I had a thought

Had an interesting thought the other night as I was going to bed thinking about ideas for industries and such on the new and improve PHI. Basically what I'm building is a rail serviced industrial park that uses car floats. And really... I'm ok with that. Yes it's completely outside the bounds of realism, but you know what I can rationalize most all of it, so I'm good. I get what I want. Lots of tight industrial switching, and a car float.

argh my brain

I have a basic bench work design, and a "main line" track plan for my "new" basement space. It's quite a bit bigger, and there can almost be some real train action if the switching crew has to go from the yard to the far flung industries on the opposite (east) end of the layout.

One concern so far is staging space. I'm using some difficult to get to wall space on the opposit side of the room as a staging yard that could be "on camera". The link between the two will be the car floats. Its kind of a short space though, so I had to cram a little to get suitable room for cars, and a switching lead long enough to work the yard. Even as it is with curved turnouts and some weird arranging, I'm not sure it'll be enough space, and I know I'll want the switch lead to be longer in the end. I'm considering doing some sort of hinged thing that comes down to extend the switch lead in front of a door, but that may be beyond the limits of my modeling to start. We'll see.

Now my problem is that my creativity seems to have fled. I'm got lots of space for industries but no idea what to put in them. There's a fair amount of wall space for backdrop industries as well as a good number of places for full fleged modeling. I have my industry list from verion 1 of the PHI, but I'm just not sure where to put them all. I'm kinda afraid I'm gonna end up with a bunch of straight sidings which is fine for generating trafic, but I do want it to be somewhat interesting. I've already had to abandon on cute piece of tight trackwork I liked. I just don't think I'm gonna find a place for it. I'll keep working on it, and hope my creativity returns. I really don't just wana slap industries down just to generate car loads, I'd like to have it make some kind of sense. It's just a matter of rationalizing it in my head I guess. My best bet is probably to place all the old industries I had thought up for the last version of this, and see where that leaves me.

I'll probably take a day or two away from the planning software just to think a little. Maybe re-fire the creative juices.

Look at all that...

I'm surprised at how much square footage of bench work I can fit into this space. I'm maintaining 36" aisles with 30" pinch points around some obstacles (structural support etc). One thing I've noticed is that since I'm running pure point to point with no reversing loops, it frees up a lot of space. I don't think I could cram a couple of 60" diameter loops in there anywhere, but with out them, there's tons of space.

New designs

I'm really excited about the new layout space (I.E. my basement. I'm playing with the room layout, and bench work designs as well as track plans and wow... it's oddly shaped and weird to work with compared to the linear space I was working in before (Garage) but it provides so much more space and possibilities. I'm gonna be playing with ideas for weeks. I already have a float yard and engine facility "sketched" out, and I'm really pleased with it thus far. Need to play with industries next. Going to be a couple of peninsulas, which is going to increase usable space so much. I may devide the peninsula down the milddle with a backdrop, letting me switch more industries that are against a back drop and "imaginary" rather than having a lot of buildings free standing.

Let's face it, I'm really more interested in switching than in modeling structures, and frankly for me, at least right now in my modeling careere, I'm more happy to have a siding to services a back drop industry rather than taking up space with buildings. I will have several free standing industires but I think most of the indsutries will be in backdrop. At the very least I'm going to play with both ideas and see how they work out.

It might even be possible by breaking up sight lines, and with the expanded layout to add a 3rd operator.

I really like the potential of all this. I'm even more excited than I was when I committed to starting this project.

Well that just changed everything

So, the wife and I went and ran on a near by model railroad of a guy we met doing work with a Frisco historical group. He happens to have a huge basement that has most of the Frisco's Northern Divsion from KC to Springfield modeled in it. We'd seen it once before but never run it. We finally had a chance to be in on one of his operating sessions. Wife had a blast, and so did I. I've run railroads before but never this formally. Even the club I belonged to was more demonstration operation than anything else. We played at local switching and such but we had not formal waybills or anything like that. The Frisco model was fairly informal as operating sessions go, but there were car cards and waybills, and verbal track warrants of a sort. It was a blast! I worked a local, while wife ran through freight and Kansas City Terminal transfer jobs all night. We both had a great deal of fun, as I'd hoped, and wife was very interested in the whole thing. This was wife's first time operating a model railroad. I think I've got the bug in her ear.

