What I’m doing

 The Atlantic Inland Railway (AIR)  is a fictitious railroad covering basically the same territory as the C&O. It is set in 1952. The area I model is a chunk out of the middle, starting in Charleston, WV, and moving east roughly 150 miles, or basically one steam era sub-division. The main business of the AIR is hauling coal, but we are also a bridge route for all commodities. 

The AIR has minimal passenger service. I always describe it as “Your third choice”, so it’s not nonexistent, but it’s not first class Streamliner’s. Predominantly heavy weight equipment, the AIR owns NO light weight equipment, there’s a night train of mostly bedrooms and sections, a day train of coach seats, and a mail train. Our trains are dominated by head end equipment; we know where our passenger revenue comes from, mail and express.

LCL is heavily represented and there are numerous freight houses originating and terminating LCL cars. The schedule is made up of first class passenger trains and second class LCL and perishable trains.

Lots of produce and meat bridges the AIR to points east. A large ice deck at Littlerock yard ( the yard located on the west end of the layout) Re-ices reefers. While a lot of perishable traffic terminates on-layout, the vast majority passes through.

There’s a paper mill, cement plant, and sub-terminal grain elevator on the layout, and all this merchandise traffic flows east and west in front of a back drop of coal trains.

Quite some time ago, when I was building the first version of the AIR, in a purpose built building in Southern California, I was literally one week away from mailing a check to a guy who was going to build me a CTC system for that layout, I went to an op session in Kansas City on John Breau’s GN layout, where I operated using TTYO for the first time.

I never looked back. I use TTTO to control traffic. While TTTO has a steep, very steep, learning curve, and it has a lot of limitations, it is very flexible in regards to local switching out on the main line. In addition, up to that point I really hated just running trains over the layout. TTTO changed ALL that for me. It made running that first class passenger train, or road freight, infinitely interesting. It’s safe to say that for me, TTTO totally changed my views and opinions on operations.

I forward freight using car cards and waybills  (CCWB). I use a single use system I evolved from the normal four cycle system you are all used to. I use a lay-over system of bills I call “Action Bills” that Re-direct cars from their primary route to special services or “Actions” common to railroading. These actions might be re-icing a reefer, weighing a car, sending a car to the RIP track, or setting a car load of livestock out for rest. Once these actions are complete the “Action bill” is removed and the car continues on the route directed by the primary bill. 

I currently use Easy DCC for my command control, but I am planning a change. I’m happy with EASY DCC, and to be honest once the initial teething problems were solved this system works flawlessly. The only problems I experienced during sessions were operator error. Seriously, EASY DCC was painfully easy to install, and it works with 15 operators. 

I’m sure there’s more to look at, or more you’d like to know, but that’s all I can think of right now. I’d sincerely appreciate some feedback, but one thing at a time.


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