1st Operations session "Prep"

I really must write more often :-(

During the last club visit to my layout, and also a couple of months ago from my brother and a friend, the guys kept saying I must hurry up and get an operations session going. After a couple of false starts, I finally decided on a date being this coming Sunday the 8th November 2015.

If I new what I was letting myself in for, I may have kept quiet and not done it. I have been slowly working towards getting the layout operational, but as the date has approached, so have all the final jobs to be done grown and grown.

In particular is the cleaning. I must say, living where I do, dust is a big problem. However, I am slowly working at reducing that, in particular by insulating the ceiling as funds permit. Not only will it help in reducing dust falling through the suspended ceiling, but at the same time insulating the room.

Anyway, part of the preparation has been vacuuming, dusting and vacuuming! Wow, what a job! It has taken two solid evenings and still needs at least one more.

Some of the last minute projects done are as follows: -

• Fitted Microtrain couplers to the two outside couplers on a new 3 diesel lash up I purchased about 6 months ago. 2 off BNSF and 1 off GE ES44AC. Unfortunately I did not have enough to do all 3 locos.
• Repaired wiring to push buttons for the Tamvalley servo boards. I am using a wire that when hot gets brittle. I have another wire I will use, but no time to do the change now.
• Re programmed one loco to run in reverse. In a 3 unit lash up, the single loco facing one way is the lead loco and that number must be used. In this case, the loco behind the lead loco was running in the same direction and would definitely cause confusion.
• Re-programmed one of the switch motor CV's as it was not throwing fully.
• The switches to Stryker all have servos now, but the control panel still needs to go in. No time for that, so I marked with a pen on the bench work nest to each switch the number needed to throw it.
• Vacuumed to layout like it has never been cleaned as well as run the vacuum brush over wagons and diesels.
• Cleaned, cleaned and cleaned track some more
• Cleaned loco wheels using a paper kitchen towel over the rails and putting alcohol on.

And that was just some of the work.

Cross fingers for Sunday. Hopefully all goes well :-)

Putting Graffiti on my cars

To begin with, my current preferred method of moving cars around the layout is with the “4 turn Car Card system”. I have tried the “Tab on Car” system and although very good, I still prefer the 4 turn at present.

A problem I had is with my freight cars, in that I have many duplicate cars simply with different road numbers. For instance, I have 3 off 50’ boxcars of exactly the same road name, length, style etc, that when using them with the Car Card system, operators are going to have problems reading the small numbers denoting the car. With all the cars “currently” in use, I have specifically chosen different cars. However, there is only so far one can go. I also use photos of the individual cars to help operators know exactly which Car Card refers to which Car on the layout. So 3 photos of the same car on 3 different Car Cards was still going to cause a problem.

I hit on the idea of using Graffiti decals to individually identify each of the duplicate cars. For instance, in the case of the 3 exact same freight cars; one I would leave as is, and the other two, I would fit decals to.

I purchase 2 sets of the same Blairline Graffiti decals. The reason for two the same was that I would fit the same decal in the same place on both sides of the car, so that no matter which side of the car one looked at it, it would resemble the photo on the car card.

Lets get to some examples and some photos: -

Below are 3 off 50' boxcars which are exactly the same in all respects. The only difference being the road numbers. They all initially looked like the centre car which also shows the car card that was in use. The other two on either side were not being used as it would have caused great confusion. Here though, the new Graffiti placed on each one can be seen and now uniquely identifies the cars. Now all I need to do it take some photos of the other two and make up suitable Car Cards.

With the ones below, they also look like the ones above. However, on closer examination, it can also be seen that they are actually different. Not just in shape, but the BN herald below is smaller then the BN herald above. Again, by adding Graffiti, I increased my Car Card freight by a further 2 cars.

These are two 40' boxcars which are the same. Again, by adding Graffiti to the one, I have added an extra wagon to my fleet.

These two below are 2 of 3 MRL wagons I have. For some unbeknown reason, known only to heaven knows who, I only decaled the one. When I get home, I will do the last one (3rd of the 3).

Please excuse the photo below for it's quality, however, the rake of cars in the front are the cars once all of them were complete. So I went from 4 unique wagons in use to 10 wagons now available for use on the rail-road, and hopefully operators will be able to easily identify the cars against the Car Cards during an operating session.

As for the decaling. That was as easy as always. As mentioned, I used Blairline Decals. They are laser cut around the decal for easy removal. I would use Microscale "Micro Sol" and "Micro Set". Micro Sol really softens the decal so that it conforms to the shapes on the car body.

