Quarantine Layout Work and Op Session

As a result of Ohio's Stay At Home Orders and the completion of my bathroom remodel, I've been able to put more time than usual into getting construction of the layout back on track.

Several weeks ago I was lucky enough to score a nicely priced used NCE Pro Radio setup. My current NCE PowerCab was adequate for the moment but I knew it was not going to be able to handle future layout additions without an upgrade.

I installed the NCE Command Station under Pine Valley yard connected to its own power strip so turning off the layout would be a simple flip of a switch near the stairs going up. I do need to find a good home for the radio antenna but for now it's working just fine sitting nearby the Command Station.

NCE Power Pro

When I replaced the removable layout sections between Adena and Pine Valley Yard I not only added a backdrop seen in my previous post but I also added a turnout for a short spur leading to a coal mine truck dump. This small tipple was located just east of Adena Yard at this location. In the NKP Physical Data Book from 1954 this loading location was called the Toni #1 mine and was operated by the Bedway Coal Co. and the Amber Coal Co. The Toni #1 mine loaded 2,106 cars in 1953 which works out to 5 or 6 cars a day.
With the layout back in working order after adding the new DCC system upgrade and my first coal tipple spur, my son Brendan pointed out that we should have a operating session. Given the current situation it was a great idea for something new and different we could do and also act as a small proof of concept test for the layout.

East of the Adena Wye I have about 15 feet of track loosely installed mostly for some extra running room. For an operating session this track would act as "Brewster staging" and could hold two trains of empty hoppers eastbound for Adena. These timetable extra trains would drop off their empty hoppers at Adena, Herrick or Pine Valley for the mine run jobs to then take to the area mines. After dropping off their empty hoppers these extra trains would then pick up about 50-60 loaded coal hoppers at the Adena marshalling yard and head back to Brewster. On a copy of a train dispatchers sheet from May 25th 1950 I counted seven of these trains bringing in around 300 empties to Adena/Herrick Yards and hauling out 402 loaded coal hoppers back to Brewster.

Brendan wanted one timetable fast freight so he made up a westbound train of boxcars and gondolas which I mistakenly named it #81 out of Mingo Jct (it should've been #87). Since there is no staging yard yet that represents the Ohio River destinations (Mingo Jct and Terminal Junction/Martins Ferry) our #81 had to sit in Pine Valley Yard and wait for the two Adena bound empty hopper trains to first leave the mainline staging east of Adena.

Also called out of Pine Valley today was a helper to assist trains up the westbound grades, a mine run to work the new Toni #1 mine and a Pine Valley roustabout to switch the freight house, pull cabooses and other duties.

Brendan and I spent a evening staging the trains and car spots on the layout and called it a night.

The next day after dinner I talked my wife Jessica in joining us which was probably her first time running anything serious on the layout. About 30 minutes before we were going to start I realized I needed some kind of job aid for people to follow! So I quickly threw together cards for each job describing what duties the train was expected to perform. Future paperwork for the trains will be vastly better but this op session was hastily organized and only a family affair.

I brought in the first train of empties into Adena Yard as extra #763 while my wife took the helper Extra #688 to Adena to wait for westbound trains to assist. Brendan worked the Pine Valley roustabout readying a cut of cars for my 763 to grab after a set out and take back to Adena. This is where the first real trouble started. With the Timetable Freight #81 taking up one of three yard tracks and the others full of cars, as soon as Extra 763 entered the yard it was instantly clogged. There was no where for the 763 to run around and leave with a cut of cars. This won't be a problem when the east end Ohio River staging yard is added in the future.

Jessica in control of Extra 688 passing the new Toni #1 mine spur.

Brendan and I worked our way out of the clogged yard situation and soon Extra 763 returned to Adena Yard. Brendan took Extra 772 with more empties into Adena yard to clear the mainline west of Adena. I coupled the 763 up to a string of loaded coal hoppers and followed my orders to wait for extra 772 and #81 to pass by.

An overview of the action at Adena Yard, with no way to turn engines at the moment they would have to run backwards.

While the 772 was getting settled with its train of loaded hoppers and orders to wait for #81, Jessica crewed the brand new SD-9 #358 to power #81 to Brewster.

NKP SD-9 #358 coupling onto #81 out of Pine Valley Yard.

Once #81 reached the end of the line east of Adena we were surprised to find an hour and a half had quickly passed by and called it a night. I'm always amazed at how fast time can pass when immersed in any kind of operating session.

