A Few Words on Wordless Wednesday #30

This is not the Valley Local.  It's PDX-2, the New London-Cedar Hill (Shoreline) local at Rocky Neck (East Lyme, CT).  The date & photographer are unknown, though I suspect the photographer may be Kent Cochrane and the date is likely c. 1947. I include the photo here since PDX-2 during this time served the lower end of the Valley Line, swung off the Shoreline at Old Saybrook and headed up the Valley through Essex & Deep River to interchange cars with the Valley Local at East Haddam.

K-1d #363 is doing the honors on what looks like a beautiful summer day, hauling a relatively short - but interesting - train of 6(?) cars.  First car is a reefer of some sort, then a wagontop boxcar, outside-braced boxcar, looks like 2 gondolas, unknown boxcar (PRR X-29?) and caboose - most likely an NE-4 wood caboose (which was built on a shorty boxcar frame in the late 1920s).

Looks like the fireman is dutifully facing forward, as you'd expect. But just a minute ago he probably took advantage of the fact that he was on the outside of the curve (and thus couldn't see much ahead anyway), and on the correct side of the locomotive to check out all the pretty girls on the beach.  You see, Rocky Neck was (and is) a very popular state park with a beautiful beach - and the beach is just out of sight beneath the overpass.

Even if PDX-2 didn't figure in my layout's operating scheme, this would still be a great train to model.  Heck, this could be a great scene to model, given the distinctive overpass in the background and the beautifully manicured double-track Shoreline mainline (are you paying attention PeteL?). If you don't mind the overpass splitting the scene, you could even model the beach - and the bathing beauties, if you were so inclined (though good luck finding period-appropriate figures). It also wouldn't be too difficult to just have the overpass on the left end of the scene and focus your attention on the beach - just like our attentive fireman.

It's photos like these that make prototype modeling (and the time travel that it makes possible) so compelling. Unfortunately, there won't be any room on my layout for any part of this particular scene, but the train itself will definitely play a significant role on the Valley Line.

Wordless Wednesday #30

Tuesday Tip: Time Travel with Maps

If you're a prototype modeler, you probably enjoy finding where old photographs of your railroad were taken. If you're lucky and the trees haven't encroached too much, you may even be able to replicate the scene. If you're really good, you can then morph between the two photos and see the old view morph into the new view and vice-versa (click here to see how Bill Schneider did this to great effect).

Well, today I discovered a way to do that with maps.  We prototype modelers rely heavily on maps to show us where our ROW went, what tracks were there, the buildings, etc.  But depending on what era you model, things could have - and probably did - change dramatically over the years.  If you want to see how, run - do not walk - over to the USGS's Historical Topographic Map Explorer. There you can enter the location you're interested in, click on the map of the location when it pops up, and the software will give you a timeline across the bottom with links to all the maps available for that location, plotted on the timeline by date and scale.

I'm familiar with parachuting into old maps online, but now that I've started playing with this new tool, it's really fun to toggle back and forth between today and "the past."  Bonus: the older your prototype and the earlier it was abandoned, the more fun it is.

So go check it out - but if after seeing the old maps you discover you did something wrong with your trackwork or building placement, don't blame me!

Spreadsheets & Switchlists: It's How I Roll (my trains)

Clearance Card, Train Order, Switchlist

How do you operate your railroad once you have the track down and the trains running? There are a number of different ways to operate your railroad beyond "just watching the trains go by" and if you're trying to stay true to a specific prototype railroad, there's only one right answer to how you operate your model railroad: "However the prototype operated."

On my railroad - and as far as I can tell, on my prototype - there three essential items of paperwork each local freight crew receives to operate their train:

• Clearance Card Form A - gives you authority to move your train and tells you what train orders you have.
• Train Order Form 19 - tells you how/where you're authorized to move your train and what, if any, meets you may have with other trains.
• Switchlist - tells you what cars are in your train, including road name, car number, and destination.

