Building and operating the Atlantic Inland

 I’ve got too many cars. There’s a shock, a model railroader who has too many cars. I’m slowly trying to upgrade the fleet. As a general rule I never buy any shake the box cars any more. What I’m building, however, will utilize a lot of cars. My freight house complex for example is going to need rough 200 forty-foot box cars per session. Additionally the grain elevator/flour mill/New World Pasta can probably accommodate another 100 cars. This list goes on. My point is, while I’m upgrading, I’m afraid to dispose of any cars, yet. One other problem associated with new, highly detailed, models of interesting cars is the cost. Two new USRA outside braced wood 40’ boxcars from Rapido were $92. Another argument for shake-the-box cars. Specific car types that I want are another compelling reason to look at new cars. I wanted X-3 tank cars on the layout. The X-3 was the most common tank car of the Steam Era, and it stands to reason you’d see them on my layout. Acid tank cars; chemical tank...

 Tom Clancy once wrote (I think) “People wed their ideas more faithfully than their Spouses”.  There are a lot of long held, and popular ideas that, um…,  Stink. A lot of ideas are VERY popular and It seems like everyone follows them. I’m not sure they even know why other than “everyone else does it this way”. Try to convince them that this or that idea is bad and they look at you like you killed their kitten (A discussion about live loads and what a disaster they are nearly led to fisticuffs, and I’m not sure I’m speaking to that person anymore. All I said was “they are a very bad idea” and boom!) I worked with a guy on the movie “The Grinch”, Dave Shauger. He was a tank platoon commander in 1st Desert Storm. He had a great saying about popular ideas and the need to think for yourself. “That’s a great idea! Everyone says so. 78 Million people CAN’t be wrong. Oh wait, what about Nazi Germany?” Maybe saying or just thinking a popular idea is a bad idea is, well… bad? Here’...

 A couple days ago Al Daumann posed a question about Express Reefers, a series of questions in fact. Where were they loaded? Were loads from freight reefers trans-loaded into express reefers? Did express reefers travel with freight reefers in freight trains? So we looked into this, and posed several questions to the OPSIG* on the question. My supposition was that, in addition to other loading points, express reefers could be loaded in the fields. From there local freights brought them to a passenger depot. This turned out to be, generally untrue. As a general rule express reefers were loaded at packing houses adjacent to passenger terminals, then moved to the passenger train that would forward them on. Other loading points were team tracks, depots, REA facilities.  Loads were NOT hauled from fields in freight reefers and then trans loaded at passenger terminals into express reefers. This additional handling was both unnecessary and damaging to the lading. Delays suffered in lo...

 I have a number of “perishable” trains on my schedule.  I think there are three produce trains and two meat trains. All the products these trains carry  are defined by the Atlantic Inland as “perishable”. All these loads travel on “Preferred Movement Waybills”. The Preferred Movement bill is pink, so that at a glance crews will know that “This car is expedited”. A lot of different freight moves on Preferred bills. For example Produce, meat, LCL,  might all get a pink waybill. Livestock does not get these pink bills because there is simply no need. Livestock is the hottest thing there is on a railroad.  Auto parts could be designated as expedited. I have a block of cars from a sub-contractor that travels to Convair Aircraft in Ft.Worth, TX. They contain parts to the B-36, which is being assembled in Ft. Worth. The traffic department might designate ANY load as expedited and worth a Preferred Movement Waybill. And “Worth” is the key word here, since there is an e...

 For thirty-odd years I worked at a job, building stuff. I worked against a clock all the time. I’m institutionalized.  Work fast.  So when I operate my working pace is fast. I do not “tyco”, but I have been accused of that. This comes from dealing with poor running equipment, or poor throttle response: the engine is stalled so turn UP the throttle, then boom! Now let me make something clear. I’m not talking about running trains fast. NO, NO, NO! I’m talking about performing all the assigned tasks of the job, rapidly, efficiently, without stopping to lallygag. My entire point is, I work fast. Faster than a lot of people. I believe I’m efficient too. Additionally I’ve been around, so I think I’m pretty good at this game we call “operations”. So I hate being told to slow down. You slow down, damnit, I’m working at a pace that’s comfortable for me! Recently at one layout several busybodies told me I was running a M&E train too fast. Now I HAD read the train brief, and I ...

