The new Missouri Valley Western

[Cajonpassfan]

Jim, I really like your plan; should have plenty of interest all around. And nothing like test driving the layout ops before finalizing track and scenery. But out of idle curiosity, why are you calling it "top deck". Is there a lower deck in the future? Did I miss something?
Otto K.

[MVW]

Yeah, Otto, I'm holding onto the option of running another lap around the room. The West Staging loops would be moved to the adjoining room, and set up directly under East Staging -- so a train running from loop to loop would be doing two laps around the room, descending slightly as it ran clockwise.

I don't know if I''ll get that far. I don't know if I want to get that far. Once I have the staging loops in (no matter where they're located) I'll be able to do darn near everything I want, in terms of operation. A lower deck would be icing on the cake.

I think the determining factor may be how often I can get groups together to operate. If it's frequent and fun, I'd probably be more motivated to add a lower deck.

Jim

[Cajonpassfan]

Jim, all good points; sometimes less is more. But at least you have the option to grow if the time comes.
Speaking from experience, I've expanded my layout, substantially, twice, and the second expansion probably took me beyond where I needed to be and it's become more difficult to manage and maintain. It's also become more demanding on operators, requiring knowledgeable guys to run it.
Have fun, Otto

[MVW]

Jim, all good points; sometimes less is more. But at least you have the option to grow if the time comes.
Speaking from experience, I've expanded my layout, substantially, twice, and the second expansion probably took me beyond where I needed to be and it's become more difficult to manage and maintain. It's also become more demanding on operators, requiring knowledgeable guys to run it.
Have fun, Otto

Great points, Otto. I don't want a maintenance monster, and I question the availability of regular operators. There are times when I wonder if even this single-level plan is too ambitious. Well, we'll find out over the next few years. When it stops being fun, I'll be the first to know. 

Jim

[MVW]

OK, back to the initial operating session on the Missouri Valley Western.

It was actually 6:32 a.m. by the time the GP escaped from the class track, hustled over and coupled onto the cars waiting on the ready track, and got rolling toward West Cedricsburg with 11 cars in tow. It then:

1) Spotted five reefers at the Armstrong ice plant.



2) Pulled back onto the siding, uncoupled from the train, climbed back up to the mainline and ran around to the other end of the train and coupled back on.

3) Pulled four box cars and a tanker from the West Cedricsburg elevator, and spotted three empty box cars for loading.

4) Did extensive switching (as in too much) at Clinton Cereal. It had to pull a box car from track 2 in order to spot a tanker of vegetable oil, then replace the box car. It then pullled three box cars from the elevator on track 1 in order to spot two empty box cars at the warehouse for loading, then re-spotted the box cars at the elevator. All four box cars that were moved had just been spotted during the previous switch job. Will have to re-think the procedure a bit.



5) Dropped a box car at Doolittle Manufacturing.

6) Picked up the now iced and cooled reefers at the Armstrong plant and spotted them for loading.

It was 11 a.m. when West Cedricsburg Switch Job #3 returned to the yard. The run described above took about 34 real minutes to complete.

[MVW]

Time to wrap up my initial operating session on the MVW.

It was 6:32 a.m. when West Cedricsburg Switch Job #3 left the yard. That's when the S2 got busy classifying the 11 cars the previous switch job had brought back. It took seven engine movements and 11 minutes real time. That's 1 hour, 28 minutes by fast clock, making it 8 a.m. when the job is complete.

There are now 13 cars waiting in the yard to be sent west, and five waiting to be sent east.



The yardman would be idle from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., when Switch Job #3 returned with five cars. All five were headed westbound, so it was a simple matter of four movements of the S2 (and 6 minutes real time) to spot them on the appropriate track. The yardman could clock out again at 11:45 a.m.

The GP left the yard at 11:40 a.m. with the last three reefers to be loaded at Armstrong packing. By 12:16 p.m. they were spotted for icing. The GP then picked up the five loaded reefers at the cold storage building.



The GP came back to pick up the newly iced reefers at 12:32. (That should be enough time to ice 'em.) By 1:04 p.m. they are spotted for loading at cold storage.

I need to leave an adequate amount of time for loading before hustling back to the yard to make the connection with the meat train (The Aksarben) running from Omaha to Chicago. Unfortunately, I have The Aksarben due in at 3:15 p.m. The GP is going to need 6 minutes, 30 seconds to get back to the yard (a runaround is required in West Cedricsburg), and the S2 will need 4 minutes, 30 seconds to spot the reefers for pickup. That's a total of 1 hour, 28 minutes fast time. That means 43 minutes were available for the Armstrong workers to load the three reefers. That's cutting it a little close. Some slight adjustments will be needed.

Anyway, guess what? When these eight loaded reefers are added to the cut of cars waiting to head east, this session is done. And, everything is staged for the next session. There's a cut of 13 cars waiting that will make up the freight incoming from the east, and 18 cars waiting to serve as incoming from the west.



All I need to do is spot these two cuts on the main, and the next session is ready to roll.

For the first time through, things went surprisingly well. The timing of all the train movements worked out pretty well. There was one turnout that gave me a little bit of trouble, but that seems to be working fine now. Otherwise the trackwork was trouble-free. All the coupling and uncoupling was within easy reach. I need to tend to the couplers on the S2, but that's the only issue that came up with rolling stock or motive power. And since 2-3 weeks have passed since I started this session and I haven't cleaned the track since starting, I find that damn encouraging.

I'll make a few tweaks, but this was a huge success. I think I'm ready to start making operator aids and car cards.