Unlike on the prototype where their use is required, Clearance Cards and Train Orders aren't actually necessary on our model railroads - but having them certainly heightens authenticity and reminds you that you're operating a train according to the Rules.  But you have to know what to do with the cars in your train. That's where the switchlist comes in.

When a freight train leaves the yard, the conductor has a list of all the cars in his train.  This initial list - also called a "wheel report" - tells the conductor where all those cars are destined.  As the train arrives at each town, the conductor already knows if he has any cars in his train destined for industries in that town.  But he doesn't know what, if any, cars he needs to pick up in that town.  So, he checks with the freight agent for that town and the agent gives him a switchlist that tells him what cars need to be picked up and where they're destined.

This is why the agent (aka Agent-Operator or A-O) is so important. If you don't have someone to actually perform the agent's task of writing up switchlists (and depending on how many towns/industries you have, it could be a lot of work), you could simulate the agent's position by following prototype practice for when an agent wasn't on duty: put the switchlist in a box located at the station (or on the fascia at the town).  I went into a bit more detail about the A-O's job here.

On most model railroads, the A-O's job is usually simulated with bill boxes at each town and in the typical setup, those boxes hold car cards & waybills which contain instructions on what to do with the cars. The cards are flipped between operating session to simulate orders for cars and shipments of commodities. 

While many folks use this 4-cycle waybill/car card system, that doesn't seem very authentic to me. The freight cars always go the same four places in the same order that the waybill cards are flipped. It makes railroading seem more like a card game than actually responding to customer requests. And I find the cards annoying to carry around and difficult to manage without putting them on the layout for sorting and such.

But without car cards & waybills, how does the A-O know what to put on the switchlist?  That's where the Spreadsheet comes in.

Randy discovered an Excel spreadsheet developed by Mike Rose that simulates customer requests by "ordering" cars to be delivered to different industries & spotting locations, telling you what cars need to be picked up, and what cars to leave alone. It does this by calculating the probability of a particular car type being delivered to a customer or a loaded car that's ready to be picked up. See pic below.

Columns L-R are: Industry, Car Type, Frequency, Occupied?, PickUp, Deliver, Notes

Detailed directions on how to use the spreadsheet can be found here, and it was developed primarily for switching layouts. But I've used it for my railroad for a few sessions now and have been very satisfied with how it generates traffic for local freights - even multiple trains on two different lines. I suspect it could be further adapted for even more trains, but this is how I use it:

1. For the first session, you'll need to place cars at your industries in a way that makes sense to you, based on commodity (car type) and where it came from (car roadname) (e.g. flatcars at lumber companies, hoppers at coal companies, etc).  But for subsequent sessions, all you'll need to do is go around and indicate on the spreadsheet where cars actually are (what spots are currently occupied). Time required: unknown for initial session, about 5-10 minutes of walking around your layout with your iPad, smartphone, or laptop for subsequent sessions.
2. The "Deliver" column tells you what cars have to be in your train (or, in my case "trains"). I populate my trains with the types of cars indicated in the "Deliver" column.  While I could just pick any boxcar from my stash to fulfill the "deliver boxcar" request, I choose roadnames of railroads that would most likely have delivered to this particular industry.  For example, on the spreadsheet above, I need to deliver a boxcar to Wethersfield Lumber.  I imagine (and if I had enough research, I could actually know) that Wethersfield Lumber most often got its lumber from Canada.  So I'd put a boxcar from a Canadian railroad in my train to be delivered.
3. Generally speaking, on my layout I'll populate the Valley Local with the cars that are destined for Valley Line customers, and populate the Air Line Local with the cars that are to be delivered to customers on the Air Line. To make things interesting though, I'll often put some cars on the Valley Local which are destined for Air Line customers and (as was actually true for deliveries of Pennsylvania anthracite to Valley Coal in Wethersfield, for example) will put cars on the Air Line Local that are destined for customers on the Valley Line.  Since I'm benevolent when playing the role of yardmaster, I'll put these "transfer" cars at the end of the train since they'll be swapped in Middletown - the meeting and turn-around point for both locals. Time required for steps 2 & 3: about 20-30 mins.
4. Next, I'll write up a "wheel report" for each train on a switchlist form that tells the conductor what cars are in his train, and where those cars go.  This bit of paperwork is clipped to the Clearance Card and Train Orders and given to the conductor of each train at the start of the session. Time required: approx 15-20 mins.
5. Lastly, I'll write up a switchlist for each town.  This will tell the conductor what cars he needs to pick up, from what industries, and where they are going.  If I have an actual A-O, he can do this during the session - he only needs to be sure the switchlist is ready to give to the crew when they arrive in town. If I don't have anybody working the A-O job, I'll need to prepare these lists ahead of time and leave them at each town - either in a bill box or, until I have bill boxes, clipped to the fascia at the town. Time required: varies depending on traffic.

