Call for advice: operational scheme

Todd, have you looked at sanded grout? Its fairly fine and darkens if you wet it. I spinkle it on top of the glue.

 

Here's a photo showing my current attempt at modeling spilled coal at the coal washer. I blended crushed charcoal into the dry sand on the surface using a dry paintbrush before wetting and gluing it all down.



Does this look believable? I could use the objective opinions of other modelers to make sure I get this one right.

 

Now that I've mostly finished the Ellicott tipple area beyond the Myersville yard, I'm ready to build out the engine service area.

I needed to do a little earthwork for the yard office site. Here we go:





This will give me an access road curving off layout through the fascia, parking for the yard office and vehicle access across the yard throat to the engine house.

 

Myersville yard office site work

Here's an aerial view of the site.





While the latex caulk in the foam joints was curing, I decided to try scratchbuilding a sanding tower.



I made the tank from a small screwdriver handle, the remains of which lie in the background. I turned the black vent from plastic chucked in the Dremel tool. This is the first time I've built handrails using 0.020 inch styrene rod.

This will get mounted between the locomotive and the tank car visible in the aerial shots above.

I'm starting to get my head back into operational planning in keeping with the original theme of this thread. The things I've learned from so many folks through this thread are the driving force for all these little projects along the way. Thanks to all who have commented. Watch this space for more stuff on train operations real soon.

 

I put in a small fuel stand next to the new sand tower tonight. I still need to weather this area - it's way too clean for realism.

 

Okay, But fantastic modeling

 

Todd:

Once again you lead the pack when it comes to realistic, simple scenery.

The coal washing facility looks good although maybe a bit too clean. Possibly a little more weathering? The yard and engine facility looks great but I wonder about the large yard office. I know Rix markets that building as a yard office but my experience has been with only one story structures like the BLMA building. That said, your current structure does offer the ability to combine the transportation/operating functions with the engineering/track department by using the garage door as the entrance to the location to store track materials and tractor/hirail truck maintainence equipment. Supposedly, the yard office/yardmaster/clerk/supervisor folks would be up stairs to provide a better view of the yard when switching but I think the addition of a few more windows along the track side would give this building more of a yard office "flavor".

Just my two cents. Keep up the great work and have a nice Thanksgiving.

Barry

 

Todd:

Your comment about the engine facility being too clean. A new facility on a small outfit would receive better maintainence than a larger company due to local pride in ownership but there would be a minor amount of fuel spillage as well as sand overflow from sanding engines.

Another thought for realism on your layout would be to add communication poles along the track about 80-100' apart to illustrate a former telegraph now telephone line for railroad communications. A railroad your size would probably only need poles with one crossarm since they would not carry signal wires and could easily be made from Atlas/Bachmann "telephone" poles by cutting off excess crossarms and not even stringing "wire" between them but locate them trackside and let your imagination think there are wires. Don't forget to place poles with phone boxes on them near switches to sidings (places where trains meet and pass...not industrial tracks) so crews can contact the dispatcher for instructions if need be. Note: If you don't need the pole line for communications you can still have them between signalized crossings
(gates, lights, bells) to carry wires between crossing signals.

One last thought about the yard office. If you intend to have your mixed freight/passenger train depart from the yard, you may want to have a place where folks can purchase a ticket and board safely ie; a door/bay window? on the track side of the office for passengers to go inside and wait plus a graded/asphalt platform for boarding. Just some random thoughts.

Barry

 

Great looking layout. I have a similar space but wouldn't have coal. The closest would be granite aggregate for roofing shingles. Then logging and paper mills. I'm planing on small early diesels and maybe one steam for fun. Now is I could just find a full time job to go beyond studying and planing.

I don't know if any of you have thought of this. When charcoal is crushed to a powder it becomes very very flammable. Almost explosive. If your using real coal it's even more dangerous. Play safe.

 

Todd,

Just one word: Exceptional!


How do we go about nominating Todd to be in Model Railroader Magazine?

 

Thanks for the honest critique. I will look at a little heavier weathering. I have tried to create the illusion that some parts of the plant are newer than others, thus less weathered. But, I do agree; a bit more overall weathering would help. And the tip on the fuel rack weathering confirms a hunch I had. Thanks.

Yeah, I have mixed emotions about that building. I too considered it a multi-use building - office and maintenance combined. Still trying to convince myself one way or the other. I finally got a look at the BLMA office you described, and you are right. It has a more distinct flavor that makes its function more obvious.

Even if I keep the Rix building, it definitely needs more windows. I dug through my kitbash parts box for Rix windows and came up empty handed.