 On AIR 1 I asked YM’s to just block for the next yard down the line. It was not really THAT sophisticated. Waybills routing cars off layout had four destinations: WEST EAST SOUTH WM That was it.  On AIR 2 I am asking YM’s to block cars to far more “sub-destinations” For example WEST is now broken down to two major sub-categories : St. Louis or Chicago And each of them is broken down further. For example the CHICAGO block is broken into: Cleveland Toledo Detroit Chicago The ST. LOUIS block is similarly broken down. Here’s my conundrum, at a recent clinic Mark Amfahr presented a great deal of prototypical data that suggests  that Steam Era railroads simply blocked cars for the next yard, and the concept of “Distant Blocking” is a product of the 1960’s-1970’s. Admittedly Mark worked for large Western Roads (UP for example) and this information might not be completely true for Eastern roads where the physical plants were vastly different. What I wanted to do on AIR2 was to g...

 I wasn’t sure how to title this. On AIR1 I had a rule, no one could take the same job two sessions in a row unless no one else wanted the job. After some time a couple things happened. First, everyone got cross trained, and second some jobs got taken by the same people over and over again, all the time. I didn’t like the second, but lived with it. I also lived with some positions being taken by people who were not as skilled as others, and often this resulted in issues that effected other parts of the layout. My motivation to do this was that I was very discouraged when I went to other layouts and long time operators were always the “Yardmaster”, or whatever. You had to wait until someone died to get a shot at a good job. As a remedy we drew numbers each session, and #1 chose jobs first, #2 chose second, and so on. I liked this. Some did not. To change it up we would agree to choose in reverse order, that is #20 chose first, #19 chose second, and so on. Because I did not like gett...

 I NEVER liked the concept of Fast Clocks. On  AIR1 I used 1-1 time, and with the help of several friends, I installed a system of clocks that, in theory, were synchronized, and could be seen from everywhere on the layout.  They were not synchronized, and they kept very random time*, but they kept time. I eventually removed the worst offending clocks. My point is every operator could look at the main railroad clock, set their own watches and keep time on the AIR. I, and a couple others, carried pocket watches to keep time. I liked this very much. There is no need to “Do the math” when you look at a clock. One of the most common questions operators ask is “How much time do I have?”, with my clocks you know. Ten minutes to Ten is ten minutes to Ten. PERIOD. I have asked myself MANY times, is my enjoyment of a session somehow diminished because a train covered a distance in three real time minutes and I recorded 9:15 on the time sheet as opposed to 9:27? It’s absurd on its f...

 Ralph echos my comments on details on waybills. I have found that there is no reasoning with those who like detailed waybills. I KNOW, with certainty, that additional “Flavor” on waybills confuses operators. Please, PLEASE, understand I make a clear distinction between those layouts that move individual loads and those that move cars as their game. If you are moving A LOT cars your waybills should be as clear and concise as possible: Where does this car go next?

 Ralph Heiss comments on my post about blocking transfers. On a lot of railroads layout owners insist on station blocking locals. Insisting on station blocking a six car local seems on its surface to be a nuisance. However on a friends layout, Bill Meyer, a layout I find quite enjoyable, he has a local on which the first two stops are oriented in such a way that if those cars are not in the correct position it causes quite a delay. The first stop is a Home Depot warehouse, I do not remember the second. These two stops are also within yard limits. I often block this local in two halves. I set up the first cars as directed and give them to the local to work while I continue to work blocking the rest. If I get them all station blocks, “Good on me”, if not they’re only about six cars total anyway. The local can get their job done with out too much trouble. As to the car floats Ralph mentions these probably should be blocked in a particular way because of the EXTREMELY limited nature of...

 On AIR1 I had a grocery wholesaler, Weisman Wholesale Grocery Warehouse*. What I want to do is to find some regional businesses, from the late 1940 and early 1950’s who were doing business in the Grocery Wholesale trade. I’ve been going to Wikipedia, and honestly the results are good, but there is A LOT of information out there, so wading through it will take time. One can always fall back on the old reliable names, A&P comes to mind. But I need to be careful. I started to get interested in Winn-Dixie, but found out that that name came into existence in 1966. See, a lot of information. In going through some of the information I’m finding there are a lot of regional warehouse companies serving local groceries and small chains. This leads me to believe I’m fairly safe going with Freelanced names for some businesses. The logical progression would be that these smaller business either eventually failed or got purchased and folded into larger National businesses. Very Darwinian. Fo...

 I ran a large TTTO layout for ten years in So. Cal. That layout was AIR1.  Initially I installed a fairly flexible phone system, you could call anywhere on the layout from  anywhere on the layout, and I intended that crews would call in with their OS* What happened, from the very first instant, was a non-stop cacophony of phone calls in the DS office that was completely unmanageable.  Within minutes of the end of that session I started beating the bushes for a solution. A friend from Illinois suggested I do what he did, use post-it note OS’s. When trains reached a point where they were supposed to OS, crews would write on the post-it note their train, location, and the time. The crew member then walked over to the operators desk, and dropped the post-it note in the OS box. The operator would then transmit these OS’s to the DS during a lull in the session. Here’s an important, and apparently secret note about OS’s. They are not as VITALLY important to the DS as every...

