Get 'Er Done

For those who know me well, my train time is somewhat haphazard and random. Between my work and family activities, I don't have a spare time I can dedicate to working or running the train. I used to be a little jealous reading the magazines and guys talking about their "Tuesday Ops Session" or their friends coming over to work on the trains every other Friday evening. I just can't manage that sort of regularity at this time.
However, those same magazines talked about keeping a list of projects to work on when you have the time. I used Evernote to keep a list of all the project ideas - large or small - so I can access it from home or my smartphone anytime I have a idea. I don't prioritize them (would be too daunting and disappointing) but anytime I get some time in the train room, I niche away at the list.

Part of my Evernote project list

This week I had a some free evenings and built the industry mockups using Model Builder and foamboard. I really like how the scene turned out.

Building mockups help the operators spot the cars until I can build the real structures

Of course, more time in the train room is not necessarily good. I discovered all the Digitrax panels in Herminie and East McKeesport no longer work. Dang! I swear the were fine when Bruce was here! Must be the mojo he brings over. Ugh, now I have to get under the layout ... again.

Illusions

One of the things I've learned over the many years of reading Model Railroader, Rail Model Craftsman, Model Railroad Hobbyist and other articles is the art of creating an illusion on a layout. For me, the ones that always resonated were  the scenes that hinted more is there.  I created a couple of minor illusions on the last layout, but with the 11' x 24' area I had to work in, there was not a lot I needed to do. In the 10'x10' room the current layout is in, and the fact that it's circular with a peninsula in the middle, I need to create some illusions.

GGS Cabinets is a very shallow building, but still has some "depth"

GGS Cabinets, in the photo above shows an example of how most - probably 75% - of the buildings on the layout will appear. I scratch built this factory using some Evergreen board & batten styrene for the walls, scribed styrene for the interior floor and plain styrene for the roof. It's only about 1-1/2" deep and to strengthen the illusion, the left side of the building (behind the locomotive), there are 3 windows and I will add lighting so you can see the detailed interior of people, stacks of lumber and machinery.

North end of the mine tracks continue beyond the layout

To trick observers into thinking the layout is part of a bigger "world", there are a few areas when the track does not end so much as it disappears into the distance. When the trains are servicing WCC Mine No. 4 in Herminie, PA, it appears that they push the cars down the sidings under the mine and beyond into the hills behind the mine. Of course, the mine is placed at the end of the peninsula so the tracks only extend an inch or two. I needed to protect the cars from falling off the end of the tracks did use end bumpers, instead a clear piece of plastic keeps the cars on the track and creates the feeling that the rails continue beyond. Likewise, in the photo to the right, you can see another piece of plastic protects the end of the P&LE interchange track which is supposed to continue north and connect to the P&LE mainline for Erie PA.

Westbound trains enter East McKessport under Rt 30 bridge

East McKessport is supposed to represent a fairly urban setting but I was not sure how I could pull off a plausible transition from countryside to urban streets. I used the same trick with the same Rt 30 bridge (although it was a little shorter) on the last layout to hide the west (Pittsburgh) staging yard from the active layout.

The layout on Restway Ct used Rt 30 background of photo) to hide the West staging yard (foreground)

On the current layout, I needed a little more than a scenery break, I needed a scenery block because "behind" East McKeesport are the two outer mainline tracks that are also used as my staging tracks. After some considerable thought, a bit of liquid inspiration (beer!) I decided the corner building at the edge of East McKeesport would be a large department store that appears very close the to the highway (this is prototypical for Pittsburgh area) and stretches back to hide the staging tracks and provide the illusion of depth for the scene. I did a quick mockup building and I think it will work very nicely.

While the building hides the staging track, you can still see over it if necessary

First Official Operating Session

Trains were running reasonably well...check. Enough scenery to sketch the illusion of towns and industries...check. Draft of an operating scheme....check. Bruce coming over last Sunday....time for the first official operating session!
AS I said, I had an operating scheme that I thought would work (see the blog post Sketching An Operations Plan) so all I had to do was get the cars on the layout lined up to support the operations plan. Yeah, not an easy task. I had to go through all the waybills which describe where the car is supposed to be routed - 51 not counting the 4 cars on the RIP track and the 6 I pulled off because they were not running AND the RIP track is full (need to get on the Maintenance Department).

Preparing for the operating session

As you can see from the photo, I had to place all the car cards & waybills along the layout and I had 3 cheat sheets to match cars with routes with industries. Took a couple of hours but I felt it was set up as well as could be. I also created a worksheet for the Yardmaster. This would help the Yardmaster put cars on the right yard track and in the correct order.

