Building and operating the Atlantic Inland

 On AIR1, located in the area of the layout I called “Athol” was the Halstead Brick Co. this was one of the few fairly nice, and complete models on the layout. Halstead Brick had a nice company office, a coal trestle for receiving loads of coal and coke in 50 ton hoppers. There was a couple beehive kilns and a long spur for loading pallet-ized brick into boxcars. Finally there was ground cover(!) and ballast, something not common to AIR1, which was mostly painted plywood and Kraft paper and plaster cloth mountains painted green. Halstead Brick manufactured two colors of brick, yellow/tan and red. There were a lot of pallets of brick, and I think a fork lift as well.  In addition there was a team spot on the lead to the brick yard where pulp wood was loaded onto pulpwood racks. This industry was located in an odd spot, on the inside of a curve at the closed end of a peninsula. When the local was switching Athol he had to cross the main to get to Halstead Brick, but in general t...

 My Dad came back from the great WWII in 1946. He arrived at Alameda Naval Air Station in a C-54. He was the oldest son and single. The rest of the Family, brothers Frank and John, and sister Anne, by this time ALL married, agreed that he should be the one to take care of his Mother. Reluctantly he agreed but told everyone “The day she dies I’m leaving for California”. On Easter Sunday 1948 my grandmother passed away, Dad was on a train Monday afternoon. Dad got a job with Federal Pacific Electric Co. shortly after his arrival in California. FPE had a factory and headquarters in Newark, NJ, but Dad began at the plant in Glendale, Ca. He met my mother in 1954, married her in 1955 and continued with FPE, but split time between the facility in Glendale, and South San Francisco. They moved into the house I grew up in in 1960. With respect to AIR1 & AIR2 FPE had a factory in eastern Tennessee.  I moved that factory 150 miles to the north so it would show up on my first layout, ...

 I chose to use TTTO to control traffic on the AIR. When you do that you must have a time-table. I used prototype time-tables (TT) as my template. I used Word to design and print my TT. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE recommended I use Excell, but I had already put in the time learning Word and was happy with the results and my ability to produce a TT document. The TT went through numerous up grades, I think we ended up with TT#18 on the last few months of operation of AIR1 (TT#1 through TT#18 in ten years). The primary reason for so many changes was that I started with SO MANY trains on the schedule, and gradually reduced them over time(*1). I believe I started with 25 or 30 trains on the schedule and ended up with 12. At first it was like killing off my children, kicking trains off the schedule. Passenger trains were really hard to eliminate. By the last few years I learned to relish “Train-offs”. I think on AIR2 I have 12 trains on the TT.  What information needs to be in the...

 I always wanted a Western Maryland presence on the layout. This idea was copied directly from Tony Koester’s Allegheny Midland. After spending some time with a railroad Atlas I could readily see why Tony chose Durban as his eastern end point. It connected end to end  with the WM. On AIR1 I made the connection poorly. I chose Webster Springs for my connection because I liked the name. WM trains connected with the AIR at WM  in Webster Springs. There was no area where a WM switcher worked however. WM trains just continued over the AIR, traveling over the entire layout until they exited off-layout into West Staging. I did not like all this run through power. I’m planning a strict separation between WM and AIR, and putting an end to all those run through trains. However on AIR 2 I’m planning to build a length of parallel track, WM/AIR, and put the Wingedfoot Paper plant on the WM. WM trains will enter the layout at the extreme east end of the layout. They will either, most o...

 Today is D plus 7 of my knee surgery, seven days. I’m tired and sore. This is the second replacement. The first was February 22, so roughly 17 weeks.  It’s going to take me a whole year to get back to what ever is my new 100% I apologize if I’m not blogging as often as I was.  I’m tired of this!