And that's "it" - seems like a lot, but I can tell you from experience that it sounds much more difficult & involved than it actually is. And when the session is over, you don't have to audit anything or worry about whether your crews kept good track of their car cards/waybills and/or delivered the cars properly - your cars are already set up for the next session.

IMO this system does a better job of simulating the "organic" nature of freight traffic - and, just like the prototype, gives the A-O his pile of work to do. The A-O takes the customer requests generated by the spreadsheet, assigns cars to trains depending on where the cars are going, and writes up switchlists to tell the crews what cars to deliver/pull while working out on the line.

Best of all, if you have a lot of cars and dread having to create car cards for all of them and waybills too, this system will get you up-and-running much faster.  It'll mean some work during (if not before) each operating session, but if you - or a friend - is willing to act as the A-O you've just added another "job" to your railroad. There's no pre-session car setup required, and you don't have to worry that your previous session "screwed up the railroad" by delivering cars to the wrong places.  You just have to go around and indicate where cars actually are, print out the result, and write up your switchlist(s).

I'd be very interested to hear of anybody else using switchlists rather than CC&WB to operate their railroad. And if you use Mike Rose's spreadsheet to generate the traffic, I'd be especially interested to know how you went about tweaking  the "Excess Delivery Probability," "Leave Occupied Probability," and "Days/Week" fields.

I still have a lot to learn about operations and I've only used this spreadsheet/switchlist system for a few operating sessions, but I like it a lot so far.  Even better - if not even more importantly - my operators like it. They like not having to juggle & keep track of car cards & waybills and, while they may not always enjoy having to walk to the "station" to report to the agent, they appreciate the authenticity of the task. It probably helps that I also "on sheet" them each time they report and indicate the (fast) time on their paperwork as I deliver it to them.  This all contributes to a heightened sense of realism and, if I'm doing my job right, gives them at least a little glimpse of what it must have been like to operate a local freight train down the Connecticut River Valley in the late 1940s.

Wordless Wednesday #29

(July Ops Session Photos by Pieter Roos)

What's On My Workbench

I don't know about you, but I enjoy hearing about what others are doing in the hobby, what progress they're making on their layouts, what they're building, etc.  I suspect that may be true for you too and may be why you check in here from time to time. Problem is, blogging about modeling can sometimes be a zero-sum game: if you're modeling, you probably don't have much time to blog about it. If you're blogging, you're not modeling. And, of course, if you're not modeling, you'll eventually run out of blog fodder and chaos will ensue.

So, I decided to inaugurate a new - though occasional - feature, "What's On My Workbench" - where I'll just take a quick snapshot of, um, what's on my workbench, and give you a little description of what you're seeing & what I'm up to. For me, it'll provide a quick & easy way not only to document my efforts, but to share them with you. For you, I hope it inspires you to share your own progress photos - or get started so you actually have something on your workbench.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get a little fancier in the future with my arrows and such - but these posts are all about a quick snapshot, and "quick" is all you get when working with MS Paint. So, without any further ado...