I would brush some Micro Sol over the area where the decal was going to go. Then place the decal in some warm water for about 30 seconds. From there I would take it out the water and slide the decal onto the car and using a knife blade, gently slide the decal into place. From there, I would add some more Micro Sol over  the outside of the decal and that was it. Put the model to one side for the day and end of story :-)

Classifying the freights Part 1

From recent posts previously, you will see that I have been doing more and more operations, in particular, by myself. This has proven both rewarding and challenging and has caused the grey matter to work a bit of overtime.

This "Part 1" covers the arrival and switching in and out of the two mainline freights. Part two will go more into detail about actually classifying the loads that have just come in ready to go to the respective local towns.

You see, my yard basically has 2 mainlines with an arrivals / departure track, and then 5 classification tracks and 1 run around track. The problem I have is that there are 6 towns to classify for as well as the Chicago and Seattle towns and thus, far too few yard tracks unless I do some doubling up.

To start with I made the two classification tracks next to the arrivals / departure track available for blocking the Chicago and Seattle outbound loads. Irrespective of which side a local comes in from, cars destined for Chi or Sea could be classified. The remaining 3 classification tracks were then for the remaining 6 towns!

The next problem I had was where to put wagons coming in from a Chi or Sea train once it arrived on the arrivals / departure track? My yard leads were simply not long enough to pull off the incoming loads, then couple at the same time to the outgoing loads and then place them onto the back of the train. After some thinking, I came up with a marvellous plan which is probably standard operations on most other peoples layouts :-).

Instead of a track for Chi and another for Sea, I made the two tracks on the left "Sea Inbound" and "Sea Outbound" and the two tracks on the right, "Chi Inbound" and "Chi outbound".

Now, say a Sea - Chi freight arrived. It would enter from the left to right. A switcher sitting to the left would then remove the "from Sea" and place them on the same line as the To Chi wagons would be, but they would be to the right of the yard as the Chi - Sea train is working the other way. The switcher would then hook onto the "To Sea" wagons and push them onto the waiting train. As simple as that.

Does this not interfere with the classification of the Chi and Sea trains you may ask. Well, both "To" trains are sitting on their respective tracks from the previous ops session if the yard master has done his job correctly. If anything, the yard master is actually waiting for the two freights to arrive before even moving one car on the layout.

So, there you have it. Hopefully I will have a pictorial story in the not too distant future.

Enjoy

A typical day

I have spent a lot of time visualising a typical day of operations on my sub-division. I have had to consider when to have trains arrive and the reasons for that. An example was how to structure my arriving freights together with local freights. If the freights arrive late in the session, are they then blocked and delivered the next session or, do they arrive early, get blocked and delivered in the current session.

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: -

____________________________________________________

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.

_______________________________________________________

And that is a basic day in the life on the Whitefish Sub-division.

Eureka branchline

In previous posts, I spoke about operations and adding branchlines and then the Kalispell branchline in particular. In this article, I talk about the Eureke branchline.

The internet and google is an amazing resource. I mentioned in the "Adding Branchlines" article that I had fount that the Mission Mountain Railroad ran (run) two branchlines. The one being Kalispell and then the other, Eureka. So, I then did a search on rail industries in Eureka. First link to pop up was the "Gwynn Lumber and Reload Inc". I was looking for more industries to enable additional and varied cars to be sent to this town. However, again, this Gwynn Lumber and Reload came up trumps. By reading the information in the web page, the following was stated: -

"Gwynn Lumber and Reload Inc, is an international reload facility. Our speciality is transferring dimensional lumber from truck to rail car or truck to truck. We ship lumber all over the continental U.S. and some overseas markets. Our facility is not just subject to lumber products. We have also reloaded wood pellets and wood pulp. Gwynn Lumber has many enquiries about other products coming from and going to Canada. We have the capacity to handle them in most cases. Some of these products include diesel fuel, coal, heavy equipment, and various other products".


By looking at the above, I can have petroleum cars, coal hoppers, flat cars with heavy duty vehicles on board and all this to compliment the normal wood products of the area.

Now, again, how was I going to incorporate this into my existing layout? Initially, I thought about putting a siding on the other side of the peninsular before heading to the visible staging. At the time I was thinking about the return loop for the Kalispell branchline. What about doing something the same on the other side. The visible staging from Whitefish I had called Seattle as this was where my trains were going. But, after looking at the prototype map, the Eureka branchline splits from the BNSF mainline at Stryker. Why not make the visible staging for trains approaching from Whitefish, Stryker. Brilliant!

