Building and operating the Atlantic Inland

 We live in a golden age for modeling. Everyone that says, “Oh remember the good old days” is drunk.  We’ve got a myriad of new product, in ever increasing detail. Admittedly, it’s all getting ever increasingly EXPENSIVE, but as Andy Sperandeo once told me, “Paul, this hobby isn’t expensive, it only costs all you have”. -BUT- I digress. For a long time, as a steam era modeler I was jealous of the tank cars available to modelers of the contemporary era. Not now.  Starting, YEARS AGO, with P2K and their type 27  8k Gal. & 10k gal. tank cars, then gradually a ton of tank cars became available in my era. Industries I model now can have an appropriate type of tank car billed to them. Acid tank cars, insulated, radial course, LP, three dome, the list goes on. What was missing was a model of the X-3. Arguably the single most numerous tank car of the Steam era, the X-3 was exclusively operated by UTLX (Take that! Mike Peters). It still makes up nearly 10% of the North Am...

 In my era Finished automobile traffic is minimal, but parts traffic is still a big part of railroading. On my railroad my auto parts traffic goes in train #98. Train 98 traces its route from Detroit to Atlanta and carries auto parts to assembly plants around Atlanta. I am a Ford guy, and wanted to express this on my layout with Train #98.  -However- As it turns out, in reality Ford did not have plants near Atlanta, but,  for my purposes,  around Richmond Va. -SO- My train #98 is going to have to set out a large block of Ford Auto parts in Littlerock. “Ninety-Eight” will probably fill tonnage with preferred LCL  and head off South, eventually into South staging at Deepwater JCT. The Ford Block will have to go into the next available expedited train going to/towards Richmond. I do not know my actual schedule off hand so I can’t say what train that will be. I don’t think it would be unreasonable to have this auto parts block get added to a perishable meat train. F...

 I just had total knee replacement surgery in my right knee. In mid May I’m am scheduled to have the left knee done. 2023 is pretty much shot. About a week ago I was able to climb the basement stairs and I’ve been going down there daily. My plan is to sort boxes. We moved into this new house on Feb14 of last year. I have spent the last year doing the myriad of things that needs to get done to move into a new build house. So now, since about all I can do is sit and sort, that’s what I’m doing. Trains, personal stuff. You know the collected junk of a lifetime. Right now I’m filling a trash barrel a day. So I’m opening boxes. Man! A ton of Stewart F-units! Lots of structure kits. But the big surprise  was a box from an estate sale, 30 brand new, in the original box, Tortoise switch machines. Not 100% sure where I got those, but here they are!

 Our basement is a blank canvas. Because in our original plan I was NOT going to put the layout in the basement I made the short sighted decision to make the ceilings only 8’.  The benefit to doing this was that the process of plumbing and wiring the house was made simpler. Since I actually built this house the lower ceiling made all the mechanical work a little easier, not a bunch of ladders and low scaffold. Physically I was running out of time. My knees were shot out by then, so what ever I could do to get the house done, we did. I’m now taking 2023 off to get both my knees replaced. Ugh. As per building code the concrete walls needed to be draped with an insulation blanket, which I did. What I want to do now is put a wall in front of that blanket. If I stud floor to ceiling with 2x4’s, flat, 2’ on center, and over that some sort of board, I’ll attach the layout to that. Originally I was thinking drywall. However I’m now thinking of OSB plywood. It’s cheaper that drywall cu...

 On my new layout, AIR2, Freight House operations are going to be a large part of the game. Up until relatively recently I had planned to use waybills to simulate LCL packages. So if we take the Transfer Freight House for example, it’s planned to get 48 cars spotted at the beginning of each session. This initial 48 cars is supposed to get pulled over the course of the session and a final 48 cars get’s re-spotted there. That’s 96 cars. If I place multiple LCL waybills in the card pockets of each cars car cards, it would be roughly four bills per car; 368 waybills, representing LCL loads. The crew would pull all these inbound bills, sort and collate them, then reload them into boxcars by destination. In practice this turned out to be AT BEST, a nuisance, and more often than not, unworkable. The idea was to simulate the movement of LCL packages. It overwhelmed the operators. What I failed to take into consideration was the scope of my operation. The “Freight House” job had something l...

 I’m 62, and like most of you, getting older by the SECOND. And like every one of you you have a ton of friends who have relatives that are modelers, but they, themselves are not. When their fathers or grandfathers, or husbands pass away your friends come to you, because you’re a train guy, you know EVERYTHING. I swear, if you want to get back at your wife, take that one last parting shot from the grave, then have a huge train collection coupled with a huge layout. Your heirs are SCREWED! So several years ago I get a call from a friends wife, can I help. She has to be out in 30 days, and her husband has a 40 x40 purpose built building with a layout and a collection spanning four scales! I packed the entire thing up and sold it all off at swap meets. I think I got her $15000 in cash over two years, which amounted to about 30 cents on the dollar.  While I’m collating all this stuff, and what modeler doesn’t have enough “Project” cars to last three lifetimes, I end up with a ton ...