Thanks for riding along.

Jim

[MVW]

Created a little graphic for myself to visualize how an opps session like this would play out with two people.



It would be about a 2.5-hour session, simulating a little more than 20 hours. Both operators should be busy about two-thirds of the time. If they switch roles halfway through, they should each get equal doses of switching in the yard and making the switch runs to West Cedricsburg.

It looks like the yard operator could handle making up or breaking down two more trains (three if you really wanted to keep him hopping) during a 24-hour session. So he could handle 4-5 total. Eventually, it will be possible for an operator to work the yard from each end, so (hopefully) that's around 8-10 trains in and out of the yard. And that's pretty much the capacity I was looking for.

I also worked a bit on operator aids, writing descriptions for the switch jobs. But I haven't decided what the finished product is going to look like yet.

Jim

[Specter3]

I like what you are doing Jim. This gives the impression of real railroading.

[MVW]

Getting back to it after about a three-month break. Been busy, and allowed my interest to wander when time was available.

But now I'm gearing up for the second run-through of a solo ops session. It's become a lot easier to visualize the flow of traffic, with cars in position and a newly created (but very rough) set of car cards in hand. No doubt the cards will speed up switching, being a hell of a lot easier to plan off of than the disjointed list on two sheets of scratch paper I used in session #1.

A few notes as the layout sits (tracking this stuff to make sure ops are balanced):

There are 17 cars on train #300 from the Cowboy Line: 2 are bound for Chicago, 4 are bound for the elevator, 6 are bound for Clinton Cereal, and 5 are headed for Armstrong packing.

There are 14 cars inbound from Chicago on The Roundup: 11 are bound for Armstrong packing, 3 are bound for Clinton Cereal.

In my rush to start the first session, I neglected to assign any cars to the fifth industry in West Cedricsburg.  I guess that's somewhat defensible since I'm not sure what it's going to be yet. Nebulous Co., or something. Anyway, I need to start routing some traffic that way. Time to press another 2-3 cars into service.

Anyway, here's the sitch at the four industries I've deigned to serve so far:

Armstrong packing: 5 cars in place, all headed West.

Doolittle Mfg.: 1 car, headed to Chicago

Clinton Cereal: 9 cars in place, 6 headed West and 3 headed to Chicago

Elevator: 3 cars in place, all headed West

[MVW]

I've slowly been rectifying some past sins -- shaving down an unsightly hump in what's supposed to be a flat yard, firming up the benchwork, etc. It's about time I got back to ballasting, but I couldn't quite bring myself to it. Instead, I started slapping up some valances, fascia and "curtains" to hide the storage under the tables.

Before:



With two-foot valances being added:







I debated painting the outside of the valances black, so left one unpainted temporarily to get an idea of whether or not I'd like it dark. Black could look cool, but might be overpowering. I'll be sticking with white for now. Maybe if the valances were smaller ... but they needed to be two feet to adequately hide both rows of lighting on the peninsula. Which is another issue I may revisit.

Anyway, here's a panoramic shot from the room entrance:



Tomorrow, I'm on to some more meaningful progress. Got a lot of track to paint before I begin ballasting in earnest.

Jim

[tappertrainman]

I painted both the valances and the fascias black on my layout (with black curtains my mom sewed together!) and I think it came out really nice.  It really makes the room look presentable, which is good considering the layout is located in my uncle's living room.   

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[Seligman Sub]

Not to get off topic on a already wonderful layout in the making, but I just love the "shadow box" look you have there!  Always have loved that look on layouts.

[MVW]

tappertrainman, that black does look very cool. I like it a lot, and may eventually go that route. Nicely done!

Seligman Sub, thanks for the compliments! I was a little hesitant about going with such deep valances. In fact, I had pretty much discarded the idea, but at the last minute thought I'd give it a try before cutting the hardboard down to size. Turned out to be a good decision, I think. If you stand a foot or more back from the layout, there's no glare in your eyes from the LEDs above the far side of the peninsula. And it certainly does focus attention on the layout.

The downside is that valances this deep greatly reduce ambient light in the room by restricting it to the layout. My LEDs are mounted about 5" outside the layout edge, but this is still a bit too much "high noon" for my tastes. The tops of cars are well-lit, but the sides seem to be in shadow. I'm hoping this may be rectified a bit when I add lighting for the tables going around the walls. I may use shorter valances there, hoping that more light bounces over to illuminate the sides of cars on the peninsula. I'll probably also mount those LEDs further out from the edge of the layout.

The desire to try to take advantage of reflected light as much as possible is why I went with white instead of black for the valance exteriors. In the long run, though, I don't know if it makes much difference.

Jim

[MVW]

First run of ballast and basic ground cover down on a good chunk of mainline and part of the A/D yard.





And on the West Cedricsburg side:





I've been thinking about adding a farm implement dealer between Armstrong packing and the industry at bottom right (in the photo above). It could have a simple unloading ramp alongside one of those tracks running alongside the cold storage building. It wouldn't interfere with reaching in to uncouple reefers on the track closest to the building.

Lots of touch-up to do, but I think it's a decent start.

Jim

[MVW]

The process of slowly adding basic ground cover continues. Now in the process of doing something with the turnback curve at the end of the peninsula. There's less than six feet of track between the west end of Cedricsburg yard (on the left) and the West Cedricsburg industrial area.



Good place for a sedum grove? 



It actually does a pretty decent job as a scenic barrier. When you're following a train, there's no question that your attention is focused on it and the trees, rather than the industry behind it.









It's a work in progress. But at least it's progress!

Jim