Coal Operations: Branches

 On AIR 1 there were five branches that fed coal into the main line:

Spooner’s Cove Branch

Mt. Storm Branch

Trammel Branch

Moss Branch

Priest Valley Branch

Spooner’s Cove was worked from Pettigrew Yard and was within yard limits.

Moss was simply a single track where a coal train was staged.

Additionally there were tipples and loaders all over the layout that had their own spurs off sidings.

Athol Coal #1 was at the west end of Athol Siding and Athol #2 was off the east end.

Wingedfoot Coal Company #1 was at the east end of Wingedfoot siding.

Consolidated Coal #8 was up in Summit.

Mine runs originated from Pettigrew, ran to the appropriate Tipple, worked the loader or loaders assigned, and returned. While this system seems straight forward, the time it takes to write orders, and the space in the schedule to run these trains was always a problem, and I found that dispatchers lost site of the coal hauling function of the AIR and favorited the movement of freight trains over coal trains.

The idea is to have the bridge traffic flow WITH A BACKDROP OF COAL TRAINS. 

On AIR 2 my initial plan is first to build branches that terminate into hidden one or two track staging yards with only a few feet of the branch present on the modeled portion of the layout. On this modeled portion a Tipple or a truck dump (Or both) along with some sort of ancillary spur (A team track, pulpwood loading spur etc). The mine run will be staged coming off the branch, that is the mine run will originate on the branch fully loaded or mostly so. The crew member on the mine run will pull his train out of branch staging, switch the one or two remaining tipples or loaders, and head for Pettigrew. 

On AIR 1 mine runs were 15-25 cars. On AIR 2 I plan for them to be 25-40 cars long. The idea is to get more coal loads to Pettigrew with each train; maximize the space the train is taking out of the TTTO schedule.

Initially I planned that the returning mine runs, with MTY coal hoppers would, as a rule not be run at all. I would simply re-stage each branch between session, and the assumption would be that these returning MTY mine runs happened “between sessions”.

This idea met with a surprising, to me anyway, amount of opposition. Apparently all my operators liked the mine runs. My intention was to lessen the traffic flow on the TTTO main line by simply, and admittedly unprototypically, ignoring even the existence of returning mine runs.

It remains to be seen if there is capacity in the schedule to accommodate these trains. One argument was that the process of spotting MTY cars at a Tipple, reading MTY car requests, and picking up loads had a great deal of play value, and therefore “Worth”. 

My point is that each train off the branch would, in fact, be switching a Tipple, loader (or both) as part of their run. What I propose to eliminate is the procedure of building an MTY mine run at PGY, getting orders for it,  and running it over the layout BACK TO the tipples and loaders, and eventually Branch staging.

I think the perception is that I am eliminating half, or more than half, of the mine run process. I believe I am preserving the switching porting, as well as some over the layout running, AND getting the loads to PGY, while simply disposing of the MTY return portion of the trip.

The Pettigrew Yardmaster (PGYM) would be losing the actual procedure of filling MTY car requests, and rationing cars when there were not enough MTY’s to go around. This was actually one of the more interesting, and very prototypical, facets of coal operations on AIR1. 

I believe I am balancing the pluses and minuses, admittedly only as I see them, and reaching a good solution to, again what I in my opinion was, a problem.

Additionally on AIR 2 I currently plan quite a few more branches than in AIR 1. The layout is much larger, but with nearly twice the planned volume, I’m not sure how that will work out. I am again invoking the Koester Rule of model railroad industries, if one is good five is better!

To give you some additional yard sticks, my coal operations exist in a world stuck in 1952. Each coal hopper travels on an individual waybill. I maintain a fleet of Atlantic Inland 50 & 55 ton coal hoppers of about 450 cars, all with different car numbers (Add to that an additional fleet of 150 WM Coal Hoppers,  100 CRR Hoppers, and about 50 N&W, VGN, INT Hoppers.). Each load of coal travels from the Tipple or loader on a “Mine Tag”, a temporary waybill.  When the load gets to PGY, we simulate weighing, and re-billing of each load. All loads are then classified, and built into trains of 25 (For steam powered trains) or 40 cars (For diesel power) billed to like destinations. Coal basically travels in one of two different directions: Tide Coal goes East, Lake Coal goes West.  MTY’s reverse the process. I model only one grade  or size of coal, and all coal is bituminous.

Those of you that run fairly major coal operations, how to you simulate the servicing of mines, branches, tipples and loaders on your layout?

Do you model different grades and or sizes of coal?

How do you model the coal loads themselves?