Operations on the Rio Grande Southern First District

[Hawghead]

No and no... 

First district trains apparently sent ore northward (I assume to be smelted at Salida or some such place?) as well as southward.  For simplicity I'm moving it all north.  The carnotite ore DOES go to Durango because that's where it was smelted according to records.  It's not clear to me why some seemed to go north and some went south.  I plan to dig deeper into this, but again, since I don't model Durango, I'm happy to ship most ore north.  After all, all the ore from Ouray went north through to Montrose, and it appears that most Pandora turns to Telluride started and terminated at Ridgway as if Durango didn't exist.

As for the second bit, I don't need cassettes or other such complications.  I have an almost 10 foot long relay track at Rico that can handle all the inbounds and outbounds I'm likely to ever generate from the Second District in a given session.  Based on photographs, that's apparently what that third track (the one closest to the enginehouse) was for.  I've seen cuts of tank cars parked there clearly being relayed between districts.

Wow, sorry I asked.
Scott

[Dave V]

Wow, sorry I asked.
Scott

I'm sorry if that sounded rude.  I didn't mean for it to.  I did ask the question in the RGS group about the north end smelters.  The fact that ore went north to Montrose from Ouray speaks to some kind of capacity, which suggests the RGS could/would have shipped some ore north as well.

As for the cassettes, I would prefer not to use the stock pens for that because they're accessed through the house track rather than the main.  But that relay track is huge and I'd always intended that for being my Second District "interchange" based on prototype evidence.  In terms of understanding the "interface" it's just a matter of figuring out how many of each type of car would likely be exchanged there.

EDIT:  That access to the stock pens through the house track is one of the departures from prototype I took and--frankly--it's less than ideal.  I love having a place to store all my stock cars and it's visually interesting, but from an operations perspective it's less than ideal.  Some day it may find itself replaced with a wye and a coal pocket...we'll see!

[Santa Fe Guy]

IMO we can sometimes get too hooked into operating like the prototype did.
This is supposed to be fun so some imagineering is okay to.
Whilst I am loving my move to modeling the D&RGW I am not modeling it faithfully therefor I have added mines, coal, stock yards, flour mills Lumber etc to make my RR do some work.
I have a very (much simpler than on my SFRSD) timetable so we can run trains that have a job to do.
One loco six cars plus caboose, that's it.
Do not over think it guys.
Rod.
 

[Dave V]

@Hawghead , I think we have our answer.  I asked the RGS brain trust (John Coker and company).

The Durango smelter closed in 1932.   It did reopen on a limited basis 1942-1945 under the auspices of the Manhattan Project, but only to extract trace amounts of uranium from carnotite ore.  From what I gather it didn't do any other metals processing at that time.  The vast majority of RGS ore (and other than the May Day branch virtually ALL ore traffic came from Rico and points north) went to be smelted at Leadville. 

There were two ways to get to Leadville from the narrow gauge.  One is at Salida (via Montrose or Alamosa...which is the looooong way around for the RGS) where it would be transferred to the D&RGW Tennessee Pass line...from there it's a quick jaunt up the Arkansas to Leadville.  The other way is to go up to Montrose as before but transfer to the standard gauge there, run northwesterly to Grand Junction, then take the D&RGW mainline to the Tennessee Pass line over the pass into Leadville.  That latter route is considerably longer than the first route, but would be the only choice after the narrow gauge line through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison was pulled up in 1949.  However, the first route requires crossing Cerro Summit and Marshall Pass with a whole lotta 4%, so honestly it was probably the latter route that was preferred.  That solid cuts of boxcars with ore don't appear in very many photos taken of the Gunnison/Marshall Pass line further supports this.

Silverton ore after '32--if smelted at Leadville--would go over Cumbres to Alamosa.  Whether it then went up the narrow gauge Valley Line to Salida over Poncha Pass or went to standard gauge at Alamosa is research for another day!

Just to keep it complicated apparently some stuff went to smelters in Salt Lake City.  But you get there from the RGS via Ridgway, then D&RGW narrow gauge to Montrose, then standard gauge to Grand Junction and eventually SLC.

