Coal Operations: River Barges part 2

 AIR 2 is still firmly in the planning stages. The rail to barge transfer operation is still in the plans, although several different renditions of the plan have been drawn up. One of the major evolutions the plan has taken is the move to Charleston, WV, not me but the west end of the layout. After intensive and on going studies of railroad atlases I determined that stopping the Freelanced Atlantic Inland Railway, or AIR for short, at a fictitious city east of Charleston had less and less practical appeal to me. 

Charleston, WV is divided into three sections by the roughly east-west running Kanawha River (Pronounced Ka-Naw) and the roughly north-south running Elk River, which empties into the Kanawha. The Elk would provide an excellent location for the rail to barge coal transfer. I actually have no idea, and to be honest, I really don’t care, as yet, where this coal goes from here. I just want a spot to terminate a great deal of coal, carried in foreign road hoppers.

As we discussed quite a while ago, coal in Western Maryland and Clinchfield hoppers will bridge the AIR. These trains will be some of the longest jobs on the layout, since the plan is to have these trains negotiate the entire layout, set out loads, pick up MTY’s and return. Out and back. In addition, while opening boxes of accumulated train stuff, I found several barge kits. I’ll use these, and supplant as necessary, to simulate the barge traffic waiting to load.

The rail to barge transfer will be part of the “Cornfield” job. The name comes from a place near Talyor Yard in Downtown Los Angeles on the Southern Pacific. The “Cornfield” was a small storage yard adjacent to Continental Grain, where tank cars of corn sweetener were stored, IE., Cornfield. This was a sub yard to a facility known as “Bullring Yard”, or “The Bullring”, and I can only surmise where that name came from. On AIR 2 the “Cornfield” job will consist of a large grain elevator and milling facility as well as the adjacent New World Pasta. I will simply tell everyone that the name “Cornfield” comes from boxcars of corn, waiting in storage, awaiting unloading into the elevator. 

The switch job will be called “The Cornfield Flyer” after the nickname the SP gave the switch job in LA. In any case this switcher will have a lot of work to do at the elevator/mill as well as keeping the rail/barge cars organized.

The actual design of this area is not finalized, and it will be dependent on space, as well as the other major switch job in the area, the Freight House Job. 

Running between these two jobs, half in one jobs district, and half in the other will be a long narrow, three of four tracks, yard that both jobs will utilize to facilitate moving their cars to and from respective jobs. This yard will be “The Bull Ring” yard.

As plans get finalized I’ll let you know more about this area. In preliminary plans it makes up something like 150 linear feet of the layout.



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