 I only worked two jobs in my Adult life. One was an “Overnight Package Delivery” company (1*) and the other was construction (2*). These two jobs taught me a lot of things I use in model railroading and I use that knowledge to “extrapolate” a lot of conclusions about railroad procedures. Often these conclusions turn out to be wrong, mostly because railroading in the mid 20th century was guided by so many government rules and regulations, almost none of which made any sense in a business situation. As an example I’d use home heating coal being shipped to the northeast United States from West Virginia coal fields. You’d assume that this coal would get mined, get loaded into hoppers, and then trains would carry it to points Northeast.  Simple.  But no. That coal traveled down to docks where it was loaded into coastal freighters, that sailed up to ports in the Northeast where it was unloaded into hoppers that took the coal to markets up there. This is a gross over-simplifica...

 I had grandiose plans to change locomotives and cabooses on trains passing Littlerock yard. I  decaled a fleet of cabooses with different division names on them so it would be easy to tell them apart. In any case my YM’s  almost never did this. I’d go into staging after a session and find all the wrong cabooses and engines. It wasn’t like they didn’t know.  It was a nuisance, I guess, and it never happened. On Al Daumann’s BR&W layout when I’m running Redding yard I consider the engine change a pain in the ass. I get it. Yesterday I posted a question on the OPSIG about changing locomotives and in addition to receiving the best answer I think I’ve ever received from the OPSIG in 20 years, thank you Don Mitchell, I’ve come to the conclusion that I will NOT be changing locomotives out routinely. I model 1952, and railroads were dieselizing. Some districts were all steam. Some power, steam and diesel,  ran through. The Western Maryland allowed their STEAM power...

 On the AIR I print a line-up for the dispatcher and each Yardmaster position.  The Dispatchers line-up lists every train, scheduled and extra, except for helper moves and any extras called that session [*1], that will run that session. Yardmasters line-ups list every train that has work at their specific yard. It also lists trains that will pass their yard with the note, “No Work-Does not stop”. This line-up also lists blocking instructions for each train. What gets set-out, what gets picked-up, and where these blocks go in the train. On AIR2 this line up also tells the YM if there is an engine and/or caboose change [*2]. Before each session I posted a copy of the DS Line-up, what came to be called the Master line-up, along with the bulletin. Now I read the bulletin aloud, but posting the line-up allowed the road crew/extra board people to pick and choose trains[*3]. [*1] I have a rule that extra trains built AFTER the lunch break do not run until the next session. Extra’s bu...

 On the AIR I use car cards and waybills (CCWB) to forward cars. From time to time I include a switch-list in the train packet to give the crews another clue that they have work along the way. Sometimes these switch-lists have caused mild confusion. “What do I pay attention to the car cards or the Switch-list”. Both is the answer. The CCWB tells you where the car is going. The switch-list tells you where to spot the car. There is a subtle difference. A car card that reads, “Newsome Agriculture, Webster Springs, VA.; warehouse loading dock” tells us specifically where that cars is going, ultimately. The accompanying switch-list, listing the same car might read; “east end Webster Springs siding”. It instructs us to set this car out on the east end of the siding because later on in the session the Webster Springs Turn will show up to spot that car. The train with the car and switch-list listed above, is a through freight and it’s just setting blocks out, not spotting cars at specific ...

 On the AIR a train brief is the form in your train packet that tells you what the train does on its run. If you were at a fixed position I’d call it a job brief. On AIR1 my train briefs simply took you from starting point to finishing point telling you what work you had at each town, or simply listed the town name and read, “No work”. These train briefs were the same width as a waybill, but were folded so when unfolded they could be a foot long, if there was that much information on it (There wasn’t). This way they fit into the card pocket of the engine card. Your train brief dovetailed with each Yardmasters blocking instructions so if you pulled into a yard you could know you set-out LR cars and picked-up WF and WS cars. At the same time the Yardmaster knew the same information plus where in your train to insert these blocks. I did not include basic TTTO information, but I just received a copy of Al Daumann’s new train brief format and he does include TTTO instructions. Al has in...