After the session the owner of the railroad was telling us how his wife had picked out a new house for them, so they could have a bigger basement for his trains, even one with plumbing for a toilet etc. And she found them a great house, even though she's not a big train person herself, it is near perfect for model railroading. Huge, and well laid out. And he's done an awesome job building in it. It's a great set up and we can't wait to get back their and operate again.

So we were talking about my plans for the railroad today and wife says, "you should use the basement". hmmm... Since my plan was for the garage, this is a big shift. We had discussed it years ago and she had resisted the basement, or at least any portion of it large enough to be worth while, which is why for the last couple of months I've been working on the idea of shelves in the garage. After talking today, it's clear that I misunderstood her a little, and she me, the last time we talked about it. She was enthusiastically in favor of me utilizing the whole basement for a railroad.  Well ok then.

So now, my old plan is out the window, and I'm starting from scratch. I have slightly less wall space to use but the upside is I can do peninsulas now where I couldn't before. There's also a laundry room and a bathroom I need to work around. the Laundry room needs to stay clear, but the wife had no problem with a lift out in front of the bathroom door, giving me even more usable space. 

So now, a new plan, totally new. I am, at this moment, going to be sticking with the Parks Harbor idea. I still like it, and it's still the kind of switching I want to do. I'm still not a huge fan of hidden staging yards and trains that magically appear. But it does give me some pause. There are now more possibilities. I could do something bigger. The Chicago Terminal or something from Detroit. Zug Island maybe. I could even try the Frisco Clinton Sub (the railroad I run a small section of in 1:1 scale) which was scandalously left out of the Frisco set up we ran the other night.

As of this moment I'm thinking along the lines of an expanding PHI. I still like the car float idea, and my existing design, in concept at least can be expanded to the broader strokes.

We'll see how it goes... I really liked my design, and I'm not sure how comfortable I'll be chaning it. I think it may be fore the better in the end though. We'll see how we progress.

Random Operational Thoughts

Just some various thoughts as they come to me.

In addition to the 3 working crews I talked about in my last post, I think the staff of the PHI will be fairly small. There will be a Train Master, who serves as the operational head of the railroad. He also fills the roll of Road Master (seeing to the track). Most of their track work would be contracted out, with the exception of the simplest repairs which would be handled by staff. The Train Master as operational head would also oversee maintenance of the locomotives and all that other stuff. He probably even fills in as working train crew if they're short. There is probably also a mechanic who doubles as a carman. Since they are isolated bad order cars would be a problem, and I think they'd have someone on staff (again assuming plenty of money for this operation) to take care of those problems. He probably also does light service on the locomotives with the heavy work again, being contracted out.

Since the PHI is an originating railroad for several customers, they would have a billing manger and probably an accounts clerk that handled payments from customers and disbursements to connecting railroads and so on. They would probably also serve as the customer service staff as well. Customer focus being important in such a small organization. There would be some sort of administrative staff, a president and his secretary, who might double as the railroad's receptionist. I'm thinking there might also be a customer service rep. Someone to act as full time liaison with the customers on the island. And perhaps a VP that over sees operations while the prez handles the political stuff. All and all though a very small staff.

