Improving Operations

Jack came over last week and we ran the trains using the scheme Eric and I have perfecting. Basically, I have eliminated all through freights and focus on local trains servicing Irwin as they head west from Greensburg to Pittsburgh or east from Pittsburgh to Greensburg. It starts with a westbound freight and more or less alternates back and forth.

• Westbound freight stops in Irwin to pick up cars bound for Pittsburgh and leaves anything for the local work (cars routed to Irwin, E. McKeesport including traffic for P&LE there, and Herminie)
• Eastbound collects cars from the P&LE interchange in E. McKeesport, stops in Irwin for drop offs (d/o) and pick ups (p/u). Continues to Greensburg.
• P&LE comes from Erie (staging) and shuffles cars placing PRR bound traffic on the interchange before heading back to Erie.
• Eastbound collects interchange traffic and exchanges at Irwin yard before continuing to Greensburg.
• Eastbound p/u from West Penn Power and Irwin Industrials, exchanges in Irwin.
• Westbound exchanges cars in Irwin.

One of the westbound trains should have serviced the Stetson Convention/May Stern siding and placed the cars pulled from the siding on the interchange track to head back to Irwin. The yard in Irwin had two full westbound trains at one point - about 5 cars for P&LE and another 5 for Pittsburgh - so I called for an extra, getting a engine/cabin car to run light from Greensburg, get the Pittsburgh bound and pull them off the layout to west staging.

I ran the Irwin yard including servicing Heinz, LAS Fabrics and runs to the Westmoreland Coal Company in Herminie. Jack ran all the other trains including the extra and the P&LE trick.

What I am learning is that I need to keep a sequence of numbered trains and I am researching what would work best:  TR-49, TR-51, TR-52 where even numbers are East or something like PGH-53, GRN-12, PHILA-22 as better mnemonics. Also, traffic in E. McKeesport is too dense for the P&LE trick if I leave a car on every siding. Finally, I can do a lot with the car cards if I keep just the color coding and worry about specific industries sometime down the road. More on this later.

Now I just need to make a few adjustments and re-staging for an operating session this week!