The next day Brendan and I finished up by running extra 763 and 772 west out of Adena and quickly clogged up the mainline all the way to he Adena wye. If we do this again I'll have to add another track or two as temporary westbound staging.

A hastily made job card for Extra 772

I had Brendan run mine run extra #942 so he could work the new mine spur. Extra #942's job card called for grabbing 4 empties at Adena, setting those out at the Toni #1 mine and pull any loaded hoppers, set those loads out at Adena and return to Pine Valley taking anything headed that way with it.

NKP 2-6-6-2 #942 sitting next to the posterboard Pine Valley Yard Office stand in.

Mine Run Extra 942 crossing the Short Creek bridge just east of Adena Yard.

Overall I'd call the hastily organized op session a success since most importantly we had fun! Although if I'd kept a list of problems encountered (tip for next time) I bet it would've been at least a page or two long. Aside from needing to get some kind of turnout control in place, there were some derailment problems with two yard turnouts, probable wheel gauge issues in several cars that apparently escaped a basic checkup, an engine that suddenly didn't want to run and another engine that needs a not Bachmann better decoder installed.

As I was writing this blog post Ohio Governor DeWine has called for a extension to the stay at home order until at least May 1st. Looks like the layout will get some extra attention for even longer.

W&LE Caboose 0204 leaving Adena on Extra 772 back to Brewster.

Not-So-Wordless Wednesday #142 - Train Movement Sheet - Update

Interesting train movements along the Ohio River appear from deciphering a Dispatcher's sheet for the Toledo Mainline and all Branch lines east of Brewster.

I'm still slowly working through Mike Mathie's NKP Dispatcher's Record of Train Movements sheet I scanned last year converting the data into a couple of spreadsheets. This time sheet covered Brewster to the Ohio River including my modeling area of Adena for the date of 5/25/1950. This kind of data is nothing short of invaluable for recreating traffic and planning for future operating sessions. 

A unfortunate side effect of this data is the desire to purchase a Broadway Limited PRR I1sa 2-10-0 as seen in the Pennsy movement on NKP tracks to the Y&O Dorthy #1 Mine. The PRR and NKP traded working the mine every other year, apparently the PRR had the even years. Coincidentally I have a Bowser PRR Cabin #477188, just a few numbers off the protoype that worked out of the Pennsy's Mingo Junction Yard. I don't have plans (space) to model this interesting movement but maybe a basement (house) upgrade in the future will allow me to recreate this traffic up and down the NKP's Ohio River tracks.

Update:

I could've sworn I had posted sometime in November or December 2016 about scanning NKP/W&LE Dispatcher's Record of Train Movements sheets. Fellow NKP modeler Mike Mathie was gracious enough to lend me two of his Dispatchers sheets, one for Brewster to the Ohio River lines and the other for the Cleveland to Zanesville lines. Both date to May 1950 and are a fascinating detailed look into a single day of operations on the NKP's new Wheeling District.

Below are a few quick photos I took before I scanned both sheets and stitched them together in Photoshop.

Brewster East sheet

Cleveland sheet, Carrolton Branch

Brewster East sheet, Adena and AC&NA Branches Eastbound

Some Observations...

By the mid 1950's all W&LE engines and caboose still have their original numbers, although the engines would have begun to have their W&LE lettering replaced with the Nickel Plate Road script.
On these sheets no W&LE cabooses had been repainted yet. The P&WV is still running steam and diesels in the Brewster - Rook pool. The only NKP influence that can be seen is H-6 Mikados 633, 643 and 647 have been assigned to duty on the Wheeling.

NKP Wheeling District Coal Production in 1953

A vast majority of my railroad research is on my computer, which is backed up to a network attached storage device and one other location(back up your data!). I do have a small pile of the real important stuff printed out and clipped together for easy access and portability. 

The one thing I tend to look at the most is the mine data. The best source of this information comes from the Nickel Plate Road's own book, "1954 Physical Data and Other Information of Interest: Wheeling & Lake Erie District and the Lorain & West Virginia Railway Company". This is more than just a good source for the mines but also bridges, online facilities, rail weight, grades, curves, interchange data with other railroads and other info. I found this on the Nickel Plate Road Historical & Technical Society's great website at http://nkphts.org/databooks/

Instead of constantly paging through my copy of the NKP Physical Data book looking for a particular mine, I decided to compile all the mine info in one nice spreadsheet.

Here's the link for spreadsheet below, I also added it to the left on my blog's front page under Useful Links.

