Yard evolution

My HO scale Burrlington Northern, Seattle Region, layout is awash in yards. I'm not sure how this came about, except that it happened over time. I started out doing a lot of railfanning at the BN's Interbay/Balmer yard in between the Seattle neighborhoods of Queen Anne and Magnolia, which was a major terminal yard for GN operations before the BN merger in 1970. This yard would make a complete model railroad itself, what with major engine terminal and roundhouse, car repair shop with three working tracks, a single track main with several arrival/departure tracks and a major classification area including a hump yard, numerous industrial customers around the perimeter, auto-loading facilities for importing (and exporting) automobiles, a major military equipment depot, and a nearby major grain terminal. Oh, and don't forget the classic hinged lift Bridge #4 over the Lake Washington ship canal at the Ballard Locks, just to the north of the yard. And three highway/pedestrian bridge crossings to make it easy to watch the action. Here is an overview picture of what I ended up building, mainly in the 1980's, looking north. The main classification ladder in the left of this photo has been in continuous operation switching cars, in two different basements, ever since then:

The overpasses in this view are Drevus St. and Nickerson St., both excellent railfanning locations at the prototype yard. In the distance to the left side is a model of the car repair shop, and on the right are three tracks representing the engine facilities and the Time Oil depot. A track runs behind that next to the backdrop to become the "Terry Ave. Line", which served customers in what is now the "South Lake Union" area.

It was easy to see that from this major yard, long distance trains ran north to Vancouver BC, east to Spokane, Chicago, etc. via Everett Jct. (also north of here), and south to Tacoma, Portland, Calif., etc. I set up a few staging tracks on either side of this yard to handle these moves "off the layout" and we were good to go. There were three arrival/departure (A/D) tracks available just to the left of the mainline to make up trains heading in each of these primary directions. It was a lot of fun switching. And it was all there was room for in the single-car garage.

But then we decided to move to a bigger house, with an 800 sq. ft. basement! It had become obvious that, in addition to the GN's main Balmer yard in Interbay, there also were prototype yards immediately south of downtown Seattle belonging to GN, NP, MILW and UP, including the MILW's famous car ferry to Pt. Townsend (not to mention Bellingham and Vashon Island!) which begged to be modeled. So, after several years off for basement demolition and preparation of walls, backdrops and ceiling, we started building the "Stacy St. yards" complex just south of Balmer, connecting it by a double-track main passing through the stairs to the basement, called "North Portal". Now Seattle was properly represented by a major yard north of downtown, and several major yards to the south. A seven-track staging yard was built further south of there along the wall to represent all destinations south of Tukwila. Here is a photo of the current Stacy St. complex, looking south:

The foreground is the MILW car barge operation (missing the signature loading bridge structure overhead), with the MILW make-up tracks off the picture to the left. Above that is the "waterfront yard", and above that are the main classification tracks of Stacy St. yard. To the left in the dark are the A/D tracks for Stacy and the double-track mainline through this area, as well as the "mud track" for car storage east of the main and a Freight Terminal track (north of what is now the Starbucks corporate HQ buildings). There are a number of piers, industry tracks, and a scale track served by this yard complex. During operating sessions, there is quite a bit of local transfer traffic that moves back and forth between Stacy and Balmer, since the long distance trains are mainly made up in Balmer.

South of Stacy, across the 1st Ave. S bridge, is the UP's massive Argo yard complex. I originally used that area on the layout as a temporary "coach yard" to park the long "Empire Builder" and shorter "International" consists, but it became clear that we needed a place south of Stacy to take the interchange cars for the UP and the MILW. So, what choice did I have other than to build a 5 track double-ended "Argo" there? Here it is (in the dark), looking south:

In the foreground is the crossing of Royal Brougham St., with the mainline tracks in light grey ballast and the "Colorado Main" track in a brown ballast color. Against the backdrop are some boxcars spotted at several of the freight forwarders in that area, and next to it is the consist for the "International" waiting to head to Vancouver BC. Following that are the three tracks used for interchange with UP and MILW. At left is a MILW pickup truck giving a hint that this isn't an all-BN plant. The double-track mainline curves around to the right into a hidden staging yard for all points south. We use two of the tracks for staging locals - the Renton Rocket and the Auburn-Everett Transfer. The rest are for long distance trains to Portland and Calif.

