# How long does a building need to be to accommodate 2 car spots?



## adamsdp (Jan 19, 2021)

In the book "How to Design a Small Switching Layout" - it is stated that the number of car spots, not the number of industries determines the operational potential. With that in mind, I have a couple of structures that are in the 12 1/2" range and wondering if that is long enough to allow for 2 car spots? I measured one box car and from coupler to coupler it is just under 7 1/2". Seems like the buildings couldn't accommodate 2 spots, unless space is left between the buildings to give at least 15" for each structure. Thanks.


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## D&J Railroad (Oct 4, 2013)

If you're using 89 foot long box cars, ya might have a problem. OTOH if you're using 40 foot box cars it should work.
I have no idea what the length of your rolling stock is.


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## Stejones82 (Dec 22, 2020)

Giving the model scale would be an essential piece of data in helping to answer this question. 

I model HO

My 40' cars are about 6 inches actual lengths, 6-1/2 with the couplers. My 50' car is about 7 inches OAL.


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## adamsdp (Jan 19, 2021)

Stejones82 said:


> Giving the model scale would be an essential piece of data in helping to answer this question.
> 
> I model HO
> 
> My 40' cars are about 6 inches actual lengths, 6-1/2 with the couplers. My 50' car is about 7 inches OAL.


I am modeling ho and fairly new to it. I am in the layout planning stage and didn't realize there were shorter box cars than the 50 ft size I currently have. Sounds like the 40 ft box cars will allow for 2 spots per structures that I have picked out.


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## Stejones82 (Dec 22, 2020)

The experts will chime in, but from what little I have learned ... 40 foot cars were the standard from 1910ish through the 40s, obviously there were some exceptions. Longer and more specialized freight cars began to appear in the 1950s and grew rapidly in the late 60s and beyond. The automotive industry was (no pun intended) a driver in the specialized cars market as boxes and other cars were fabbed and fitted to carry pre-formed auto parts. Other industries caught whiff and began implementing the same thing.


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## ecmdrw5 (Jan 16, 2021)

Well, you just need to access the door to load a box car. So you could load two with a 12” platform. You just have to have enough track beyond the platform to make that happen.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Stejones82 said:


> The experts will chime in, but from what little I have learned ... 40 foot cars were the standard from 1910ish through the 40s, obviously there were some exceptions. Longer and more specialized freight cars began to appear in the 1950s and grew rapidly in the late 60s and beyond. The automotive industry was (no pun intended) a driver in the specialized cars market as boxes and other cars were fabbed and fitted to carry pre-formed auto parts. Other industries caught whiff and began implementing the same thing.


And then there are some specialized cars: steel bottles, ore cars, etc, that are actually SHORTER than the 40' standard.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

ecmdrw5 said:


> Well, you just need to access the door to load a box car. So you could load two with a 12” platform. You just have to have enough track beyond the platform to make that happen.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


That's the key, right there. There is no standard length, but it depends on what types of cars you're talking about, how they are unloaded, etc. For a boxcar or similar, you need to get access to the doors. The rest of the car can stick out past your platform length. For a gondola or flat that you intend to unload with a crane or a loader, you just need room for the cars. For a hopper that you'll be dumping into a pit, you need to be able to move the entire cut of cars past the pit. Each industry and car pair will be different, so you'll need to think about HOW it gets unloaded, then how many cars you want to do at a time (the number of "spots"), and THEN figure out how much room you need to make it happen.

You also need to consider your fouling point: cars on your siding can't be spotted where something passing on the mainline can clip them, so you'll need a little extra room to make that happen. If the cars will be cut off from the train and left for unloading, you just need room for the cars. If the loco will stay coupled, you need to allow room for that as well.