Nickel Plate Road - Wheeling District Coal Production, Brewster to the Ohio River in 1953

As you can see the from the spreadsheet, this small chunk of the Wheeling District had an output of almost 195,000 hopper cars of coal in 1953. The tiny 10 mile long AC&NA Branch accounted for almost half that production alone!

Hanna Coal Co.'s Georgetown Preparation Plant on the AC&NA Branch. Nearing completion in this photo it will be responsible for loading almost 72,000 cars of coal for the NKP and PRR in 1953.

Now I need to figure out how many days a year a typical mine was in operation to figure out how many cars per day on average would've been produced. My hope is to get a close representation of how many cars the different mine runs would handle and help plan for each mine's track work for car capacity.

If you can offer any insight into that area feel feel to contact me or leave a comment!

Using this data I can see how much coal was being produced and where some of it was going. Coupling that information with other aspects of I've read about operations, I can begin to construct the larger operational picture without having all the needed details from station books, train order forms and stories from real railroaders all of which I'm sorely lacking. Although these would still be extremely useful if anybody has anything to share, stories, paper, etc!

An eye opening experience

In the 25 years that I can call myself a model railroader, I've never had the opportunity to participate in any sort of a real operating session. I was a member of a local model railroad club in my teens where this could have been a possibility, but they just "ran" trains and bickered with one another mostly. I've read plenty of magazines, books, online forum posts and watched videos about op sessions, but I know its one thing to read about it and another to actually do it.

Well, a couple of Fridays ago I finally got my chance. My friend Tim Moran got me invited to a operating session of Jerry Jordak's Penn Central E&P Branch set in 1969.

More info can be found at
http://pc.smellycat.com/eriepitt/index.html

I was broken in as the engineer on a two man crew with Tim with a short switch job out of Moravia Yard to a near by concrete/aggregate plant. After that we took a local job to switch an industrial area in New Castle, PA on the Houston secondary track, we would later return with another local to work this area again.

Switching in New Castle, PA

Our power for those trips was a nice little Bowser sound equipped Pennsylvania S-12 (I think) renumbered for Penn Central as 8161. Here we are back at Moravia Yard with our PRR cabin.

PC ex PRR S-12 8161 at Moravia Yard engine terminal

Later I would run a few hot auto part freights across the layout out of and back into staging yards and a large coal train with some impressive Alco six axle power.

I didn't have much time to chat while working but I found everyone to be very nice and welcoming. Jerry, the host, was great and took time to show me around the layout and explain his vision and enough of the procedures before I joined in. I'm glad things were a bit more informal than I anticipated as the signaling system isn't in place yet and movements were mostly controlled verbally with a central dispatcher/tower operator. All these factors made my first operating session very relaxed and a complete blast!

Aside from learning a lot about running trains in an operating environment I tried to absorb all I could about the environment I was operating in and how that translates to layout design and the things I want to accomplish on my Adena Railroad plan.

1. I was very shocked to see how much time was spent working that industrial area in New Castle. I think Tim and I were there for almost and hour or so moving maybe 6 or 7 cars around. Initially looking at that area I would not have thought that could be possible. Sure having a two man crew slowed things down but I was still surprised at the passage of time doing what seemed to be a little job.
2. While Jerry's layout isn't large in it's current state (phase 1) it's size worked nicely for the 7 people that were there and kept everybody in what seemed to be the right amount of busy.
3. I felt a little longer mainline run would make running though freights not feel like a quick drive-by. I can't blame the layout completely for that as phase 2 will take care of that issue. I also did not have any of the through freights that made car drops at Moravia Yard which would have extended the run time feeling.
4.  An isolated operators aisle can be tricky to enter and exit and something I would try to avoid in my plans, although I understand why it was necessary in Jerry's plans. I'm still young and can stoop down to get under benchwork now but who knows in another 10 or 15 years.
5. My first experience with Digitrax wasn't as bad (I use NCE), but it was the wireless control that got my attention. It was really cool to not have to plug in your controller and worry about the cord. Definitely the way to go on a layout were walking around is required, even "small/medium" layouts.
6. Hidden staging didn't seem to be an inconvenience or problematic. I should say well built hidden staging like Jerry's didn't seem to be an inconvenience or problematic.
7. As I've seen on other layouts in my reading, small work areas are handy for the operators.

Hidden staging and operator work space.

I took a lot from my first operating session, most important that it really doesn't take that much railroad to entertain a small group of people.

One thing for sure, it has me taking a hard look at my plans.

Thanks again to everybody for having me that night.