WM Western Lines Engineering Report

[Ed Kapuscinski]

  The yard gets jammed up very quickly when a 25 car train arrives and 20 of them have to be switched.

And you thought I was crazy when I kept saying "more space, more tracks"... crazy like a fox!

[conrail98]

And you thought I was crazy when I kept saying "more space, more tracks"... crazy like a fox!

Just do what we do at our regular ops session, flip the waybill and keep it going down the line, 

[sizemore]

No worries, Eric!  Just having the Broadway Limited diverted over the Connellsville Sub was all it took to give you a free pass!  Besides, it gave us something to do while we finished up those beers...

I wish I would've had the brains to divert Super-Berk power to NW12.... I blame the afterthought to the geniuses sucking up all my brainwaves during the day.

The S.

[wm3798]

And you thought I was crazy when I kept saying "more space, more tracks"... crazy like a fox!

We were all pretty much in agreement that the main problem was lack of a consistent and competent yard boss.  If you know anyone who might want the job, let me know!

Lee

[Mark5]

Railwire exclusive - glam shot.
Train NW11 arrives at North Jct., digging in to crest the hill and hit the crossover to gain entry to Ridgeley Yard.

We found a nice shady spot under the Highway 11 overpass...

Lee

I know it's your RR Lee, but you'd pretty much never see non-dynamic brake merger power on the Valley line.

Mark

[wm3798]

I know this.  I also know that I had a pair of U25's in stock, and NW decals available...  I needed a short term representation...  Don't worry, it'll be our little secret!

Lee

[Mark5]

Gotcha! Mums the word!

[wm3798]

I've been avoiding the heat today by working through the rest of the 28 train schedule.

I think I figured out how to keep the yard from backing up like a port-a-pot at a Nascar event...  Thru freight and coal are the primary traffic on the layout, so streamlining how they get to and thru the yard should make a huge difference in how well we can do the other work in the yard, especially building sorting locals.  If the through trains, the fast freights and coal drags, don't go into the yard, it simplifies everything.  When the trains coming out of staging are properly blocked, the thru cars will be the first section behind the engines. 

So, if the train pulls in on the main behind the yard, it can be cut behind the thru cars and the yard switcher can grab the back of the train to be reclassified.  If the yard has been doing its job (and the dispatcher allows adequate time between trains), then there should be a cut of cars ready to pull from the A/D tracks to tack on the end.  On trains that require a power swap, there's plenty of run around tracks available to make the change out on the main.

The idea behind the fast freights was to get them through the terminals as quickly and efficiently as possible.  We were pulling entire trains into the yard, with about a third of the cars requiring no switching.  By keeping them out on the main, congestion will be reduced substantially, and switching blocks of cars vastly simplified.

For the coal trains, the first major improvement was going to block waybills covering anywhere from 4 to 6 cars.  This cuts the paper shuffling down substantially.  While all coal trains will be terminated and re-shuffled at Ridgeley, when a coal train comes in, there will be blocks of cars that will continue on through.  These will become the basis of the outbound train.  Blocks of hoppers can be lined up on the long siding behind the main by destination, so it's easy for the switcher to pull the cars needed to add to the outbound train provided the sequence of arrivals is close to the sequence of blocks on stand by.

More science going on soon...

Lee

[MichaelWinicki]

Lee, what I did to judge traffic flow through my yard was create a small chart that listed:

Each train number/ID that was either dropping off or picking up from the yard
The number of cars currently in the yard when the train arrived
The number of cars being dropped off or picked up
The number of cars left in the yard after the train departs

For example:

Train 3 from Cleveland to Olean (36/12/0/48)
Train 4 from Olean to Warren (48/0/7/41)

In other words when Train 3 arrives there are 36 cars presently in the yard.  12 cars are being dropped off.  0 cars are being picked up and there are now 48 cars in the yard.

Train 4 is then assembled.  Seven cars are removed from the yard, leaving 41.

Yeah, I get the point that you may not have the same trains dropping off or picking up the exact same number of cars in every operating session, but still this type of chart helped establish the train schedule so the yard wouldn't be overwhelmed.   

[wm3798]

Interesting approach, Michael.  I've got a total of 10 tracks for classification, plus two A/D tracks. 

