Pettigrew Doughnut

 Those of you that operated on AIR1 are familiar with Pettigrew yard. For those new to the Atlantic Inland the coal marshaling yard is Pettigrew Yard. Coal hauling railroads often had a yard dedicated to processing coal hoppers from various branches and building trains that forwarded coal on to it’s final destination. For the Western Maryland this was Knobmount. On the C&O it would be Hinton, on the N&W, Bluefield. Clinchfield’s was at Dante. On the Atlantic Inland it’s Pettigrew.

Coal loads picked up from various loaders, tipples and mines make their way to the marshaling yard, traveling on a “mine tag” for paperwork. Once at the marshaling yard loads get weighed, classified, and receive billing and permanent waybills(1*).

On AIR1 I simulated this billing change with two sided waybills. One side was the mine tag which simply routed the car to Pettigrew Yard. Once the PYM began classifying these cars HE would flip these bills and reinsert them 8n the card pocket. Once flipped it revealed the final billing of the coal load: Lake coal, westbound; Tide Coal, eastbound; Coal for local customers like the engine service or paper mill powerhouse; Or once in a great while, “Overweight”, representing a hopper that was overloaded(2*).

On AIR2 I have designed Pettigrew, with the operator space surrounded by the benchwork. The operator space will be accessed by a swing gate. The Pettigrew YM will be in the center of the DOUGHNUT. Pettigrew will be divided into an “A” yard and a “B” yard, plus an engine service.

The “A” yard will have arrival and departure tracks, make up tracks to build mine runs and loaded coal trains, and will generally hold trains ready to depart. The “B” yard will have the scales and all the class tracks and will hold inbound loads and MTY’s. Inbound mine runs will get weighed and classified in the “B” yard.

I’m planning a multi-deck layout with THREE main decks. Pettigrew will be located on the second level. The yard crew will be inside the doughnut, road crews will approach Pettigrew from the aisles, get their trains and be handed their paperwork across the benchwork. So road crews will not go inside the doughnut.

On the first level I’m planning to place two small three track staging yards, representing coal branches, one under the “A” Yard, and one under the “B” yard. Then on the third deck I’m planning two more staging yards: A 3-5 track yard for the Western Maryland and one representing another coal branch.

Coal trains from these branches will travel across a portion of the layout and feed their respective loads to Pettigrew Yard. At that point these coal loads will get built into loaded coal trains and make their way to points off layout.

My design for Pettigrew has a main track with a very long siding running through, maybe 150 cars long. Branching off this East and West of the yard  will be long A&D tracks, three East and three West.

The idea is for the yard to have the ability to bring inbound mine runs in with out interrupting the through traffic, or yard operations.

(1*) this is not always true. Many coal loads are not consigned yet. These loads get sold while in transit, get redirected and receive final billing  in transit. This procedure is common to many different commodities. I call these loads “Broker Loads” , for coal purchased by a coal broker but not yet sold to a final customer. I tried to simulate this procedure on AIR1 but it did not produce the results I desired.

(2*) Overweight loads got spotted on the RIP track where they sat for a session. This delay simulated off-loading. The excess coal went to the RR-YMCA, the caboose track for stoves, it might have gone to local residents in need, things of that nature. The pile of excess coal was, generally, open to all.