Yardmasters worksheet

So, how did it work? Remarkably well. With the exception of the curve into Herminie, the cars stayed on the track. More than a few times, we had to nudge the engines to get the trains rolling. Working the yard for the first time, I struggled to keep up with the traffic (note to self - 8 cars on the morning train from Altoona is too much and needs to be in order!) Bruce ran the ALT-12 from Altoon to reacquaint himself with the throttles (good idea for newbies) and ran one eastbound and one westbound train following the the pickup (p/u) and setout (s/o) instructions with some interesting switching moves. We only managed to run 3 of the 9 scheduled trains in a 3 hour operating session but for a first run, I was thrilled!
In addition, we validated the layout design meeting my operating desires. At the end, Bruce said he understood better what I wanted to accomplish and wondered if he could have done something different to further those goals. Given the space constraints, I doubt it.I am very happy with what we created together and I think it will continue to provide years of fun!

Anatomy Of A Train Run

So let's see what is involved in "running trains" on my layout. We'll jump onboard EM-15, the afternoon westbound known as the Heinz Transfer. We are just connecting on the road engine, a GP9 number 7046 which the S-1 yard switcher doubles back after adding the cabin car at the end of the train. The yardmaster has already made the train based on our work today with the first two boxcars (PRR 77100 and GD 8409) bound for LAS Fabrics in East McKeesport, the next two (NW 361508 and PRR 83397) headed to PPG and the last two cars (PLE 30399 and Heinz Pickle Tank car 73) for the Heinz factory.

EM-15, the Heinz Transfer, prepares to leave the yard

After passing through the neigboring towns (making a couple loops of the layout), we approach East McKeesport, first dropping the cabin car next to Vic's Bait & Tackle.

We leave the cabin car next to Vic's to leave plenty of room for working around the train

Next, we pull the train into the south passing track (closest to the aisle), we we will drop the train and run the engine forward to the next switch, then back into position to pull the cars from LAS Fabrics.

Leave the train on the south passing track, run the engine back to clear the siding

 We pull the boxcars from the siding and push them out of the way on the north passing siding. Next, we connect to the rear of the train and back almost to Vic's to clear the switches, this was why we dropped the cabin car all the way back here. Simple now to push the front two cars of the train onto the siding and leave them.

After pulling the cars from LAS Fabrics, leave them on the passing siding

We push the train onto the passing siding where we connect with the two cars we picked up from the siding, placing them at the front of the train. The engine uses the south passing track to run around to the front, connect to the train and push back to pick up the cabin car. All done in East McKeesport, time to head to the PPG and Heinz factories which share a siding.

EM-15 reassembled and ready for the next work assignment

The work on the PPG / Heinz siding is much the same except we use both mainlines. First leave the train on the north track and run around to pull the cars from the siding and place them on the south track.

Dropping the cars pulled from the siding on the south mainline before dropping off the cars for these industries

We connect with the cabin car and pull the train back, leaving the first two cars which we had picked up in East McKeesport. We push the first two cars for PPG in front of the factory, then pull back to drop the next two cars at Heinz. We push the cabin car at end of the cars on the south mainline, then pulled the train back to connect with the cars we left on the north mainline.

Pushing the cars on the siding, placing them at each factory

We run around the train, reconnect and head through the towns (around the loop) back to the Irwin Yard at the end of our day.

Second Solo Operating Session

I only did a few things on the layout this weekend. I cut two sample boards to test my idea of a shelf for working with the car cards & waybills. They are the size I need and cut to form a right angle in the corner of Herminie but I am not positive on how I want to have them mounted to the fascia. I might get to that next weekend and will post a picture then.
I did managed some time to do test runs of the next two trains on the schedule. I had planned to alternate the eastbound and westbound trains but instead focused on just the success of running a train out of the yard, performing the work at the siding and bringing it back. So I ended up running the first two westbound trains on the schedule.

First two westbound trains for the day

I have not even named these trains yet (another thing for next weekend) but the purpose of the first westbound is to head to East McKeesport (around a couple of loops through the neighboring towns) and work the front two sidings for May Stern Furniture (east or right end) and the industries on the left siding which include Stetson Convention Service and Allegheny Cold Storage. Unlike the first solo run I documented in my last blog entry, I would be encountering both a facing point (the engine faces forward to enter the siding) and a trailing point (the engine backs down the siding). Since the object is to get all the cars BEHIND the locomotive, working a trailing point switch is easier than a facing point.
Bruce did an excellent job placing not one but two runaround tracks here in East McKeesport. The engine cuts off from the rest of the train and pulls the cars off the May Stern siding, then pulls the cars destined for May Stern off the train and run arounds them to push them onto the siding. Next, I pulled the cars from the other siding, place them out of the way on the farther roundaround track before pulling the rest of the cars from the train and pushing them on the empty siding. Finally, I assemble a the return train with the cars I pulled from the siding using the passing track as necessary to get on the right side of the cars and head back to Irwin.
The next train I ran out is even more interesting as its purpose is to work LAS Fabrics and the siding for PPG/Heinz...both facing point switches! I'll detailed that in my next blog entry.
One of the things I am realizing as I run through the timetable by myself is (a) I need to have these trains made up in the yard in order to send them out. And if you think that's a "well, duh!" moment, you should have seen me scrambling for (b) I need to have enough cars on the layout for all these trains!
Yeah, who would have ever guess that was a problem.