Each operating crew would be made up of an engineer and a conductor, filling traditional rolls, with the conductor doubling as switchman. I would think in the past that PHI dabbled in remote operations, but especially with all the street running they do, and with working the car floats, it's best to just have two people. They also will have a third person at times on the crew that works the industries railroad East on the island. Referred to as "Apprentice Conductor" this would be someone who is learning the trade (new hires etc.). They would primarily serve as a head end switchman and a flagman due to all the street running that goes on, especially on the North Spur, which runs down the middle of an street in the industrial district of the island. (This third crew man wouldn't be "on camera" so to speak since there wouldn't be anything for him to do during operations sessions, I just like the touch).

Oh speaking of which, in railroad terms, the PHI runs West to East. Even though the model really runs from North-East to North-West, the railroad refferes to the carfloat yard as the West end of the railroad, and the industrial spurs being the East end. Trains traveling toward the carfloat yard are said to be moving west (no matter their actual physical direction) and trains moving away from the carfloat are said to be going East.

In terms of operational control, the crews are pretty much on their own. There is no dispatcher. When the two crews operating on the island need to interact, the carfloat yard conductor has primary authority. The industry switch conductor needs to call the float yard conductor for permission to use the runaround track or to enter the yard.

Since the runaround track also serves as the yard switching lead, the yard conductor controls it. During normal operations the switch at the west end of the runaround is kept on the diverging route, and the yard crew uses the north runaround track as their switch lead. This leaves the south runaround track open for the industry switch crew to use as a lead for switching the south spur or the Waste Transfer facility which is right past the south runaround track east end switch. (confused yet?). Most of the times the north spur won't need much of a switch lead, and the crossover from the south runaround to the north is usually kept on the diverging route so that the two switch crews are never trying to use the same track. When the industry crew needs to run around, they must call the yard conductor, who will then get his crew in the clear and give the industry crew permission to use the West End runaround switch.

I have no idea how prototypical any of this is, but I like the way it sounds. We'll see how it works in practice.

Roleplaying my railroad

So now that I'm firming up my track plan I'm thinking more and more about the operation and "history" of my railroad. I read a piece on the web about a larger model railroad (Kansas City Terminal if I'm not mistaken) that as part of their operating sessions handed out sheets that described how different crews from different railroads behaved. Such as "not in a hurry to finish the job" or "gurmpy" that kind of thing. I'm paraphrasing. The crews that got assigned those units to run had to try to behave like their prototype crew's reputation.

I really dig that idea. Adding in a human element to running the railroad. It is my intent to operate prototypically. That is to say that the locomotive will stop before a switch point before it's thrown as if the switchman was climbing down off and throwing it. It will also stop at crossing that need to be flagged to let the flagman off. That kind of thing. No lining all the switches all the way down the line then running straight through. They're all going to be ground throws, so of course the switchman has to walk from turnout to turnout.  I don't know that I'll go so far as to develop personalities for the crews (though it's a fun idea) but I will certainly have a "cast of characters' that work the railroad, at least in the abstract and may effect how operating sessions go.

So to that end I'm going to post a little about operations, then maybe a little about history.

So the PHI probably has 3 crews running at any given time. There's an interchange yard crew (off camera) which will switch the mainland carfloat yard, and handle interchange with the railroad that funnels them cars (since it's the "east coast" it might be CSX or an unnamed shortline) That crew won't be portrayed during operating sessions (assuming I ever get that formal about operating). There will be a receiving car float switch crew, which will work the car floats as they come in, sorting cars and arranging short trains to be taken out and switched to the industries. There will also then be an industry switch crew that takes the trains the carfloat yard crew makes up and switches them to the proper industries. Those two crews could be working simultaniously during an operating session.

Now really... in the real world would a railroad of this size have need for 3 crews like this? Probably not. The carfloat switching and industry switching would probably be handled by a single crew. But this will be one of many little nudges I give "reality" on this railroad. I'm assuming perfect circumstances. Plenty of money, plenty of traffic for the railroad and so on. So sure, two crews working the "in camera" end of the railroad is a stretch, but it's my railroad and I'll stretch reality where ever I please.

