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.