1. C&BT Shops carbodies for New Haven 33000 series steel boxcars. These are the cars I started while on vacation. Yeah, I'm still not done - but getting close. One of the kits was missing a ladder and a truck sideframe, the other was missing weights, the included wheels are godawful and must be replaced, etc. I'll go into the build in more detail in a later post, but suffice it to say that these will just be to fill out my roster a bit for now.
2. C&BT Shops underbodies. The one on the left has weights I pilfered from my scrap box, affixed with silicone. Old silicone. Perhaps too old. Over 24 hrs and the silicone is still tacky...
3. IMWX (Innovative Model Works) carbody of a New Haven 30000 series steel boxcar. The IMWX is a much nicer, more detailed kit - and the parts are as delicate as they are beautiful. I'm looking forward to this build, but first step is to remove the warp from the car sides. Strangely, they were bowed out rather than in, as usually happens. A pair of rubber bands will (hopefully) straighten things out.
4. Another IMWX carbody, with the same warp but much less severe. Rubber bands would have been overkill, so I'm just pressing the sides in with some weight.
5. IMWX car roof. Guess what? Warped. But, again, only slightly. I'm hoping a little weight - with the ends supported by matchsticks to allow a deeper counter-bend - will do the trick. Would you do anything different about the warping? I've heard about heating in an oven, but wasn't sure of the right temperature.

Those are the major items, though I still am working on modifying a New Haven I-4 tender into a clear vision version for my J-1 2-8-2. And I have to add some sideview mirrors to my MiniMetals Richfield tank truck I just got. Oh - and of course I still have to finish my (now not so) quick & dirty Middletown Tower. But otherwise, the rest of the photo just shows the usual flotsam & jetsam of the typical modeler's workbench.

So, to paraphrase a famous slogan: "What's on your workbench?"

Modeling on vacation and/or in a small space

Well, I didn't get as much modeling accomplished while on vacation as I'd hoped.  No surprise, really. I'd taken an even dozen boxcar kits to build - enough for a full week of rainy days. But the weather turned out to be much nicer than predicted and, even with a just-about-ideal work space, it was hard not to spend some time outside. But I did get a couple of boxcars almost done.

So, in lieu of photos of actual progress, I'll share a few more photos of the space - and provide a couple of tips for what to be sure to pack if you actually are cooped up in the hotel room during your vacation this summer.

When we got to the inn, we had a choice of two rooms.  One had an end table, but the other had this nice desk. We chose the room with the desk.

And you can see why - those cubby (cubbie?) holes are the BOMB! If you have no space for a workshop, you can't do much better than get an old second-hand desk like this for your modeling. It'd look perfectly in-place in a nice living room - but see what you have when it's opened.  Yes, that's 12 boxcar kits there(!) You could store your kits in a box underneath and have plenty of room for your projects and tools.

Took just a few minutes to set up. The toolbox & cutting mat were in the box on the floor, but everything else was stored in the desk. Bonus that I was by a window, so I could look out and see what I was missing. Unfortunately, given the weather, the temptation to go outside proved too strong too often.

And here it is while actually doing the project. Tools that I'm using are in the kit box on the right, to keep them from going astray - or onto the floor.  Good lighting is a must. I brought my OptiVisor, but the bendy desk lamp was sufficient.

Despite bringing my whole box of tools, this is all I really ended up needing to put together intermediate boxcar kits from IMWX, Red Caboose, etc. All pretty self-explanatory, though the tool above the pin vise is a pair of sprue nippers I can't get along without.  The pin vise was for enlarging holes for grabs and such. I apply glue with the microbrush in the center (white handle). I had forgotten to bring silicone caulk to affix car weights.

While I didn't end up getting much modeling done, I was certainly prepared if vacation weather had taken a turn for the worse. As it was, if I'd been cooped up in the room for a whole week, I probably wouldn't have been able to build all I took with me. But it's always best to be prepared for the worst - in this case, even bad weather would have turned out for the best.

Have any of you taken your hobby on vacation? If so, what - if anything - did you do differently?

Now that I'm back home, I'm going to finish those two boxcars at least. And I have a growing punch list of items to do on the layout that came up during the last operating session. I also have some more-detailed reports of that ops session to get written up and posted. So, plenty to do.

Hope you're all having a great summer and able to get some modeling done!