So, the takeaway is that by my 1938-1947 virtually all of my ore traffic would go north to Ridgway to be picked up by the D&RGW Ouray Branch train.  How the D&RGW gets it to a smelter is transparent to me, so long as I get empties in return at Ridgway to start the cycle again.

[Dave V]

IMO we can sometimes get too hooked into operating like the prototype did.
This is supposed to be fun so some imagineering is okay to.
Whilst I am loving my move to modeling the D&RGW I am not modeling it faithfully therefor I have added mines, coal, stock yards, flour mills Lumber etc to make my RR do some work.
I have a very (much simpler than on my SFRSD) timetable so we can run trains that have a job to do.
One loco six cars plus caboose, that's it.
Do not over think it guys.
Rod.

Your point is definitely taken, and I appreciate that that works for you.  Truthfully that'd probably work for me for a while.  But...there's some satisfaction in trying to approximate the operations of the railroad I've worked so hard to approximate physically.  The research--although frustrating on occasion--actually ends up being a lot of fun in the long run.  When I first became interested in the RGS I was all about tiny trains and tall trestles, but never really gave a tremendous amount of thought to what those tiny trains were doing and why.

The other factor at play here is I'm kind of at the "what now?" stage.  I'm doing structure and rolling stock projects.  There's at least one additional short spur in the works (to the Primos Chemical Company at Placerville).  But to make this fun for the long term, I want to kick it up a notch...to run it in some ways like the RGS did.

By the way, with regard to that spreadsheet I'm building, it does not include livestock operations.  I plan to operate those as unit trains so at best I just need to know how many cars I need at the Rico stock yards and to be ready with a protect engine at Rico in case the inventible happens.

[MDW]

Well said Dave.
Appreciate this discussion on approximating realistic operations.  It’s totally appropriate for the Layout Engineering Reports as sorting out how to operate helps inform how we design & build.....at least it does for me.
Cheers
Michel

[Hawghead]

@Hawghead , I think we have our answer.  I asked the RGS brain trust (John Coker and company).

The Durango smelter closed in 1932.   It did reopen on a limited basis 1942-1945 under the auspices of the Manhattan Project, but only to extract trace amounts of uranium from carnotite ore.  From what I gather it didn't do any other metals processing at that time.  The vast majority of RGS ore (and other than the May Day branch virtually ALL ore traffic came from Rico and points north) went to be smelted at Leadville. 

There were two ways to get to Leadville from the narrow gauge.  One is at Salida (via Montrose or Alamosa...which is the looooong way around for the RGS) where it would be transferred to the D&RGW Tennessee Pass line...from there it's a quick jaunt up the Arkansas to Leadville.  The other way is to go up to Montrose as before but transfer to the standard gauge there, run northwesterly to Grand Junction, then take the D&RGW mainline to the Tennessee Pass line over the pass into Leadville.  That latter route is considerably longer than the first route, but would be the only choice after the narrow gauge line through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison was pulled up in 1949.  However, the first route requires crossing Cerro Summit and Marshall Pass with a whole lotta 4%, so honestly it was probably the latter route that was preferred.  That solid cuts of boxcars with ore don't appear in very many photos taken of the Gunnison/Marshall Pass line further supports this.

Silverton ore after '32--if smelted at Leadville--would go over Cumbres to Alamosa.  Whether it then went up the narrow gauge Valley Line to Salida over Poncha Pass or went to standard gauge at Alamosa is research for another day!

Just to keep it complicated apparently some stuff went to smelters in Salt Lake City.  But you get there from the RGS via Ridgway, then D&RGW narrow gauge to Montrose, then standard gauge to Grand Junction and eventually SLC.

So, the takeaway is that by my 1938-1947 virtually all of my ore traffic would go north to Ridgway to be picked up by the D&RGW Ouray Branch train.  How the D&RGW gets it to a smelter is transparent to me, so long as I get empties in return at Ridgway to start the cycle again.