My thinking is to use the A/D tracks to build the cuts of cars due to be picked up by the thru freights, so they can quickly be swapped for the set outs.  In the perfect world, an Alpha Jet comprised of 30 cars would have 10  cars that are just passing through, 10 cars that are being redirected to other thru freights (If the thru train is going from Lurgan thru to Connellsville to meet the N&W, set outs might include cars bound for Baltimore, Roanoke, York, and/or the P&LE connection at Connellsville.) and 10 cars bound for locations on the layout.  The yard is very much the hub of a multi-spoke system.

To follow your charting, it would be helpful to have a laptop in the train room.

Especially since at any given moment there could be two trains being processed for thru traffic, plus any of several locals being built.

If I had the real estate, I'd add a smaller yard to handle nothing but the locals.  That way the yardmaster can sort a block of cars as "Local" without having to sub sort them into the different local trains.  It will be an evolutionary process to be sure.

Thanks for the input.
Lee

[MichaelWinicki]

Lee, do you break down your yard into subsections?

Essentially I ended up with two tracks for my Depart Yard, which holds the cars that were switched out of the various industries and branch line that are part of the layout. 

I ended up with two tracks for my Branch Line Yard, and three tracks for my Local Yard. 

The chart I talked about in the earlier post was later enhanced with more detail showing the flow of cars in and out of each of the yards. 

I ran the complete schedule of trains myself a couple of times, tracked the cars in and out of the yard and the results caused me to reset my train schedule some in order to get better flow.

[wm3798]

Yes and no... There are no "permanent" class tracks.  Things move around depending on the ebb and flow of traffic.  I use a long acrylic rack to sort cards, so I can use a dry erase marker to be flexible with what goes where.



When I designed the yard, the idea was to have the first five tracks on the left be the eastbound tracks, and the second 5 for westbounds.  The last two tracks are the A/D tracks.  In practice, it's worked out that the front tracks are where the local traffic gets sorted, and the longer tracks to the rear are for blocking through traffic.  Depending on the ebb and flow, these designations can shift around.

Lee

[MichaelWinicki]

Lee, have you put the entire train schedule through its paces on your own?

That's what I would suggest if you haven't yet. 

Take a clip board and track the number of cars in the yard after each train arrives or departs, placing special attention on the number of cars in your "Local" yard and the "Through" yard at any one time. 

By running the entire schedule yourself you'll find the "bottlenecks" and you'll probably then be able to formally designate parts of your yard, even if it's say 4 tracks that make up the Local yard, 4 tracks that make up the Through yard and 2 overflow tracks. 

It'll make it much easier for someone, other than yourself, to then be able to come in and manage the yard during ops sessions. 

[wm3798]

Good thinking, Michael.  If I have to sacrifice all day tomorrow running trains, I suppose that's a cross I'll just have to bear!!

Lee

[wm3798]

Took a break from running trains to put some more work in on scenery and infrastructure.  (some copied from Weekend Update, I didn't want it to get lost in the sauce)

Here's the brewery warehouse that's now underway, shown in position.  You may recognize some of the components being resurrected from the junque box.


That cold storage warehouse hasn't been on a layout since maybe 1983.  It almost made it onto the 1991 Laurel Valley, but proved a little too bulky for the location I wanted it in.  So a little cut and paste with some DPM modulars will create a whole new building.  A few more views:





Note that the loading doors from the rear side of the cold storage have been cut out and relocated on the second level, bringing the truck warehouse closer to the grade of US 40 behind the building.  Here's the overview of the location with a sketch plan of the rest of the building:



You can see how the loading dock faces US 40.  This will be pretty much invisible from the aisle, but I plan to tease it out enough to drop the camera back there on occasion.  The main brew house will be a larger brick structure to the right of and attached to the warehouse.  It will include a switch and separate siding that will accommodate the requisite grain cars, and maybe a coal dock for power.  I've seen photos of the old Queen City brewery with a pile of coal on the side of the building, presumably to power the operation, but it appeared to be dumped from a truck.  So I'll bend light a little to create another destination for some Laurel Valley coal...

I also finished mechanically and electrically hooking up the interlockings at the west end of the yard, and ran the cable to wire the east end interlockings.  Just need to wire the frogs, and put in the machine for North Junction, and the main line will be fully functional.


The two (actually 3) machines that are horizontally mounted run two switches each.  This the full interlocking at the west end of the yard.  The track in the foreground on the lower level is the Connellsville Sub through Greenwood.



And there's the medula oblongata that runs the mainline switches around the yard at the east and west ends.  I need two more tortoises to complete the installation.  But first, I need to ransom the car from the repair shop!   Afterall, I paid it off two weeks ago, so naturally it overheated on the way to work Thursday.

Lee