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## adamsdp (Jan 19, 2021)

CTValleyRR said:


> That's the key, right there. There is no standard length, but it depends on what types of cars you're talking about, how they are unloaded, etc. For a boxcar or similar, you need to get access to the doors. The rest of the car can stick out past your platform length. For a gondola or flat that you intend to unload with a crane or a loader, you just need room for the cars. For a hopper that you'll be dumping into a pit, you need to be able to move the entire cut of cars past the pit. Each industry and car pair will be different, so you'll need to think about HOW it gets unloaded, then how many cars you want to do at a time (the number of "spots"), and THEN figure out how much room you need to make it happen.
> 
> You also need to consider your fouling point: cars on your siding can't be spotted where something passing on the mainline can clip them, so you'll need a little extra room to make that happen. If the cars will be cut off from the train and left for unloading, you just need room for the cars. If the loco will stay coupled, you need to allow room for that as well.


Thanks for the information and very helpful. I don't have much of an understanding of how operations on a switching layout work so I don't know how much track space to leave for cars/locos in the layout I am planning. The images below shows my track plan (there is a runaround - tracks are shifted out of place some) and what I have come up with for structures. Since taking the photos, I am thinking of replacing the Heritage Furniture building (worried about the overhand interfering with decoupling tools), and replacing the barrel factory and REA transfer building with a power plant Amazon.com: Walthers Cornerstone N Scale Model Northern Light & Power - Kit Train: Toys & Games to get more of a variety of cars into service.

The tracks just above the mainline on the right side photo and just below the mainline on the left side of photo, I was thinking of using as areas to store cars that were either just delivered from mainline and waiting to be moved to local spots, or cars that were moved from local industries waiting to be picked up by the mainline. Not sure if this makes sense use these 2 tracks in that way. I was trying to figure out a way to get some movement between local industries for example, timber to sawmill, cut lumber to lumberyard, lumber from lumberyard to barrel factory. Any thoughts on operations and how things can be improved will be appreciated!

The first image is going to be the more industrial/town area with the following kits along the back of the layout from left to right -

Walthers Heritage Furniture Background Building - Kit HO Scale Model Railroad Building #3164
Walthers Commissary/Freight Transfer Background Building - Kit HO Scale Model Railroad Building #3173
Walthers River City Textiles Background Building - Kit HO Scale Model Railroad Building #3178

The two mid layout buildings are from left to right

Walthers Railway Express Agency (REA) Transfer Building - Kit HO Scale Model Railroad Building #3095
Woodland Clyde/Dale's Barrel Factory HO Scale Model Railroad Building #br5026

The two building more toward the front would be

*Freight Depot - Kit - Woodland Scenics DPM Landmark Structures(R) -- 100 Series - 5-3/4 x 4-3/4" 14.5 x 12cm*
Walthers-Trainline United Trucking Assembled Model Railroad Building HO Scale #804













The other half of the layout is planned to have a more rural look to it













With a saw mill in the back part of layout - Sawmill Outbuildings -- Kit
and a lumber yard in front of layout - Walton and Sons Lumber Company -- Kit - Main Building: 9 x 9 x 4-1/2"; Office: 3 x 4-1/2 x 2-1/2" - built in the seperated building option.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

So here's something to keep in mind as you select your industries. If you have a sawmill, a lumber yard, and a barrel factory in that small area, what you would want to do, from a pure realism perspective, is remove all the tracks and get a couple of fork lifts and maybe a flatbed truck. Railroads make money hauling large loads over long distances. Any industry chain that close together would not be rail-served. 

Consider replacing 2 of those 3 industries with something else. Say you keep the lumber yard. Bulk boards would be delivered by flat car (or less commonly, box car) from somewhere off the layout, and the lumber yard would make local deliveries by truck. Or the sawmill could take in logs from a logging yard off the layout, and ship finished lumber back out. So you'd bring in loads, unload the cars (actually, or in your imagination), and pull the empty log carrier to be sent back to the timber harvest for reloads. Then you'd drop empty flats to be loaded with finished lumber, and ship those back off the layout. So a train might have to bring in 2 empty flat cars and 3 loaded log racks, pull the empty log racks from the saw mill's spur, temporarily drop them somewhere, leave the 3 loaded log cars AND two empty flats, then take the empty log racks to an off-layout destination, perhaps returning later to pull the now-loaded flatcars and take them to their destination.

