Overview
This all started when I saw a Facebook post by Aaron Riley showcasing his Metra Service Centre layout, adapted from a Robert Chant design, in HO scale. I reached out to him and asked if he’d be willing to share more about his layout with us all. Aaron was gracious and extended many images and much information about his layout that allowed me to create that initial post. What most struck me from the outset was that the layout in the photos does not look like what it is, a small footprint layout. It appears larger while providing a great deal of operating potential that would provide many years of interesting operations for anyone interested in building from Rob’s original design.
Inspired by the layout I pulled information from my day job working in a similar location and wrote the Operations for Maintenance Centre Layout Series (see the links for all 7 parts in the resources section below). While you don’t need to read all of the posts before taking on this post, there is a lot of contextual information there that will help in understanding the redesign that I’m proposing.
I want to take Rob Chant’s original layout design, which is more suited to an earlier time of operation (say through the early to mid-1990s) and bring it into the 21st century. Those not in the rail industry often think that maintenance centres change little over time. Nothing is further from the truth. As operational needs and operators change, major often drastic changes to facilities occur that allow operators to streamline and manage throughput (lowering costs in the process). My depot has changed twice in the last 20 years. Each time with major additions to its layout.
Enough preamble, let’s get into the meat of the article and look at how to bring Rob’s design into the modern-day.
Rob’s Original Design
For reference here is Rob Chant’s design, as used by Aaron Riley to build his layout. I’m going to be referring back to this image quite a lot. It may be worthwhile to either open a new window, or another tab with this image to make referring to it easier.
Bringing the layout into the 21st Century
The design below mirrors, to some degree, what I see at work every day.
Comparing the two designs you’ll notice right away the differences. The second design is streamlined and devoted to one function: getting train sets out of the gate and onto the mainline and the reverse as needed. To cover all of the changes I’ll start on the left and move to the right.
Parts Warehouse – GONE
Starting on the left top of the layout you’ll notice that the parts warehouse is gone, along with the scrapping line, sand house and locomotive shed. In modern facilities such as this, all parts have been moved into the main maintenance sheds and are now delivered by road. Except for rolling stock being returned from upstream maintenance centres, nothing arrives by rail.
Scrap Line – GONE
Scrapping too has moved off-site. As I mentioned in the article series major maintenance is carried out off-site at what I term upstream maintenance centres. Determination of end-of-life status for railcars and locomotives happens at this higher level and not at the running depot level.
To help you understand why running depots no longer have the means or the authority to scrap rolling stock onsite let’s go down the rabbit warren to understand the three major reasons for removing rolling stock from the asset register (or roster if you prefer):
- Condemnation occurs when rolling stock is:
- life expired because of age, mileage covered, or material stress such as fractures in frames, failures of major high-cost components
- determined to be uneconomic to continue to maintain or repair, often because of the rising cost of replacement parts or sub-assemblies driving ongoing maintenance costs above those of outright replacement
- Withdrawal occurs when rolling stock is:
- considered to be excess to current need due to adverse economic circumstances such as a downturn (COVID caused a lot of this), which usually means the asset will be stored out of service until needed later on by the operator,
- determined to be no longer required by the operator, yet is still in a saleable and serviceable condition in which case it will be put out for tender by interested parties and often sold into service with another operator, and finally
- determined to be no longer required for operation by the operator, but usable as a source of spare parts to keep other similar units running by the operator
- Accident damage occurs when rolling stock is:
- involved in an accident and has suffered damage sufficient to make the cost of refurbishment equal to or more than the value of the asset, its insurance value, for example, it will be stripped of usable parts by the maintenance teams, and then sold by tender to interested scrappers
Locomotive Shed – GONE
Locomotives are generally left out in the open on an available track spot, so shedding is no longer required. All light maintenance that can be carried out at the running depot would be carried out in the regular maintenance sheds. These items would include checking and topping up fluid levels, replacing minor components such as oil filters, light globes, brake blocks, windscreen wipers, cleaning the crew compartment, emptying waste tanks, etc. All other maintenance items would be carried out at the upstream facilities.
Bulk Oil & Diesel Tanks – MOVED
The bulk oil tanks for locomotive fuel have been moved to the area near the admin offices. This allows for trucks to deliver directly to the tank area. No supplies are received at the running facility by rail. The tanks can be serviced by trucks 24 hours a day, and most likely receive a top-up on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Road Vehicle Garage – MOVED
With the focus changed to getting train sets serviced and onto the mainline, road vehicles have been moved off the layout. Any of the greyed areas can act as parking spaces (so long as there is clearance between trains and vehicles).
Crew Amenities Building – ADDED
The crew amenities building and the cleaners annexe have been added to provide better facilities for change rooms, meal (mess) areas, toilets and training rooms in line with modern practice.
Hazardous & Waste Storage – MOVED
These two sheds have been moved to the maintenance shed (off layout) in line with modern practice.
Paint Shop – GONE
All paint-work has been moved to the upstream maintenance centres.
Contaminated Storage Tanks – MOVED
As with the other storage buildings mentioned above, all of this storage is now contained within the maintenance building footprint.
Bulk Sand Storage Silos – MOVED
Sanding facilities have been moved to the roof of the maintenance facility to save space and simplify sand delivery to sandboxes wherever it is needed. Sand delivery comes in by road at the rear of 4 road on the paved area there. There is an air feed sand line that runs across the top of the maintenance sheds to the loco sanding facility between 9 and 10 roads.
As an additional point of interest, passenger cars can be filled by a sand buggy (not a dune buggy, unfortunately) that allows sand service to passenger cars when and where needed in the facility. The sand buggy has its own air supply to blow sand into the sandboxes.
Road Numbering – ADDED
Each road has been numbered and is used as follows:
- 1-3 are for ‘ready; train set storage, that is these sets are ready to run out onto the mainline.
- 4 through 8 are maintenance roads where:
- 4 road is the washing road.
- 5 road is the wheel lathe road.
- 6, 7 and 8 roads are all pit roads for general service and maintenance of train sets.
- 9 and 10 roads are for locomotive storage and supplemental sanding
- 11 road is the locomotive fueling road
Modellers should note that fueling and sanding may occur without interfering with maintenance activity on 8 road. 9 road may be designated the locomotive arrival road. And when time allows sanding can happen here, before the locomotive goes to 11 road to be fueled. After fueling the locomotive can be stored on 10 road until needed.
Wrap-Up
This is the last post in the current series based around Aaron Riley’s excellent Metra Layout. I’ve tried to share my knowledge of the operation of these facilities and I hope that you have gotten something from the series. If you have a comment on what you’ve enjoyed and would like more of would be appreciated.
I’ll be moving on to looking at how I would operate the Australian RIP track layout I posted about some time ago. I have another very small layout design that I am working on at the moment in that vein, and I wanted to see what sort of operations you can have on a 4 foot long RIP track layout to keep it interesting. More on that in the next post.
Resources
Aaron Riley’s Metra Layout
Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout Series
- Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout (Part 1 – Facility Types)
- Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout (Part 2 – Ops Plan)
- Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout (Part 3 – Game Theory)
- Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout (Part 4 – Setting Up)
- Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout (Part 5 – Downloads)
- Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout (Part 6 – Service Patterns & Impacts)
- Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout (Part 7 – Op till you Drop)
Staying in Contact
Interested in keeping in touch or discussing posts, pages and ideas? You can do that in several ways:
- Drop me a line using the form on our About page here at the site
- Connect with us on the Andrew’s Trains page on Facebook
Andrew's Trains 