I'm pretty sure my operations will be based on switch lists. I'm certainly not going to do any car tagging system, and I'm not a big fan of the car card / waybill systems that are out there, though I do see the appeal of how they generate traffic.  I may experiment with that, but really I think for me a database generated switch list will be the best choice. It means more work for me, but it also gives me more control.  A list will be generated for incoming carfloats and where their cars are destined, it will then be up to the yard crew and the industry crew to get them in the right order and get them out to the customers.

Part of roleplaying the railroad will also be roleplaying the industries. What do they want? How often do they get cars, and what special demands do they make. Since the PHI is a small railroad, they must be customer focused, working to satisfy the whims of their clientele.

All of the above appeals to me for a verity of reasons, the top one being that it makes it possible for me to operate with 4 people. Even for a relatively small railroad I like the idea of having other operators. If it's just me, I can do all the jobs, if there's 2 or 3 or 4, there's still something to do. We'll see practically how that works out, but in theory I really like it.

PHI RR track plan

So here is a working track plan for the Parks Harbor Industrial Railroad. (The PHI) This is for me version 5.8 of the plan. 5th major revision, 8th version. Basically there's been a lot of noodling before this point. There are no labels or anything on this plan, just track. The gray bars in the lower left are streets for the industrial district that get's switched by the PHI. They're in there to show the number of crossings and my emphasis on street running operations. Without further ado:

The space represents my garage. it's 23 feet along the left side, and about 21 feet along the back, of which I'm using a 22X19 space along the walls, hopefully leaving enough room for cars in the garage. The grid is 6" squares (the small squares are 6 inches, the larger ones are a foot).  North in the world of the railroad points to the lower right corner (which is close to actual north in the house). The shelf along the left side is 2 foot wide, the shelf along the top is 1 foot wide and will have the staging yard (serviced by the carfloats) underneath. I haven't decided on a height yet, but I don't think it'll be too high, mostly to facilitate reaching.

So some things about the setup.

In the upper right corner, the West end of the railroad, is the railroads yard and float bridge. You can make out the carfloat there as well. A dual carfloat switching lead with a crossover (fairly prototypical) then two storage tracks (which may extend out onto a "pier" structure if I need more capacity). The short siding that runs east from the top yard track will be for engine service. There may or may not be an engine house, or perhaps the demolished remains of an engine house there. Moving railroad East from the yard is a curved turnout, and a run around. I could have just had the switching crew running around in the yard, but I really didn't want to have trains running backwards that far. Even though it's a very short trip, I wanted trains to pull forward out of the yard, then do their run around move. Run arounds are a necessity since there's a number of facing point sidings.

After the run around the "main line" splits in two. A North (right) and South (left) spur. the south spur immediately has a siding on it which will be the Municipal Waste container loading siding. It then continues on straight, serving 3 industries to the railroad east. One on a siding and two that share the end of the track. It stops before it crosses the third street.

The North (right) spur has two trailing point sidings right off the bat. The first one which leads back to 3 tracks is the Parks Polymer & Plastics plant, which is a major customer of the PHI and gets a lot of cars. The second that is at the right side is a team track that may have a bulk unloading set up as well for off site customers (thus increasing the diversity of traffic). The North Spur then emerges out onto a street (as yet unnamed) and runs down the side of the street switching various industries. This is baised loosly on the set up the Cross Harbor railroad had/has in Brooklyn NYC. The switching track for a lot of the industries runs right along first street), and in some areas right down the middle. There are several industries switched off there, and I've gone out of my way to include some track work that intrests me, like the crossing leading into the sidings, and the tight radius curve that goes out and crosses over to come in at an angle near the railroad West end of the North siding.

As the plan exists now the track at one time continued on down the middle of the street, but has been abandoned past the point it ends on the layout.  If the layout were ever to move and expand, more could be added past this point.

And well... that's it. Now that the track plan is out there, I'm going to be thinking more about operations and industries (or at least posting more about those).

