Railroad Atlas’s and Planning Traffic: Part one

I think traffic plans are as important to a model railroad as almost any other item. What you’re hauling and WHERE will dictate track layout. I thought the traffic plan for AIR 1 was pretty well thought out. It was NOT. 

AIR1 was built with a lot of preconceived notions, and a LOT were wrong. I am spending a lot of the time between layouts researching my traffic plan, learning about the commodities I hope to haul, and getting a fuller picture on some features I had on AIR1 and want again on AIR2.

To this end I have made great use of “Steam Powered Videos comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America” by Mike Walker. I’m not sure if it is still in print, but it SHOULD be. I believe the Atlas, in multiple volumes that cover different regions of North America, was a labor of love, as opposed to a profitable venture. I think it was by modelers for modelers, I know many of the contributors personally. It is available from Amazon, but it’s pricy. I got pretty much all the atlas’s that cover east of the Mississippi.

Pouring over these atlas’s I have traced every route of each connecting line to AND from my free lanced Atlantis Inland. I learned a GREAT deal, and realized that much of what I was doing on AIR 1 was wrong. This changed my traffic flow and volume’s. It opened others. In studying the LCL business I learned about many name trains, that were present on AIR 1, but were being used wrong.

I admittedly took a LOT of modelers license with a few of these trains, I run an extension of the Blue Streak Merchandise, which I have repeatedly been informed by an ex Cotton Belt Yardmaster never ran past East St. Louis.  I’m okay with that, the AIR’s western terminus is East St. Louis, the Bluestreak (BSM- for Blue Streak Merchandise), was, in 1952, a hot LCL train, many say it was the first dedicated LCL forwarder. The Atlantic Inland has a close relationship with the Cotton Belt (SSW), Rock Island (CRIP), and the Southern Pacific (SP), our traffic department negotiated with these railroads to interchange preferred shipments, like produce, auto parts, and LCL. 

-SO-

LCL packages collected from the Mid-Atlantic and Northern Virginia gets forwarded west, on the BSM. It’s our connection with Los Angeles.

I have a framework of 2nd Class Freights upon which I hang a “Body” of extras. There’s the BSM, the Alpha Jet, the Central States Dispatch, my point here is the priority freights are scheduled and few. The remaining freights will be “Scheduled” Extras.

What I mean by the seeming contradictory name “scheduled extra” is a “Freight that departs at the same time each day, but hold’s no time-table authority”.

I have a list of trains somewhere and I spent a great deal of time naming them, and AGONIZING over symbols for them, but I do not have it at hand, in any case the 2nd Class trains take expedited LCL and may fill tonnage with additional LCL, Livestock, Perishable, and Auto parts tonnage. The extra freights will do all the rest.

One of my cherished preconceived notions was that Passenger and Freight traffic for Norfolk, Va  would be handed off to the N&W in Richmond, Va. I designed several passenger trains and freight schedules to accomplish this. After several hours with the Atlas I come to find that the N&W goes no where near Richmond, VA! (Doesn’t every southern railroad go to Richmond, VA?) 

So a lot of re-designing is in my future. It was fun while it lasted. I’ve been told by my friend Bill* that planning is the most fun you’ll have on a model railroad.

This now makes my Deepwater Sub-Division connection to Bluefield, VA FAR MORE IMPORTANT. I have to say, honestly, I always suspected I was missing something there, I was just too ignorant to know what!

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*Bill Winans, funny story, Bill is a modeler in S-Scale, so in the entire United States, ever S-scale modeler is on a first name basis. We’ll Bill Winans also models Sn3, so at the convention every modeler in Sn3 shares the same taxi from the airport! I’m serious when you read the S-Gauge-ian, or what ever their magazine is called, every article is signed with a first name ONLY, and they all know who everyone is! Bill is the best track modeler I have ever seen, well Maj. Gen. Bernie Kampinski is WAAAY up there, anyway Bill scratch builds all is track and turnouts, dual gauge narrow gauge cross-overs and double slips.

It’s nightmare-ishly good. He taught me how to scratch build a turnout, so you know he must be able to teach an orangutan to sing. 

Bill has more hours in a Huey in COMBAT than most helicopter pilots have total hours. He says flying RC helicopters is more difficult than flying the prototype, it has to do with perceived direction; when you are flying away from you, right is right and so on, but when you are flying back to yourself… no wonder quad copter/drones return home automatically!