Dave,

That's good to know.  After the discussion on livestock on the RGS groups, it got me thinking about where ore went.  I assumed it went to the smelter in Durango as I wasn't aware of smelting facilities anywhere near Ridgway.  While on the subject, during the late 20's, (before the Durango smelter closed) would ore from the Pro Patria mill have gone to Durango or may it still have gone to Leadville?  I'm thinking of setting the date for my layout in the late 20's based on Rico's last hoorah.

Thanks,
Scott

[Dave V]

Dave,

That's good to know.  After the discussion on livestock on the RGS groups, it got me thinking about where ore went.  I assumed it went to the smelter in Durango as I wasn't aware of smelting facilities anywhere near Ridgway.  While on the subject, during the late 20's, (before the Durango smelter closed) would ore from the Pro Patria mill have gone to Durango or may it still have gone to Leadville?  I'm thinking of setting the date for my layout in the late 20's based on Rico's last hoorah.

Thanks,
Scott

That's an excellent question...and I don't know.  I would imagine some of it went to Durango, but what I've learned along the way is that mines and mills were paired with smelters that could be just about anywhere.  Keith Hayes mentioned a silver mine in Ontario (yes, Canada) that shipped concentrates to a smelter here in Denver, Colorado...so apparently proximity was not a factor in where it went.  It was who owned what facilities.

I suspect the shut-down of the Durango smelter was probably tied to the Depression-era drawdown in ore loadings both from the RGS and from Silverton.  By '32 the Silverton Northern was still operating, having absorbed the Silverton, Gladestone & Northerly RR and operating it as a branchline...but the Silverton Railroad was by then a memory.  Loadings both at the Gold King and Sunnyside mills fell off to near nothing and the railroad was barely moving.  The D&RGW OTOH still had business in Silverton to keep it busy enough, but again the mineral traffic had dropped off to a trickle from D&RGW-served mines in the Silverton area.

Now FWIW, the Pro Patria Mill at Rico actually served a bunch of mines, not just the Rico-Argentine.  Lots of the local mines had their ores processed and concentrated at the Pro patria.  And, in addition to the gold and silver you'd expect, zinc and lead came through the Pro patria, especially during World War II.

[Dave V]

So far I've only used my yard trackage as visible staging or "car display."  I've actually amassed a much larger roster in a much shorter period of time than I'd anticipated so one of the first things I'll need to do before operating is to remove the "staged trains" that won't be called in a normal operating session (such as my two steam passenger trains and my anachronistic 1905-era Silverton RR consist).  In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if staging's all that necessary for this.  Maybe a stock train is staged for a stock extra, but generally I'm looking to build a train from available cars in Ridgway and take them to Rico doing business along the way, then working Rico, picking up any Second District drop-offs, and then come back to Ridgway (due to the house track configuration at Ophir, I'll be doing any Ophir work on the northbound leg only.  I suppose I could stage and run a Second District train around the layout for schnitzengiggles, but it's not exactly necessary for operations.  So I'm not sure I'd stage anything if I don't really have through trains during a normal operation.

I would probably want to remove some of my rolling stock too since my yard tracks are choked with all the cool stuff I've built but that won't be needed in a session.

I'm almost done building a water tank for the area just railroad west (south) of Placerville, operationally representing either Deep Creek or Ames Tank (but styled after Trout Lake...long story) so there'll be a mandatory mid-run water stop in addition to the mandatory retainer valve and brake test at Lizard Head.

[dcarrell8]

I thought I would go ahead and add my two cents.

I have a small 6X10 folded dogbone N-scale layout in my family room.  It started a few years ago as a modular that would only come up at Christmas. (the bone folds around the tree)  It was only supposed to be a loop to run trains.  It now has two small yards in the blobs and about 8 total spurs for industries. 

I had used car cards and waybills on my previous layout that had to go away in an unforeseen move.  I was in the process of finding a program to print the car cards and waybills when I stumbled on to JMRI Operations how to video.  I already had decoder pro, for programing my locomotives and had no idea that Panel Pro had an operations tab in the tool bar drop down. So I thought what the heck I'll give it a shot.

