Coal Operations

 The main business of the Atlantic Inland is to haul coal. On AIR1 there were eleven (11) tipples or loaders around the layout. In addition there were four branches that headed off into off-layout staging tracks, each had a 25 car coal train staged there. Finally several coal trains came on layout from connecting roads.

The goal was to originate between 125 and 175 coal loads a session. 

Mine runs, Branch trains, and loads from connecting railroads all ended up in Pettigrew Yard, my main coal marshaling yard. MTY’s returned to Pettigrew from off layout. Mine runs originated there.

The basic procedure was several coal loads were staged at a Tipple, during staging I wrote a movement request from the Tipple and placed it with the paperwork at Pettigrew. Each mine also presented an MTY car requests. If the Pettigrew Yard Master (PYM) had enough MTYS to fill all his requests, great. Otherwise he was instructed to short the mines evenly.

Mine runs were made up based on the tipples requesting service or mtys as well as their location. I had a list of all the mines and loading points and rotated these each session, in order that each mine did not get switched each session. 

The mine runs fanned out to and from Pettigrew. These mine runs, after working their assigned tipples,  brought the loaded hoppers back to Pettigrew. 

In 1952 each coal load traveled on its own waybill, there wasn’t such thing as a “Unit Train”, I developed a two sided waybill specifically for coal loads. On one side the waybill was labeled “Mine Tag”.

A mine tag is a temporary waybill that should carry a car load from the Tipple to the scale track at the marshaling yard. At Pettigrew the scale was at the yard throat to the “B-Yard”. The Pettigrew B-Yard was where inbound coal loads were classified. 

As each car was “Weighed” (a pretend process*) the mine tag was flipped over. On the reverse side was the final billing. There were a multitude of final destinations, several on layout,  as well as about ten bills (Out of roughly five hundred) that read “Over-weight”, these bills simulated cars overloaded at the tipples, they were moved to a distant part of the B-yard where they were off loaded until they were legal. This coal eventually made its way into caboose stoves, Mow  cars, the railroad blacksmith shop, the railroad YMCA, etc. 

The final billing allowed the PYM  to block the inbound coal loads into trains, and once he had the appropriate car count he built a train to these off-layout destinations. Steam powered trains were 25 cars, diesel were 40. 

Loaded coal trains made this session went on the line up and did not run until next session; no pop-up extras. 

Coal tonnage was split roughly as follows 

50% East - Tide Coal

25% West - Lake Coal

25% Other - engine terminals, local industry power plants, fuel distributors, etc…

I modeled only one basic size of coal, Woodland Scenics Steam Coal. I felt that with approximately 450 AIR Coal Hoppers (All with different numbers) another 84 WM and 53 CRR  hoppers, and about 50 from assorted other roads, as well as several different car kit manufacturers, trying to model and keep track of enough different coal loads in various different sizes would be a nightmare. Each coal load was a blank sized to fit each car, made of 1/4” luan plywood, a mound of black latex caulk gave it its general shape, and then Woodland Scenics Steam Coal was glued to each load with 3M 77 spray glue.

On AIR1 no foreign hoppers may be spotted at company served mines. In my region of coal country, in 1952, this was prototypically correct. You simply did not see the typical model railroad assortment of a multitude of different roads at each mine. Now everyone has this photo or that anecdote proving me wrong, but the fact remains, major coal hauling railroads in my era only spotted company hoppers at on line mines. There are examples of mines served by two different roads: I have some photos of Virginian hoppers on one half of a Tipple and C&O on the other, but the cars were segregated, C&O on one side VGN On the other not all mixed together.

On AIR 2 I plan to continue all this for my future coal operations. I plan some minor differences in the format of the final Waybills, and I am making larger changes in the numbers of and locations of tipples and loading points, but the procedure will be:

Load at mines

Move to Pettigrew in mine runs, on mine tags, for weighing and classifying

Travel from Pettigrew off-layout, with final Waybills, in coal trains.

MTYS return to Pettigrew from off layout for distribution to the mines by mine runs.

My latest design has 11 coal branch’s, but this isn’t as big a deal as it sounds. These “Coal Branch’s” will all be short single train staging tracks hidden in the backdrop scenery. Each branch MIGHT have only one actually modeled loading point, the remaining would be un-modeled and off-layout. The mine run would be staged between sessions coming off the branch. These mine runs will switch one or two tipples or loaders, then at the JCT obtain authority to run to Pettigrew with their trains. The idea is to maximize the amount of coal coming into Pettigrew.

I want to talk about the Prep Plant next time, but as always I’m interested in what you think.

*Weighing: Every car gets weighed on a railroad, by some means. There is some procedure for establishing the weight EVERY load the railroad hauls.

Coal loads are weighed, and locals who lived near marshaling yards knew weighing was in progress by the banging of cars, and the rack-rack-rack of hand brakes as loads road slowly over scales. 

On a model railroad there are some exciting new developments in scale tracks with the Boulder Creek product line, and I do plan to buy a couple, at least. But I have spoken with quite a few operators, and the consensus is that weighing more than only a few special car loads is not as interesting as it sounds, so while I will model a scale track and house on the throat to the Pettigrew B-Yard, we will not be actively weighing coal loads on the Inland.