Assigning Locomotives

 I have been debating this long and hard for a while. On the prototype motive power assignments are made WELL in advance. At the very least motive power is assigned by class of locomotive as opposed to assigning a specific locomotive (locals might get their power assigned regularly, For example here in Winchester the “Strasburg Turn” ( My name for the train) gets the same power nearly every day, and has for years).


On a lot of layouts the train card often comes laminated and the motive power is permanently assigned (I recently operated on a layout where the extras had laminated train briefs with the motive power permanently called out, even so far as to have a notification in the printed time-table of “Extra 401”).

I am not comfortable with this idea of permanently assigning locomotives to a job. I agree that on my railroad loaded eastward coal trains should get a 1200 class locomotive (1200 class steam locomotives are class Y 2-8-8-2 ‘s), just not the same one EVERY day.

Having said this I am forced to acknowledge, by incontrovertible evidence,  that locomotives are assigned to trains well in advance. The reasons are varied, numerous, and all valid.

Railroads all KNOW what is going on every train. The know the tonnage. They have been doing the same thing day in and day out for years. I agree that railroads make changes, they just don’t change every day.

On the other hand my op sessions are not the same “Day” every session. I have a 24 hour schedule, I run a 1-1 clock. It takes me 24 real hours to run out one days schedule. Each of my sessions is 4-5-6 hours, depending (These days it depends on how I’m feeling physically). So generally a month to finish a day. 

I am far more interested in “play value” than prototypically fidelity. Because of that I might run a loaded coal train every hour, making my layout look something like the Powder River Basin on a slow day. 

The majority of my freight trains do not originate on layout nor change power. If I do implement a power swapping procedure this will necessitate a great deal of additional planning. Local trains usually get the same power. In the future I will endeavor to equip locals with the same power and caboose every time

My coal tonnage is far easier to predict than freight, but not to far. 
Now I have not assigned locomotives in the past. Up till now I let the Coal Marshaling Yardmaster pick the power for his trains, usually from a stable of 2-8-8-2’s. And I assigned power to through freights and passenger trains based on need during the staging process.

For coal operations what I’m thinking of doing is to put an extra coal train on the line-up every hour of the session, with the locomotive and caboose ASSIGNED in advance. Both the Dispatcher and YM will have this information. Then the YM is given a tonnage target for that trains destination, for example 25 car loads of “Tide Coal”.  If he has 25 loads the train goes as scheduled. If not that train gets held. Either way the YM and Dispatcher need to communicate. 

I run coal East (Tide), West (Lake) and Local (Engine service, powerhouses, coke ovens, brick kilns, etc on layout). My old tonnage used to be about 70% east, 20% west and 10% local.

For passenger trains I’m thinking of going to the effort of modeling F-units with steam generator details. These “Steam Generator” equipped B-units would be permanently assigned to the passenger pool.

Through freights will still get power from the pool of remaining F-units. The power for these through freights will stay with the trains from staging to staging. IF I instituting a power swapping procedure then the power will be assigned in advance based on tonnage requirements (Train 66 arrives with an A-B-A set of F-Units and gets a new A-B-A set)

In the past the helper pool was a set of permanently assigned locomotives. I will do this again. I’m toying with assigning FT’s to this pool, but what ever I decide they will be set up with “so called” Advance consists so that when they return down hill one engineer can simply couple what-ever engines are up the hill together and bring them all down on one TTTO order.

What are your thoughts on assigning locomotives? Do you have different procedures?
What procedures do you recommend?

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