I also wanted to be able to portray to operators how the day looks in order that they have some idea on how the operation session flows with what trains arriving and departing and when.
To this end, I have created a document entitled "A typical day on the Whitefish Sub-Division" which will form part of the operations pack. Hopefully operators will now have some idea on how the "play" transpires on the Whitefish sub-division. The document is below: -
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A typical day on the Whitefish sub-division
This paper
gives a basic overview of a typical day on the “Whitefish Subdivision” and what
to expect, as well as do, during a typical operating session.
Whitefish
is situated in Montana with trains travelling between Seattle on the United
States North West coast through to Chicago in the central north of the United
States transporting goods from the West (China, Japan, India etc) to the US and vice versa.
A typical
day starts at 06h00 in the morning with the following occurring during the
various hours of the day.
Passenger local.
During the
day, an RDC runs between East Glacier Park and Whitefish transporting townsfolk from their homes in
the countryside to their workplaces at Whitefish and back. The first run departs East Glacier Park at
06h00 for Whitefish. Then at 12h00 the local returns with passengers who have
finished work for the day and again returns later with any passengers that are
going to Whitefish for the afternoon to do some shopping or watch a movie. Finally at
17h00, the local returns to East Glacier Park with tired workers or shoppers and ties up for the
night ready to do the same the next day.
Through freights.
During the
early part of the morning, both the westbound CHI-SEA (Chicago Seattle) and eastbound SEA-CHI (Seattle Chicago) manifest
trains arrive and loads are switched out and in.
The
outgoing loads were prepared for departure the day before, after the local
freights had returned from their daily chores and are coupled onto the freights before continuing on their way.
Local freights.
After the
arrival of the morning freights, the loads received from the two through
freights are switched and blocked accordingly for the local towns by the yard
switchers. Once complete
the local freights head out to the various towns and switch the industries
there. Heading east, there are 4 towns to be switched. Due to distance and time
needed, the tasks are split into two locals: -
- One local switches Columbia Falls and the Kalispel branch line, and then West Glacier, further along the Line.
- The second local travels further and starts at Essex which is a small town, however, it then goes to East Glacier Park which has a lot more work to do.
There is a third local that makes a short run to Stryker to deliver interchange traffic for Eureka which is in an opposite direction (West) to the other two locals which head East.
Once
complete, the locals return to Whitefish later in the day arriving on the
arrivals/departure track. The wagons they return are subsequently blocked into
the Chicago and Seattle classification tracks to prepare them for their collection the
next day by the Through freights, as happened earlier in the day.
Amtrak
During the
day, there are two Amtrak passenger trains stopping at West Glaier and East Glacier Park, Whitefish and a
flag stop at Essex if necessary. How the flag stop is decided is by the throw of a dice located at Essex. If it lands on "6", a flag stop is required. Any other number and the Amtrak runs straight through.
Intermodal
There are
two intermodals, one in each direction. However, these are switched directly into
the intermodal yard at Whitefish.
Coal Train.
Lastly,
there is a coal train. The motive power leaves Whitefish running light to Columbia Fall and then reversing to the power station on the secondary mainline between Columbia Falls and Whitefish. Here the train collects the empties and then runs east across the division to Browning and the Coal mine located north of there. The empties are reversed into the Coal
mine and the loaded train is then connected and the Unit train returns to the
power station between Whitefish and Columbia Falls. Once complete, the motive power returns to
Diesel servicing.
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And that is a basic day in the life on the Whitefish Sub-division.