Communication poles are on my list for detail work. Since they snag long sleeves so easily, I've postponed their installation temporarily till other work is mostly done. But the right day is coming soon.

I really appreciate your honest critiques and creative ideas, Barry. Have a great Thanksgiving weekend.

 

Thanks for the tip, Shortround. I appreciate your concern and your kind words.

 

Shucks, Strasburg. (writer blushes)

There are modelers here on Trainboard that are way more skilled than I am. For instance, TB member maandg is doing some great work modeling the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal (NOUPT) for his Mississippi Alabama& Gulf RR. You can see more of his work in MR's Great Model Railroads 2007.

Jon Grant's work is breathtakingly good in my opinion.

These guys and several others give me inspiration.

Still, thanks for your kind words of encouragement.

 

Train operations and sequence

OK, back to the operational planning issues.

I plan to operate this railroad alone, running trains in sequence. The car forwarding scheme is still evolving. PPUINN offered some very worthy suggestions early in this thread that I'm revisiting. For now, I plan to swap cars from train to setout spot one for one.

I drafted a graphic daily train schedule (included below) for your review and comment. It has one through freight and two peddler freights, all drawn in green, and all originating and ending off-layout. The bulk of the work will be coal trains, drawn in red.

One morning train will deliver coal empties from off-layout to Myersville then turn to depart with washed loads for an off-layout destination. Two trains will depart daily from Myersville taking empties to and retrieving loads from the two mines on the layout. While on site, each train will shuffle loads and empties as needed while clearing the main for the freights.

This schedule generates three meets daily.



I'm still undecided about passenger service - whether to run it and in what form.

So, I have questions for you.

1. Passenger service: RDC, gas/electric doodlebug, or heavyweight coaches? BOK has suggested freight/passenger combines as well. How should I fit it into the schedule?

2. Do you see any problems with this draft schedule? I am limited a bit by five tracks in staging, but I see that as an opportunity to keep things simple.

3. Can some of you enlighten me on the logic and patterns of naming/numbering trains for a schedule like this?

4. Are there other issues I should consider? This is the first time I've attempted to plan operations at all; I'm an operations newbie. Remember it has to be simple and solo.

Thanks for your help, folks. I look forward to learning from you all.

I hope your Thanksgiving Day has been restful and blessed.

 

Todd:

You are a better man than I. I have never got to the point where I put together a schedule for a model railroad.

In looking over your operation plans if it were me I would originate and terminate the coal mty/outbound ld washed coal road freight handling additional industrial customer cars as you stated back and forth through staging as an overnite/late day run but with a twist. When the coal mtys plus inbound industry cars arrive at Myersville late at nite/early morning, tie the crew up for rest, service the power (probably a pair of roadswitchers)/caboose and use a nite/early morning yard engine to spot mty coal cars and put together the coal and industrial locals.
Use one local to gather coal loads from area mines by making it a turn job (out and back) from Meyersville as well as the "commercial/industrial" local (handles on line industries other than coal) as a turn job.. When both of these local jobs return to Myersville at the end of the day they put their cars to the washer and yard respectivelly, tie up their single units/cabooses for service and have the afternoon switcher line up outbound washed coal loads plus industrial cars into the outbound (off layout/interchange/staging) road freight. The outbound road freight comes to work gets their running orders, takes their power from the servicing area, ties it onto their train makes the proper air test and departs for staging.

If you feel that all these jobs are a bit much for a terminal the size of Myersville, you could combine both the mine and industrial locals and/or have each job make up their own trains/spot coal lds. pull mtys before leaving and after arriving back at Myersville.
This would eliminate a yard job. Also the yard job could use one of the local engines (before they depart and after they return) as power to be more effecient and eliminate one more unit at Myersville.

As for passenger service, I would lean toward using a Kato RDC-3 which has baggage, mail and passenger accomodations plus is bi-directional ...no turning/runaround movement at either end of the run. An RDC would project a feeling of railroad optimism in regard to passenger service along with a minor bit of streamlining rather than a beat up older passenger/combine coach. This touch would provide a nice complement to a gritty, well maintained but back woods railroad which provides modern innovative service and yet still values passengers in the 1960/70s. I would run the RDC during the day departing Myersville in the morning then run to the mainline junction(staging) and return early evening. Even though the distance is short from Myersville to staging I would not bring the RDC home until evening to strech the run. When you get really bored you can borrow a few coaches off the mainline and run a football special to Myersville and return.