 To over simplify there are only a handful of bulk commodities that get loaded on River barges: Coal, grain, limestone, some ores, and petroleum. I have discussed previously that I chose to move the western end of the MODELED PORTION of my layout to Charleston, WV., because it allows me to take advantage of the proximity of rivers to the railroad. I get to model my rail to river barge transfer operation. For a long time I have been planning to model only a coal transfer. The idea of the coal transfer was simply to utilize a large fleet of foreign road hoppers. I understand that is not the best reason to do this, but it’s my reason, so there… Several friends and I have been discussing this and they, as usual, want to do more. It is my experience that LESS is actually more, but I am interested in branching out and including grain.  There are always problems associated with things like this, grain barges are, as a rule covered, while coal barges aren’t. Otherwise the transfer sys...

 Livestock loads are the most expedited commodity carried by steam era railroads. Excepting safety concerns, livestock shipments took priority over passengers. The Stock Extra was correspondingly expedited and it did only one thing. It picked up livestock loads and forwarded them to their destination.  Railroads insisted on absolute minimal handling of livestock loads so cars were picked up by the engines and set against the train.  Since livestock loads were LIKELY billed to a union stock yard there was no blocking. The union stock yard divided up the animals to the  slaughter houses, they did all the local work. On my layout it is likely that livestock billed for the Union Stock Yard of Richmond, VA went in one train, while loads billed to the Union Stock Yard of Baltimore, those loads I would hand off to the WM, would go in another train. So no Re-blocking required. Times were recorded upon pick up of loads, and the railroad was relieved of the burden of the 28 ho...

My fictional railroad, the Atlantic Inland, runs from Hampton, VA. To St. Louis, Mo. For the first thirty years of its life, the western terminus of the MODELED PORTION OF THE LAYOUT was in a fictional city named Littlerock.  During the time between the end of AIR1 and the start of AIR2, time spent moving from California to Virginia; building our new house; getting my knees replaced; and wrapping up a thirty plus year career in the studio business, I looked at a railroad atlas. What I found was that the theory of the Atlantic Inland Railway would best be served if the western most point of the Modeled Layout was moved to Charleston WV. This allowed me to accomplish the goal of modeling a railroad to river barge bulk transfer facility, and to be honest that was my primary goal in the move.  But what I ALSO found out was that by making this move the ideas of safety valve transfers between the AIR and near-by connecting railroads (C&O, B&O, NYC, WM) not only became easier...

 We have discussed the prep plant before. While 1952 is not too early for a prep plant, it does fall out of its “Golden era”. That’s okay. My prep plant will be on a branch within yard limits from Pettigrew Yard. The branch itself will Wye just past the Plant into two separate coal branch sud-divisions: Line Fork and Kyle’s Ford. The idea behind the model prep plant is it’s a source of coal loads, with-in yard limits that can feed Pettigrew.  Should the crewman who operates the prep plant have the ability to bill the coal loads and pull the removable loads out of and then into coal hoppers? Does it make sense to even do that process? The basic function of the prep plant is for dirty coal to come in one side, and clean coal go out the other, it’s the fire drill with the hoppers I think isn’t worth it.  If I stage the prep plant at the start of the session with about fifty car-loads of clean coal, and we let the plant job switch all that, and bring it to Pettigrew, wouldn’t...

 One of the large industries I’m carrying over from AIR1 is a cement plant. On the old layout the plant did not progress much past paper signs taped to the benchwork, although the long, raised coal dump trestle, and a receiving dock ore dump were fabricated. After a great deal of study I believe I’ve come up with a plan that is both easy to build and relatively compact. My usual plan is to build some sort of vague industrial structure that conceals all the workings behind a large corrugated metal wall, since I do not want to model the complicated inner workings. To over simplify this, my cement plant will be a series of boxes connected by a piece of 3” PVC pipe set at a 15 degree angle.  To paraphrase a saying from the studios “A little weathering, and scattered vague detail parts makes a model builder what he ain’t”*.  Remember it’s a model railroad, not a working model of a cement plant. What I need is a large grey wall with loading dock doors in it that IMPLIES it’s a ...

 Once I begin to look at modeling those processes the prototype performed in depth I began to realize everything I like to model was, for lack of a better term, already passe. LCL for example. I went to great lengths to set my era in 1952. And over a period of say 30 years I structured my car fleet to reflect that year, 1952. I DO have some anachronistic models but you can count them on the fingers of two hands. When you consider my total car fleet, I don’t think that’s bad, but I digress, LCL. I want to model relatively intense LCL operations, but on the prototype I’m about twenty years too late. Passenger service, what I like to model, again 15-20 years too late. So many of the major processes and procedures I really like about big time railroading, and that I have gone to great lengths to model and simulate are all from an era prior to the era I have selected.  Even car types, I’d rather be in hell with my back broken than roster a fleet of PS-1 boxcars. WWII ran most of th...