In about three evenings I was operating my layout in a way that I never thought possible, sending my switch lists to my printer or phone and ipad.  JMRI Operations far exceeded my expectations for the little dogbone.  I knew nothing about real railroad operations or how things were done on any prototype.  That being said, I can only imagine with your knowledge of the RGS you can get the program to work for you in a way that is very satisfying and prototypical.  I also have my Timesaver set up in operations, it's never the same game twice!  I actually plan on doing a video of exactly how I set up the Timesaver in operations from a blank slate.

~ Dennis

[Hawghead]

Dave,

I'm looking to build a train from available cars in Ridgway and take them to Rico doing business along the way, then working Rico, picking up any Second District drop-offs, and then come back to Ridgway

So if you are going to build a train at Ridgway you are going to have to have the necessary cars for the train in the yard (obvious).  So now do you want to have the train already assembled in a track or do you want to have to switch out cars in the yard to assemble the train (most prototypical).  If the later, would it be possible for a program to generate a "yard pattern" to populate the yard with the necessary cars and add additional random cars to the yard tracks that you have to switch to get to the cars you need?

due to the house track configuration at Ophir, I'll be doing any Ophir work on the northbound leg only.

Coward  .  You could work Ophir on the south bound leg if you allowed yourself to have the siding at Lizard Head pull double duty as both the Lizard Head siding and the Ophir siding.  Not to store cars in, but just to allow the runaround moves necessary to switch Ophir on the southbound leg.  It just depends on how much switching you actually want to do.

Maybe a stock train is staged for a stock extra

You could use your D&RGW track at Ridgway for this to simulate empties coming back from Montrose that need to go south for loading at Rico.  Additionally you could, (yes I know I'm sticking my head in the Lion's mouth here) add a stock pen between the edge of the layout and the mainline at Lizard Head to allow for some more operations.

Finally, (back into the breech again) you could cut in a couple of switches at the south end of the D&RGW interchange track to allow access from both ends of Ridgway yard.

Scott

[Dave V]

Dave,

So if you are going to build a train at Ridgway you are going to have to have the necessary cars for the train in the yard (obvious).  So now do you want to have the train already assembled in a track or do you want to have to switch out cars in the yard to assemble the train (most prototypical).  If the later, would it be possible for a program to generate a "yard pattern" to populate the yard with the necessary cars and add additional random cars to the yard tracks that you have to switch to get to the cars you need?

Coward  .  You could work Ophir on the south bound leg if you allowed yourself to have the siding at Lizard Head pull double duty as both the Lizard Head siding and the Ophir siding.  Not to store cars in, but just to allow the runaround moves necessary to switch Ophir on the southbound leg.  It just depends on how much switching you actually want to do.

You could use your D&RGW track at Ridgway for this to simulate empties coming back from Montrose that need to go south for loading at Rico.  Additionally you could, (yes I know I'm sticking my head in the Lion's mouth here) add a stock pen between the edge of the layout and the mainline at Lizard Head to allow for some more operations.

Finally, (back into the breech again) you could cut in a couple of switches at the south end of the D&RGW interchange track to allow access from both ends of Ridgway yard.

Scott

Starting with a yard full of cars and an engine just on duty feels more authentic and fulfilling than having the train ready to go at the beginning, though I recognize it presents additional challenges.

As for the rest, I’ve actually considered every single one of those points!  For now I don’t think I want to add more stock loading points until I really see how operating the current layout goes.  But using the Lizard Head siding as the Ophir passing siding, I will probably want to do that anyway.  Dragging an empty all the way to Rico just to come back to Ophir later (so dragging it TWICE over Lizard Head Pass) seems unprototypical.  You’ve sold me on that point!  As for cutting in switches...  That’s a great point and it would be useful to get a sense of how much constraint the current configuration applies.

[Dave V]

I've been playing with JMRI OperationsPro and clearly there's a substantial up-front investment of time and research.  It looks like on the flip side that once that's done, it's very simple and convenient.

