stock rails. This involves drilling two 1/32″ holes into a PCB tie, inserting a small piece of stranded wire into the whole and closing them with solder. This is strong enough for my 5 Amps DCC booster. I will still add track feeders on at least two rails at opposite ends to have some redundancy when gluing the tracks down on the roadbed.
This technique of turnout construction requires a lot of soldering. To remove any leftovers from the filing, sawing and soldering a ran the finished track work through an express cycle of the dish washer. Now it was ready for use in my Baltimore and Ohio rail yard. Except I hadn’t connected it yet to the Tenth Avenue tracks – my next task.