Well, that's my 2 cents worth. The upside to these "adventures" in planning is that it allows me to live vicariously through your layout. The downside is, that it is way too easy for me to pull away from the computer and feel I have accomplished something when in reality I need to work on building some nice senery like you have.

Thanks, for allowing me to offer suggestions on your layout...it makes me believe that all the days, nites, holidays, weekends etc. I have spent working on various railroads was worth it if it helps someone else building a miniture version of "life on the rails'.

Barry

 

Nice going Todd, your layout looks spot on. I love the warm earthy colors and the rich green foliage, looks like summer on your layout for sure.

Great job on the scratch built sanding tower, it gives me a few ideas about what I will add to my own layout. Keep the pics coming.

 

Thanks, Ken. I've been enjoying the progress on your layout as well.

I did a little weathering here and there. Here are a few progress shots.



Since dried locomotive sand is pretty fine stuff, I chose to simulate it with paint. I used Polly Scale Old Concrete and blended the wet paint into the existing ballast with rubbing alcohol.

I got a pleasant surprise on the sand tower. For overall color, I had simply sprayed the sand tower with Testors gray primer. For weathering, I brushed a wash of rubbing alcohol with a dirty looking Polly Scale blend all over the tower to allow a dirty film to collect where it might. When the alcohol dried, it had attacked the primer and created the splotchy bleached spots you see in the photo. I didn't plan it but I really like the faded paint effect.

Here's a view of the Myersville washer job pulling washed loads.



I applied multiple washes to the brick on the power house and it looks a bit older and dirtier now. I've been experimenting with pastels a bit to mellow the crushed coal on the ground around the washer site. Dark gray pastels help dull the contrast between the sand grains and the charcoal dust I used.

I hope to get more operational planning worked out soon. I posted my final semester grades this afternoon and now I have the next three weeks off. I have some serious goofing off to do in the train room.

 

Barry, you were right. The BLMA yard office is hard to beat. I wanted to scratchbuild something very similar, but I couldn't find a source for appropriate window castings. So I bit the bullet and bought the BLMA building from Mike Fifer.





I had to slice the building apart to move one of the two doors to an appropriate spot. Further, since the building would overhang the layout edge, I had to amputate about 25% of the structure.

I like this structure much better than the Rix building I had there before. Thanks for the suggestion, Barry. Good call.

The engine service facility at Myersville has been evolving as well, as I pore over old photos from the sixties. This week I scratchbuilt a shed for caboose supplies and a fuel tank inside a concrete containment dike. The elevated tank is from a Walthers kit.



Some power poles and small details are nearly all that remains to complete this scene.

 

More operational planning - revised train schedule

BOK wrote:

Good plan. I've incorporated that in my new schedule as Train 127 WB.

I think I'll run out of space in the yard if I originate mixed freight locals there. If I had more room, your plan would make perfect sense. So, instead I'll originate a mixed freight local at staging with a turn at Myersville (Trains 55 WB and 56 EB). That will let me reblock the train at Myersville for trailing point drops on the outbound trip.

As you suggest, there will be turns to the area mines that will loiter on site for spotting empties before returning to Myersville. These will have to clear the main for the mixed freight local.

Train 128 EB will be the last train of the operating day.

The coal washer is the busiest spot on the whole line. For now, I plan to keep a unit assigned at the Myersville yard primarily to handle the midday washer job as well as the morning and evening empties/loads blocking.

Excellent! Now I have a valid excuse to buy an RDC. Just gotta save up for one now. (Just made the final payment today on the second set of braces in the family - woohoo!) I'll tweak the train schedule when the new hardware is scheduled to arrive.

I, sir, owe you a debt of gratitude for so patiently teaching me about your lifelong profession. I am honored to receive such down-to-earth wisdom that applies so directly to not only my efforts but also to the work of so many readers here. Thanks, Barry, for helping me chart a course toward greater realism.

So, given all the great input so far through this thread, here's my latest revision of a daily train schedule.



Inserting RDC passenger service will be a simple change. I'll have to build a passenger station at Myersville, but that's been in the master plan for a while now.

Up to now, the layout is one single power block with one exception; the passing siding at Dixon. To accomplish these scheduling changes, I'll have to select several strategic locations for new power blocks. (Remember, I'm committed to regular DC.) That will make meets at the other towns feasible.

Further, the engine service facilities at Myersville will need small blocks there for holding multiple locomotives. Since I'm using Peco turnouts which route power through the points, I can make the wiring changes very easily.

I'll run with this schedule for a while, but I'm certain there will be significant tweaks due to unforeseen consequences. Y'all holler if you see any problems in this plan.