 I’ve written a great deal about livestock operations on the AIR but I do not think I have actually told you what my plans are and what I want to do. I intentionally chose not to model any slaughterhouse operation. I want to model a rest station. In the movement of livestock by rail it was agreed upon, by the elements involved that livestock would not be confined inside a stock car for longer than 28 hours, but in the case of sheep or hogs, and only if the entire trip is concluded with in the time allotted -AND- The shipper agrees in writing, sheep and hogs my be confined 36 hours. This is therefore the “28/36 hour” rule, and is the basic impetus behind the nearly fanatical speed at which stock moves are carried out. Now if a load of livestock cannot complete its trip within the allotted time, the stock must be unloaded, watered and fed. Railroads knew , generally, where these rest periods would fall, and they established “Rest Stations” in these locations. Rest Stations had numero...

 In the normal course of events the towns, tipples, and mines on a coal branch are going to need supplies over and above the expected pulling of coal loads and spotting of MTY hoppers. Many branch’s will have additional “Industries” located on them, other than coal mine's. I’m foreseeing lumber, pulpwood, livestock, and produce (Fruit trees) loads originating on the branch’s. And various loads going up the branch.  Who should spot and pull these merchandise loads? I’m assuming the only train working the branch will be mine runs. I DO NOT want this merchandise going through Pettigrew yard. On AIR 1 far too much general merchandise traveled through Pettigrew, and the yard  often lost its identity as a coal marshaling yard. Additionally my plans for the branch’s on AIR2 is to represent the branch with a relatively short stretch of modeled track, the vast majority of the branch would be represented by a staging yard, and the branch would exist only in the “Off-Layout” world. ...

 Every city needed to bring farm products into the town to feed its population. These did not need to be teeming metropolises either. Small towns need to feed their populations. The large and varied milk operations of the northeast, Illinois, and Southern California need not be duplicated everywhere, but fresh milk needed to be transported from the farms to where it would be consumed. On AIR 2 I plan to add a can car to my mail trains and use an action bill to simulate loaded or MTY  milk cans. Cans would be picked up on the inbound leg, by mail trains, and delivered to the creamery that will be located near my passenger service facility. MTY cans would be picked up, by mail trains, at the creamery on the outbound leg and dropped off at appropriate stations on the way out. Some sort of finished product, probably butter, will be simulated by an express Reefer load spotted at the creamery for delivery “West”. A west bound mail train will also pick up this car. Additionally seale...

 A while back I operated on a layout that had a Soybean Processing plant. As it turned out it was an excellent industry. One of those industries that appears to have been designed for model railroads. Now this plant, on the model railroad, was referred to as a “Swift” bean plant. Hearing this I naturally assumed there would be Swift cars in attendance, but alas no.  Then the other day I noticed a metal sign in our laundry room. My Wife and I decorate our laundry with a lot of different items, antique wash boards, metal signs, an antique drying rack, which we use daily. One of these antique signs advertises “Swift’s Borax Soap”. Now what do you need to make soap? Three things: A fat, lye, and distilled water. Remember Grannie making her famous Lye soap on the Beverly Hillbillies? So knowing this it makes total sense that Swift would be in the soap business, since they are probably the biggest source of tallow in the nation, AT THAT TIME. How easy it would be to utilize an exces...

 I have been very interested in building a passenger servicing facility that one would normally associate with a terminal Facility. I thought it was not plausible. A couple things happened that changed my mind. The single biggest thing was I moved the Western-most modeled portion of my layout to Charleston, WV. On AIR2 I now model “East Charleston, WV” as the Western “City” on my layout. “Littlerock” became the name of the yard located there. This move made it easier to accomplish my goal of a rail to river barge coal transfer facility, but what I also found out was that those connecting railroads that we will be transferring cars to and from as a safety valve to level out the work intensity for operators of differing abilities, ran a number of passenger trains that originated and terminated in Charleston. It would now be plausible to have a passenger terminal facility at Littlerock Yard. Dreams do come true! I do not want to add a number of passenger trains to the modeled portion ...

 I have been hinting at it, and threatening to write this since day one. I just had knee replacement surgery six days ago, so I am propped up on the sofa with pillows and blankies like “Abu-Ben-Pablito  Sultan of Whimsy”, so I have time… I became interested in Model railroading in 1964 when I was four years old. Unlike most of these stories my first scale was HO. My friend Lee Walser, from down the block, had an HO layout sprinkled with a lot of plastic kits and a great deal of wooden kits his father built when he was young.  Hook-horn couplers were the cutting edge technology of that day, and frankly we recoiled in terror from cars with Kadee couplers back then. My father transitioned me to n-scale shortly thereafter although I did have one layout from the 101 HO layouts you can build. The idea of N-Scale was, I suppose, to get more layout in my available space. As time marched on I had some of the usual distractions from model railroading. I did get into model kit build...