In the meantime I feel like the work that I've already invested in Google Sheets could easily be translated into some sort of random generator.  I've done some crazy big-brained sciencey stuff with Excel, so I bet I could make a go of it too.

Ed suggested a simple pair of dice for generating car demand and there's something magically appropriate about including "gambling" into an RGS operating scheme.

[wm3798]

There's a form for that, too.



Go down your on-line industry list (that would be the industries that are on your line, not out there in some internet ether) and fill out a handful of these babies for each one.  You can take into account seasonal flow of traffic, or other things that might register a shift in demand, and put them in a stack in the "agent's office" section of your workbench.  Then roll your dice to see how many cards you draw.

Now you have a place to start with writing your bills of lading, which become your defacto 4 way waybills.

But here's a question.  Since you're operating a Narrow Gauge in Colorado, it's likely that you'll have an interchange with another narrow gauge, which helps increase the number of destinations your car is likely to go.  How do you handle car movements for a car that only moves from the narrow gauge to an interchange point with the outside world via a standard gauge connection?  Does it even matter what the consignee is?  Can't you just say:  Freight house (or team track) XYZ for transfer to DRGW, or UP, or whomever?  I guess its fun to imagine that freight going to some destination somewhere, but if it's not making the move in your Narrow Gauge car, does it matter when you write up the paper work?

Just curious.
Lee

[Dave V]

There's a form for that, too.



Go down your on-line industry list (that would be the industries that are on your line, not out there in some internet ether) and fill out a handful of these babies for each one.  You can take into account seasonal flow of traffic, or other things that might register a shift in demand, and put them in a stack in the "agent's office" section of your workbench.  Then roll your dice to see how many cards you draw.

Now you have a place to start with writing your bills of lading, which become your defacto 4 way waybills.

But here's a question.  Since you're operating a Narrow Gauge in Colorado, it's likely that you'll have an interchange with another narrow gauge, which helps increase the number of destinations your car is likely to go.  How do you handle car movements for a car that only moves from the narrow gauge to an interchange point with the outside world via a standard gauge connection?  Does it even matter what the consignee is?  Can't you just say:  Freight house (or team track) XYZ for transfer to DRGW, or UP, or whomever?  I guess its fun to imagine that freight going to some destination somewhere, but if it's not making the move in your Narrow Gauge car, does it matter when you write up the paper work?

Just curious.
Lee

I have some empty car request cards from Old Line Graphics as part of my existing paperwork.

The RGS connected at both ends with the D&RGW narrow gauge.  The good news is that for most commodities, I know a lot about where it's coming from and where it's going.  For example:

Refined oil delivered to the RGS for Placerville (and other points not modeled) comes from the D&RGW narrow gauge at Farmington, NM.  There were oil fields there that operated until the late 60s along with a small refinery there.  Much of that oil ran the entire length of the RGS from Durango to Ridgway with eventual destinations at Grand Junction and Salt lake City.  I don't know the names of the receiving facilities but they were primarily operated by Conoco and Texaco.  Empties go back to the D&RGW at Durango.

We established that ore is headed to Leadville for refining.

Cut lumber comes from the Montezuma Lumber Company at McPhee, CO (now at the bottom of a reservoir) which was brought to the RGS at Dolores by its own narrow gauge railroad.  It went various places from a lumber yard in Durango to various points on the D&RGW.  There was a big lumber dealer in Montrose on the D&RGW so that's where the lumber's going in my world.  Dolores is on the Second District so these cars are exchanged at Rico.

Trickier:  Coal comes from Hesperus on the RGS to Rico, Ridgway, and points north.  Hesperus is on the Second District so these cars are exchanged at Rico. Some goes on to the D&RGW narrow gauge, some changes to standard gauge at Montrose, etc.  I can pull some destinations using the Rectal Extraction Model.

Generally on the RGS by my era, most of the traffic generated on the First District (the part I modeled) is ore traffic.  Very little ore originates on the Second District.  There used to be a lot of timber cutting along the First District but by the 1940s it had tapered way off.