To realistically operate a small switching layout like that, you really have to have somewhere that represents "going to everywhere else" where you bring on cars and drop off others.

Similarly, you probably only want one freight transfer building, as that would serve the entire local area. REA was a different beast, similar to UPS or FedEx today, except that they shipped packages by rail (so does UPS today, for that matter). 

Of course, it's your layout, so you don't have to operate it like a real railroad if you don't want to, but personally, I think it adds a lot more interest. See how many cars you can juggle!


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## 65446 (Sep 22, 2018)

~ Why not just decide what industry(s) will be at a particular loading dock scene ? Then decide which car(s) will serve it/them. Measure the total distance of them when coupled, incl. couplers. That's your total needed length of the dock *track* 
(tho track should be several feet past it to a bumper of some kind (I always like the crossed old ties in the weeds)..
Now situate your loading dock doors to accommodate the car doors the most efficient way..Obtain structures [ kits / built up / kitbashed / scratch built ] to depict what you have in your mind's eye...One kit I love is "Pacific Fruit Exchange" (I think that's right/been long time). It's big and serious seeming but with graceful 'earlier' western-ish wood architecture. 
~ Another way is just buy any industry you like 'n put a spur track along it..You will always find/get cars to match it !! Usually the way it goes/went in real world. I.E. The business was there - the RR ran a spur to it off the main...! 
Have fun. Ya doesn't gotta make it so exacting...If it looks/works plausibly, then U dun got it, bro !!! 
Plus what *ecmdrw5* said in post #6..


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## adamsdp (Jan 19, 2021)

CTValleyRR said:


> So here's something to keep in mind as you select your industries. If you have a sawmill, a lumber yard, and a barrel factory in that small area, what you would want to do, from a pure realism perspective, is remove all the tracks and get a couple of fork lifts and maybe a flatbed truck. Railroads make money hauling large loads over long distances. Any industry chain that close together would not be rail-served.
> 
> Consider replacing 2 of those 3 industries with something else. Say you keep the lumber yard. Bulk boards would be delivered by flat car (or less commonly, box car) from somewhere off the layout, and the lumber yard would make local deliveries by truck. Or the sawmill could take in logs from a logging yard off the layout, and ship finished lumber back out. So you'd bring in loads, unload the cars (actually, or in your imagination), and pull the empty log carrier to be sent back to the timber harvest for reloads. Then you'd drop empty flats to be loaded with finished lumber, and ship those back off the layout. So a train might have to bring in 2 empty flat cars and 3 loaded log racks, pull the empty log racks from the saw mill's spur, temporarily drop them somewhere, leave the 3 loaded log cars AND two empty flats, then take the empty log racks to an off-layout destination, perhaps returning later to pull the now-loaded flatcars and take them to their destination.
> 
> ...


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## adamsdp (Jan 19, 2021)

telltale said:


> ~ Why not just decide what industry(s) will be at a particular loading dock scene ? Then decide which car(s) will serve it/them. Measure the total distance of them when coupled, incl. couplers. That's your total needed length of the dock *track*
> (tho track should be several feet past it to a bumper of some kind (I always like the crossed old ties in the weeds)..
> Now situate your loading dock doors to accommodate the car doors the most efficient way..Obtain structures [ kits / built up / kitbashed / scratch built ] to depict what you have in your mind's eye...One kit I love is "Pacific Fruit Exchange" (I think that's right/been long time). It's big and serious seeming but with graceful 'earlier' western-ish wood architecture.
> ~ Another way is just buy any industry you like 'n put a spur track along it..You will always find/get cars to match it !! Usually the way it goes/went in real world. I.E. The business was there - the RR ran a spur to it off the main...!
> ...


Good advice on the track and loading docks. I will look for the Pacific Fruit Exchange and sounds interesting. Having fun sounds good!


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