How to make a realistic railway interchange yard

[Fatherted 129]

To make your rail yard...lay out your tracks with lots of random connections between each other, crossing each other, some going to overpasses and others dipping underground. Freight train stations at the end of streets that weave their way among tracks, and El rail next to a little passenger stop at the edge:

6 line rail yard

E rail station

Station

...............................................................

..................To Subway

..................Overpass...................Goes over various rails

...............................................................

Freight

.............,.....................................,,.,....,...

..........Subway Subway.........

...................….......................................

Don't forget your random crossing connections!

[Magneto 316]

Hmm can you post a picture? I have some trouble reading ASCII art

[Fatherted 129]

Sorry, not on sc4 right now...basically spam random track swaps (make sure EVERY CHANGE to another track is possible) and get subways and overpasses randomly crosses.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Well, I guess you can get some inspiration from real-life pictures (Google Maps / Satellite View), and I also guess that strictly speaking the track arrangements on real-life yards are anything but random.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Generally you want to think of whether the big buildng on your rail yard is a terminal or a station. A terminal has track in but none that flow through.

Then having decided how you are going to run your main line, think about where you want your classification yard, and lay that out, usually parallel to the main line, but not necessarily as a full siding. Sidings will get through traffic that you may not want, so your class yard may be a set of spurs.

What kind of intersecting stuff you put on, is a matter of the needs of the city. Don't do anything random, but with malice aforethought.

[Fatherted 129]

Look at Zurich Hardbrucke for ideas! Gigantic railyard, almost biggest in Europe!