 Lou, thank you very much for the comment. My goal with the tickets, bills of lading, mail bags, and milk cans is to give the crews of passenger trains some POSITIVE function to perform while standing at a station for a scheduled stop. These tickets and bills creat an urgency. The crew arrives at a station, hopefully on time, and they have four minutes, more or less, to check their paperwork for passengers, express, mail, or milk cans to pick-up or set-out; then get out of dodge. I personally was always kind of bored with passenger trains that just ran across a layout. Being instructed to pretend to load or unload  passengers, mail, and express for X-number of minutes grated on me. So I adopted and modified these tickets and bills to give the crews something tangible to do during station stops. Admittedly it does open up crews for criticism if they miss a pick-up or set-out, or mis-route a passenger. On AIR1 these mistakes were pointed out in the “After Action” reports. On AIR...

 For thirty or more years I worked in a business whose hallmark was a lack of planning. Because of this I am “institutionalized” into a seat-of-the-pants way of thinking. Get it done! Time is money! There’s never time to do it right, but there’s plenty of time to do it over. Or my favorite, “We can’t build shit, but we can fix the hell out of it!” A good plan executed now, with enthusiasm, is far superior to a perfect plan executed in a day or so. Okay I’ve made my case for not planning with a series of humorous, or not so humorous, platitudes. In layout building if you are following the prototype, in a sense, your planning is done for  you. Along the Van Nuys Branch of the Southern Pacific, near milepost 464*, is a bakery, Orowheat. It has a spur long enough for about four cars. It’s decorated in a particular set of colors. It is what it is. No more, no less. The prototype provides you your layout plan.  With a free lanced railroad any industry that strikes your fancy ca...

Bulletins are supposed to carry information that is too fresh to go into a table-table or something that will be important to the operations of trains temporarily, but not permanent enough to print and issue a new timetable.  At a recent op session I asked about bulletins and the layout owner, Mark Steenwyck, told me he had several posted, but had not added to them in a while. I noticed them conspicuously posted in a crew area. Several clipboards hanging on an informational wall, looking suspiciously like a BNSF yard office. He has track bulletins, slow orders, hazmat, wide load, about four different clipboards. Each crew member is supposed to read and sign these at the beginning of each shift. I did not, and didn’t notice that anyone else did. I asked about it and Mark just shrugged. Bill Darnaby has the same sort of clip board and expects all operators to read it and sign. There is always one  note in the bulletin about the prohibition of urinating in the dump sink! (So natu...

 I, sort of, have the, self appointed (?), reputation of organizing ops weekends around the country. This is mainly because I am, first, a mindless social butterfly, flitting from Op’s opportunity to Op’s opportunity. I happily sit at bars during Ops events buying drinks… Second, I talk too much. I will talk at everyone within ear shot, talking their ear off and collecting information about operations oriented layouts or events. Thirdly, I impose. I, as a general rule, do not take “no” for an answer. I will shamelessly strong arm my way into an op session, and once there I proudly put the lamp shade on and put on a show.  It’s embarrassing, honestly. So once I find a target of opportunity I exploit the hosts need for additional crew, as well as their vanity, and offer to bring along enough people to run their layout (For example for one ops event I got 19 respondents for ten spots and we are organizing a second trip). Organizing is a strong word to describe what I do. What I d...

RALPH COMMENTED ON THE BLOG ABOUT MILK TRAINS   Paul, as always, another thing we both have interest in modeling (why is it we didn't cover this at ProRail? Oh yeah, I was too busy drinking beer and eating BBQ!) WELL, I WAS DRINKING MANHATTANS… Anywho, my milk terminal was exactly that, a terminus for finished dairy products (mostly milk) the LV ran a hotshot freight (until 1947) from northern PA, as most milk on the LV was produced in NY State to Jersey City, where all they had was a platform. Not wanting to model "just" a delivery platform, I have chose instead to model small processing plant where processed milk COULD conceivably be turned into other products.  BECAUSE YOU CHOOSE TO MODEL, OR COPY THE LV THIS GIVES YOU THE OPPORTUNITIES TO MODEL DEDICATED MILK TRAINS. I AM GOING WITH JUST CAN-PICK UP AND DROP-OFF BECAUSE ITS PLAUSIBLE FOR MY REGION. I WHOLE HEARTEDLY AGREE WITH THE “SCOPE CREEP” OF ADDING THE PROCESSING PLANT TO PRODUCE OTHER DAIRY PRODUCTS.  This trai...