As you can see it's busy. I really packed a lot of switching into the layout. It may very well be too much. It may be too tight, it may be too ambitious for my skill level. But I've really fallen in love with the design and I think it will give me all the things I'm looking for in a railroad that I can operate for a long time to come. I think with this design I could even have two crews working at once. One switching incoming and outgoing carfloats in the yard, and the other switching industries. That would be good should I ever have someone over to operate with. I could probably have as many as 4 operators, if each crew had a conductor and an engineer. I like that idea as well.

I haven't left a lot of room for scenery. And I know that. I'm less interested in modeling the city than I am in the switching operation. I do plan to put buildings in, but really they are more there to be car load destinations then they are to be models. Having said that of course, I am going to make a crack at landscaping and buildings simply to learn, and I hope to be able to add some interesting features. Everything on the South spur (except the one siding) will either be flats, or photo backgrounds. There isn't enough room to have back to back industries.

Is that the line I stepped over

I think I may have crossed the line of putting too much on the layout, but I'm not sure I'm going to fix it. There was one industry that I really wanted to have on the layout to generate car traffic, that is a Municiple Solid Waste Transfer station. It would recive mty solid waste 20' containers on flats and send out full containers on flats. Atlas has a model for this, 85' flats that hold 4 twenty foot containers. I like this 'cuse it's very modern, and very prototypcial.

A couple of problems with it is that 85' cars are gonna be tight on my 24" radius layout. And I've already filled up most if not all of the usuable industry space on the "west" end of the layout.

I did find a place to put it, it would be a straight sidding and it feeds directly into my curved run around trackage, which means the long cars would face a minum of tight turning. So that will probably work. But the location means that I can't model any of the industry itself, it would all be in backdrop. The only thing that would exist would be the sidding itself. I'm not sure how I feel about this. There are other places I could put the thing, but it would mean dropping an "existing" industry, and I also can't really put it at the "west" end of the layout since there are several food service places at that end, and really, who wants food prepaired next to a garbage dump. In addition, the way I have the layout set up, with tracks running down both edges of the shelf, means that industries in the "middle" are trapped. Since I think the transfer station would be too big to model whole, it would need to be at least partly in backdrop, but I don't really have a good place to do that. So where it is, turns out to be the best place for it, just not sure it's worth it.

I've come to the conclusion I want a verity of different kinds of cars on the layout, a few of each, for visual interst, and to make switching interesting too. At the moment I have: plastic pellet hoppers, flower hoppers, cement hoppers, box, reffer, chemical tank, food service tank, gon, and a team track that could accept other kinds of traffic. Do I need solid waste COFC traffic? well probably not, but it's something that's been part of the concept from the begining, and I'm kinda attached to the idea. It's really perfect in some ways, a populated island would have trash, and they'd need to get rid of it. If they don't want trash trucks driving over the causeway that connects the island to the mainland, bardge or rail float service are their choices. And since this is a model railroad, rail float seems like a good idea to me.

I'm gonna continue to noodle with the layout of things, I've been switching my cement distributor and lumber yard back and forth for a couple of days now, but I am kinda starting to get set in my ideas for this. I need to be careful of that, but at the same time it's also how the project will progress. I'll keep noodling and we'll see what happens. It may not change until I get to the point of physically testing cars and radii... at which point a bunch of stuff may change, who knows.

I've gone back in and modified my working design to be on 24" radius rather than 20 (with the exception of one piece of track work that is supposed to be really tight, and will remain 20") I've decided to stick with #5 frogs for most of the layout simply because of space requirements. #6's add so much to the yard ladder especially. I did use a couple of #6's where I had space for them on the "main line", but other than 5's are the word. I still plan to run 64 foot hoppers over this, but I feel much better about it than I did the other night.

I plan to do some experiments before I build in erest to see if I like the way these things look, but until I have the chance to do that, I'm happy and continuing to work on the current incarnation rather than starting over more or less from scratch.