Locals could enter Stryker from the left on the main line and head all the way to the end. From there, the train could unhook, do a run around and then push the cars onto the interchange track. This was just fantastic. So, without a track plan, lets go to a pictorial again: -

Today, the local heads out of Whitefish heading West to Stryker and Seattle beyond

Here he will be travelling through some scenic areas on the way: -

Stryker at last and entering onto the "Stryker" mainline. On the visible staging there are two tracks that are always empty and are considered mainlines: -

A view of the local heading down the mainline between the two staging yards, Stryker (Back) and Shelby (Front): -

At the end of the yard, the local disconnects, moves forward and then reverses and runs around its load to be able to push the wagons onto the interchange track. The engines use the second mainline to do the run around: -

Lastly, we see the local has pushed the wagons onto the interchange track and is returning to Whitefish empty: -

Now, you may be asking, which cars do you know go here and which cars go elsewhere. For that, I am putting together a 4 card car operating system which I have taken a liking to. If you see this comment, you will know I have yet to post it. I will be putting a link to that post here, once the article is done.

Till next time...

Kalispell branchline

In the previous article about operations I spoke about discovering two branch-lines off of the mainline I am modelling  The one is Kalispell and which I am going to talk about in this article.

Searching the internet, I found that there was a proposal to build a railroad park in the area.

To quote the article: -

"The proposed rail site could end up being a “shovel-ready” solution, either for the existing businesses or new ones. The property would connect to an adjacent spur track running from the mainline in Columbia Falls that is part of a bigger network from Seattle, Wash., to Minneapolis, Minn., and Chicago, Ill".

In addition, looking at train forums, there were other industries in town requiring rail car service. I found this amazing forum posting about rail industries in Kalispel. The scene was set.

Now, how do I incorporate this into the layout. I really need to get a layout drawing. However, the Whitefish town is situated on the peninsular. Heading out to the left, the line swings left and eventually ends up at Columbia Falls directly opposite Whitefish. I initially thought about using one of the dual mainlines as the Branch line drop off. This would however prevent the operation of the passing siding.

Then a light-bulb moment. Just past the siding the line splits with a single mainline heading up the helix to West Glacier. However, the siding line then proceeds under the helix in a return loop. There is sufficient line to park about 6 to 7 rail-cars on the one side of the return loop to simulate a branch-line drop off area. So, what better way to show this than a pictorial: -

We start off below with the Kalispel local waiting in the yard for permission to leave: -

Here our local has been given clearance to leave and is heading East to Columbia Falls on the main line: -

Here the local is entering the siding at Columbia Falls: -

Our local stops here and uncouples the wagons so they can collect the wagons on the interchange track. From there, they then do a run-around in order to push this load onto the same piece of trackage: -

Our train is now picking up the two wagons that were at the exchange and pulls forward in order to now do the run-around: -

After pulling forward, then reversing and pulling forward again onto the mainline, the local is passing the wagons to be set out on the mainline: -

Here the local is passing the wagons that are waiting on the siding: -

The local is now returning to Whitefish after pushing the loads onto the interchange track for the Kalispell branch-line: -

Lastly the Kalispell wagons waiting for the branchline railroad to come pick up the load: -

And, that is how the Kalispell branchline operates on my layout. In a future article, I will go into detail on the Eureka local which runs West out of Whitefish. Stay tuned.

Adding operations

About 3 weeks ago, my brother and I held a small operating session. Due to the current lack of industries and the necessary sidings, we literally ran one train after the other with myself running the westbound trains and Kevin running the eastbound. Although we had a great time, there was something missing and we knew what it was. Operational switching.

To this end, I have been pondering this for the last couple of weeks.

I began thinking about industries on the modelled area. Problem is, I would need to put sidings in which is something I am just not ready to do at the moment. This lead me to an idea to put strings of waggons out for a branch line type operation. The idea here was that a string of cars could be put out somewhere on the layout as though a branchline railroad would come and pick them up and switch them in the "off stage" modeled area.

I started looking on the internet and very soon found the Mission Mountain Railroad. They operate two branchines off of the BNSF mainline in the area I was modeling. What a bonus.

The one branchline runs from Columbia Falls south to Kalispell. The other branch line runs from Stryker up to Eureka, which is just south of the Canadian boarder. Now this was beginning to look very promising.


In the next article, I will go into more detail on these branchlines and what I found out.

Stay tuned.