Building and operating the Atlantic Inland

  After the op session on the LN EK this last weekend Al Daumann forwarded me a scan of the coal routing diagram from the LN EK Div. It illustrates the routing of coal loads from the various points on the layout to their off layout destinations, and it diagrams the routing of the returning MTYS. The main point I picked up was that each mine had a dedicated consignee.  The LN EK lives in 1971. The AIR exists in 1952. It is fairly common knowledge that major industries established mines, or mining companies to insure their supply of coal. Some railroads owned coal companies so their supply of fuel was not hindered. Knowing this would it be plausible to dedicate the entire production of a Tipple to Republic Steel each session, session after session? In 1952, however, there was a much larger residential and light commercial market for coal. These customers were supplied by their local fuel dealers who purchased their stock from brokers. Brokers had a “Rolodex” full of coal tipples...

 We are not, as a general rule, going to interchange coal on AIR2. Yes some foreign road coal will travel over the AIR to the rail to barge transfer, but most of the coal moving on the layout will be home road coal. But as I have discussed before I hope to allow each operator to regulate their work load through the use of transfers from off layout staging yards. I also hope to utilize this idea for my coal operations. One of the very biggest problems I experienced on AIR1 was imbalances created by the differing skill levels of the crew. One session the coal marshaling yard would be MTY, the next it would be choked. Let’s assume the Pettigrew Yardmaster (PYM) job is chosen by a crewman who has a better that average skill level. He will finish all his work early. Directly adjacent to Pettigrew Yard is a prep plant. If I build a series of “Coal Branches”* that are in reality small staging yards, that feed the prep plant directly, a PYM who has a high through put could tap these branch...

 My wife and I continually battle over lighting. She pays lip service to rooms having a lot of light, but in reality we live in the dark.  I like light. A LOT OF LIGHT. If there’s a 100 watt bulb in the lamp, I replace it with a 200 watt bulb. I WANT to be able to see.  By accident I found some LED shop lights at Costco. They were cheap and I needed to light up our work space temporarily, while we build our house. I have subsequently found these lights on Amazon in TEN PACKS. Each light is 48” long with a six foot cord and the ability to plug in other lights in a daisy chain. Because they are LED they draw very little amperage (I think 100 watts incandescent is 5.6 watts LED), and they shed A LOT of light. They are not, however, very pretty. Since I have the skills “to build a spaceship out of wood, AND make it fly” I might fabricate some type of covering for these lights to “Pretty them up”. On the other hand they might-could be concealed behind a valance, but my double ...

 AIR 2 is slated to occupy the basement in my new house. The existing floor is concrete. Ideally I’d like to have wall to wall carpet with double thick padding, but that option is doubtful. My basement is dry, so far. It is a little over two years old, we have a de-humidifier in there, and it is dry and clean. Having said that I do not think I could sleep nights if I laid carpet directly on that concrete floor. I’d be waiting for that one storm or leak that caused even a minor flood. If I had a blank check I would lay down sleepers, then plywood over that, then carpet padding and carpet over that.  I have not yet received that blank check. I guess it’s still in the mail. I have been considering rubber mats. Then again carpet squares might be a good option. Something that could get pulled up quickly in an emergency.  In another basement I built “Coffer Dams”, pressure treated 2x4’s on their side, heavily caulked and sealed with silicone sealant. Those have lasted for four ...