First Run - Train UN-2

After getting a chance to run some mock trains with Bruce last weekend, and a couple of friends commenting on my Facebook posts of the progress on the layout, I decided to focus a little more this weekend on operations. The trains are running pretty smoothly on the mainline and most of the dust has been cleaned off the sidings. The first train of the day, on the PRR Irwin District Timetable No. 4, is UN-2 known as the Uniontown Trick*.

First 2 eastbound trains on the timetable

This train only has 2 jobs - pull the cars from Dailey Coal & Fuel in Uniontown, to free the spur for a delivery later in the day, and work Tracks 1 and 4 at WCC Mine No. 4 in Herminie. Since the switch leading into Uniontown is only about 12" (85 HO scale feet) from the Irwin Yard, I decided the way to "stretch" the layout is to run the train around the layout twice between servicing towns. So, UN-2 pulled out of the Irwin Yard and passed through some of the towns on the line before slowing in Uniontown. The engine uncouples and heads into the lead track to pick up the first car.

UN-2 engine 8604 stops at G.G.S. Cabinets as the switchman throws the switch to the Dailey track

Dailey's typically use 2 hoppers and 1 tank car on this daily run, so the engine pulls the empty tank car (MTY) before coming back to get the two empty hoppers. There are two reasons for two trips instead of pulling all 3 cars at once. First, the track lead can only hold the loco and 2 cars. Second, PRR safety rules note that there must always be a car between a tank car and either the engine or the cabin car when running on the main.

Enginer 8604 comes back for the two hopper cars

Once the train is reconnected and brake lines cleared, the train pulls out of Uniontown with 2 hopper cars, the tank car, and the empty hopper cars destined for WCC Mine No. 4. A couple of loops around the layout to cover the "distance" between Uniontown and Herminie.

Simulating distance, UN-2 runs around the layout twice before pulling into Herminie

In Herminie, the engine pulls the loaded hoppers from Track 1 as well as the empty boxcar from Track 4 before pushing a new boxcar of supplies on Track 4 and the empty hoppers from the Irwin Yard on Track 1. While this sounds quick and simple, it takes a few moves to clear the tracks, put the right cars on the correct tracks and ensure the safety rule holds - idler cars between the engine, tank car and cabin car - before the train can depart Herminie and run a couple times around to return to the Irwin Yard where the engine is cut off and sent to the Engine track. Switcher 9238 then breaks the train down for the next operating session.

Placing the supply boxcar on Track 4

Overall, I was very happy with how this initial operating run performed. I did encounter a couple of hopper cars with problems - ironically, two of the newest ones I built.

A few more test runs for the other trains on the schedule and I will start holding operating sessions for my buddies. I think the layout will keep 2-3 people busy and hope there will be enough room for us to move around each other. Otherwise - awesome!

*I am still working on the train designations so some of these may change over time.

Little Steps

I had hoped for a good weekend working on the layout and it ended up being a great weekend! Friday night and late Saturday morning, I spent some time tweaking a few projects preparing for Bruce to come over and work on the train. I made signs for Camp Bruce and G.G.S. Cabinets and added people inside the factory. I installed some telephone poles along Rt 993 into Uniontown and finished making a large batch of trees for Bruce and I to work on the hills.

Uniontown Hill with campers and Camp Bruce sign

Bruce was excited about the progress I had made so far and we set about working on the two hills. I could only go so far because I have a structure I need to build and place before I put anymore trees around. Bruce did a great job on the scenery for the hill in Herminie and he decided that the tunnels needed some weathering showing years of steam engines passing through the portals - very realistic.

Work Bruce did on the hill in Herminie

We pulled down some of the buildings I have up on the shelf - most are only partially built or custom cut for the previous layout and started talking about how some of them could still be incorporated into the layout. One of the buildings, a switch tower my Dad made out of cardstock probably years before I was born received a paint job and now sits next to the East Yard in Irwin.

My dad built the switchtower out of cardstock and balsa wood strips

We did get a chance to run the trains - and they ran quite well - so I had Bruce do a couple of switching assignments and learning how to handle the car cards (waybills will come later on - I still have to set them up!) Before he left, he took a couple of photos from some new angles that look really, really good.

The track lead in Uniiontown,with G.G.S/ Cabinets to the right

Under WCC Mine No. 4

West entrance to the Irwin Yard

Looking the other way from the West Yard towards Vic's Bait & Tackle

Finally, he wanted a picture of the owner. Layout looks good...the owner so-so!