Railroad n00b trying to understand rail yards, signals, etc

[Railfan407]

I'm doing a small n-scale project.  How do the hard-core model guys understand how to arrange signals and how to design rail yards?  Is there a reference somewhere on the internet that would teach this in layman's terms?

[CSX2605]

Well....I'm not hard core(yet  ) but I had pictures of the actual yard I wanted to model and chose certain things I really wanted in the model yard. I think its called selective compression. The real yard has 12 tracks and I am going for 6 tracks. As for the signals, I will place them where the prototype signals are located.

  There are others on here who are well schooled, excellent modelers, who I hope will chime in here because I might learn something too! The National Model Railraod Assc. is a great resource for prototype info past and present.


http://www.nmra.org/

Good Luck and most of all have fun! Great way to relax and get frustrated at the same time. 

[CIOR]

If you model a prototype, it isn't as hard, you just model what they have, or as close to it as possible.

Use the prototype as your example, even for making something up.  There are books out there, and other online resources that you can google up.  Type in North American Rail yard diagrams and such.  There is a book out about North American Rail yards too.

Signals usually guard controlled switches, so if you have a tower or dispatcher controlled switch, and you might have several of them, they are all inside the limits of the signals to protect the interlocking.
I could help, but I would have to now what switches are controlled and what tracks are what.