Designing and implementing a traffic plan: Part One

 Wow this is going to take a while. The Atlantic Inland is my free lanced model railroad. This layout is the second large version of the Inland. It is basically an overlay of the C&O, or a substitute. The AIR runs from Newport News to East St.Louis. It is part of the Alphabet Route and is the direct connection between the WM and St. Louis. In the “Real” world this connection was made via the WLE to the NKP through Ohio and Indiana. So I am supposing that the AIR does in fact haul some tonnage between St. Louis and the WM  but also handles tonnage, over the AIR,  from St. Louis to Tidewater. 

This version of the AIR exists in 1952. In the railroad world of 1952 raw materials, meat, produce and dairy moves from the South and West to the North and East. Coal, our primary commodity moves from the mines of West Virginia to Tidewater in the East or to the Steel Mills of the Midwest. 

Railroad LCL is still a huge business. There is no UPS or FedEx yet.  Admittedly Railroad LCL was not what it was in 1932, but still huge. 

Passenger transportation is still viable in 1952. Business travel, the back bone of all travel systems, be they Railroad, or Airline, is still making a buck for railroads. Additionally Washington DC provides incentive for travel; politicians and their staff; Military to the Pentagon; Lobbyists. 

The underlying money maker of passenger rail travel, Mail and Express is still a major factor. The Atlantic Inland, I’ve always maintained is never a passengers first, or ever second choice for travel. But we still put enough butts in the seats; “…15 restless riders, three conductors, and 25 sacks of mail…”. 

Traffic over my layout needs to reflect these realities. Coal trains, mine runs, passenger trains, time freights, and slow drags. They need plausible reasons to exist, and the layout needs to realistically support their operation. 

The AIR exists in the TTTO universe of railroading. It has a time table. Passenger trains are first class; preferred LCL and Preferred Perishable trains are second class. The rest run extra. 

My layout is basically a large “X”. The center of the “X” is Charleston, WV and my Littlerock Yard. 

Lower left to upper right  is St. Louis to Newport News (With connections via the RF&P at Richmond to Washington DC)

Upper Left to lower right is Chicago to Florida (Via N&W, CRR, SOU, SAL, ACL, you know, an alphabet soup).

My East-West passenger trains are reflective of the era. A mix of sleepers and coaches, with a generous helping of head end cars. The train from Chicago to Florida is much the same. A second train over each route is Mail and Express. 

Freight traffic is a bit more complex. There’s preferred LCL, two east and two west. Four preferred perishable trains, two produce and two meat, but all only Eastbound. Half of these trains diverge from the AIR onto the WM and continue on to Baltimore and points in the Northeast. The remainder make their way to Newport News. 

Perishables. After coal,  perishable meat and produce is probably our biggest commodity. Railroads of my era brought food, fuel, and raw materials to the East. Produce from the Southeast crossed the Inland to the Midwest. So in my traffic plan, there is at least FIVE expedited perishable trains*

Livestock was a considerable source for traffic. Refrigerated meat was a major commodity, but meat slaughtered locally, relative to the markets my railroad reaches, was also made up a large percentage of car loadings. Packers around Richmond, VA. needed livestock. After some research I found, to my surprise, that cattle and sheep, not hogs, were a major agricultural product of the region I model. I personally did not want to model a slaughterhouse, so instead I chose to model several local loading points and a Livestock rest station. Livestock may only be confined in cars for 28 hours (36 with the shippers written permission) before it must be off loaded, fed, watered, and “rested” for 8 hours. This stock is then re-loaded and forwarded on its way. To cut to the chase I model two stock extras, a morning and an evening train. Interestingly livestock trains are a higher priority than Passenger trains, with the exception of safety concerns. 

The back drop to my entire traffic flow is coal. What I wanted was a variety of plausible trains running east and west  in front of a backdrop of coal trains, I model multiple loading points as well as junctions with coal branch lines that feed coal loads onto my layout. These loads are collected at a central marshaling yard, Pettigrew, where these loads are weighed, classified, given final billing, built into large trains going to a like destination (not unit trains however), and dispatched East, to tide water, and West to the Great Lakes steel mills. Still steam powered on my layout, the Atlantic Inland chose to collect at Pettigrew Yard, and let run out their hours, the steam engines on the roster, on coal traffic.

So my traffic plan is large, complicated, and the guide for nearly every other thing I model.

I want to get this posted now, but I’ll revisit Traffic Plans again.

*The darling of my layouts perishable trains is #97. THE preferred perishable and LCL train from Florida to the Midwest.