So now we have evolved from one to three yards, just to represent the Seattle terminal area. What about the north and east traffic? Where does it go? I wish I had never asked this question, because the answer(s) is complicated! After a beautiful ride along the shores of Puget Sound, trains reach Everett, containing two major yards and (at least) two wyes. One is along the west bank of Everett, at the Port of Everett, called "Bayside Yard", and the other is on the east side of Everett along the Snohomish River, called "Delta Yard", where there were a number of major sawmills. After much gnashing of teeth, I decided to simplify the prototype down to a single wye and smaller versions of each of these yards, with northbound traffic passing through Bayside yard and eastbound traffic passing through Delta yard. Here is a shot of Bayside, looking north:

The good news is that this yard is a lot of fun to work, and it handles traffic to the Scott Paper Co. mill as well as the freight house, a lumber yard, Weyerhaeuser Mill A, and Port of Everett tracks to the left. The bad news is that it bears only slight resemblance to the prototype yard, and I'm thinking of completely remodeling it. Also, the switches leading off to the lower right of the photo lead to a turntable and roundhouse, which on the prototype was located in Delta Yard, not Bayside. The main track is at the left along the layout edge, and at the far end it goes through a tunnel to the Delta Wye, after which it proceeds north to Vancouver BC (via Burlington Yard, more on that later).

The other yard in Everett is the Delta Yard, reached by taking a right turn at "Everett Junction" at the south end of Everett. On my layout this yard is on the other side of the peninsula from Bayside Yard. Here is a photo of Delta, looking south (railroad west):

In the foreground of this photo is the all-important Weyerhaeuser Mill B, which generated a lot of lumber traffic for both the BN and MILW. You can see I have it protected with an oversized "blue flag" man, a nifty track-powered LED light made by Seth Neumann. More on blue flags and red flags some other time. The mainline is the first track above that, and the next track is a long passing siding that also serves as a yard lead for the three yard tracks at Delta. There is also a narrow gage terminal yard in this location, where the Denver and Rio Grande Western finally got all the way West. Up the side of the backdrop we have narrow gage service to the "Cascade Copper Co." mine in the far distance, and we also interchange oil, cattle, merchandise, and 20' containers with the line in the yard here. During (standard gage) operating sessions we use this yard to organize traffic to and from the east, and it is becoming clear that we don't have enough capacity here to do it well. This is the tradeoff that was involved by wanting to include a narrow gage branch on the layout. More on this another time. So far, at least, this is the only "yard" on the narrow gage line. But the main point is that we have separated the handling of eastbound and northbound traffic between these two yards, greatly reducing congestion on the main track(s).

I thought I was done with yard evolution at this point, but have you ever been to the BN yard at Burlington, WA? I always knew that I liked the look of tank cars and wanted to run the "Oiler" and "Anacortes Local" jobs on the railroad, but as soon as I saw the prototype Burlington Yard I knew we had to include it on the layout. A switch crew was permanently stationed there to handle switching a variety of industries and branch lines, so it turns out to be one of the best jobs on the railroad. Here's a (tele)photo of the modeled yard, looking south, which is almost identical to the prototype yard, both in layout and function:

The mainline is in the foreground, and appears to be lined for the siding. Farm equipment dealers and grain elevators are on the right, as well as a BN MOW track currently holding the weed sprayer train. The track on the far right is the Anacortes Branch, which is a staging track for the two refineries there and the Port of Anacortes, which handled wood chip traffic, among other things. In the distance on the left are the main classification tracks and against the backdrop in the distance is one of the area's many fruit packing plants, as well as a caboose and engine pocket for the resident train crew. The Concrete Branch, not visible in this photo, runs off to the lower left and generates logs, lumber, and locomotive quality sand needed at each of the previously mentioned engine servicing facilities (as well as many off-line).

This has been a quick tour of the evolution of the main yards on the Burrlington Northern Seattle Region (not including the three "staging yards"!). When I started designing and building the layout, I had no intention of having six major yards in operation at the same time. I thought it would be possible to run the layout with six or so people. Now, with the evolution of all these yards, we have had sessions with 15 operators, and we still didn't get all the work done. So the moral of the story is, take your pick, "model railroading is fun", or, "if you can bring yourself to stop building yards, by all means do so!"

In my case, I haven't been able to stop. Now we're building a version of the "West Seattle Yard", in order to serve a bunch of industries over there (see previous blog). As if there wasn't enough traffic in the Stacy St. yard complex already!