Nice

Looks really good, Craig!  Enjoyed your insights. 

Tom

I had to do a minor

I had to do a minor modification to my track layout yesterday - just swapped the two turnouts at the cassette end about (now right followed by left, instead of left followed by right) . It was pushing the building for the plastics plant too far down the spur and across the board joint at the end of the siding, so now the first spur comes off right and the left hand spur to the team track comes off second. makes no difference to operations,but gives a little more room to line up cars with doors.

Best

Jack

One of the nice things about

One of the nice things about plastics hoppers is that they don't really need specific spots, just run piping along the entire length of the track.  As long as a hose can reach from the hopper to the pipes, its all good.  Next time you're map-surfing online, zoom into an industry that receives plastics hoppers and notice how they usually have the hoppers jammed into every track and they just barely clear the fouling point.

On one of my earlier designs I had a similar arrangement. However I really needed space for 3 cars (plus fencing, a gate, and a derail) on the front track, so I went with the current design.  So far with the op sessions I've run it's been working as planned.  The only minor issue so far is the end of the track is rather close to the street, which creates a bit of a blind spot for vehicle traffic. However, that just adds to the fun when running a loco with sound: I've added an operating instruction specifying the crew needs to stop and flag the crossing along with lots of horn and bell.

With my last couple of op sessions, I've been coming up with some additional operating instructions.  When spotting tanks at the Latex distributor, set-outs are to be placed on the West (left) end of the track.  For other industries, if a car is moved during switching, but not picked-up, it must be returned to the same location when switching is complete. The crew can't simply shove existing cars to the end of the track when spotting new ones.  The crossing can be blocked for a maximum of 6 moves (approximates 5 minutes).  After that, the crew must make a move that clears the crossing.  They can block it again after that, but it prevents crews from hauling around long cuts or parking cars that block the crossing.

It's amazing how adding in these types of operating instructions can turn a simple 4-car spot op session into an interesting time.  I used to think I would get bored easily at such a simple track plan.  Now I look forward to having a quick op session and thoroughly enjoy them, and I haven't even setup any customers at the warehouse yet (so I'm not even running the layout at full capacity).

Craig

Plastics and carspots

Dear Craig,

I thought, just like tankcars which carry different grades of liquid,
plastics cvd hoppers did need carspots,
because one doesn't want the different grades/colors of plastic pellets becoming mixed-up/cross-contaminated in the unloading pipework/storage systems?

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

The stool

That's a great insight about the stool!

Cheers,
Rene'

From what I've seen at

From what I've seen at industries that receive plastics hoppers, they usually have a set of pipes running along side the full length of the track.  There's typically one pipe for each storage tank, and there are connectors in each pipe at intervals along the track.  All the employees need to do is connect a flexible hose between the hopper and the closest connector for the correct pipe (and make sure they don't mix anything up!).  In some cases, the storage tanks can be at the opposite end of the building from the track, so the pipes run along the building wall from the track over to the tanks.

For Rudy's Tortillas on my layout, I got a few detail shots of their tanks and unloading area, but missed capturing a few other details.  One of the things I missed was the actual car connection.  They have 6 tanks, but only 2 car spots.  When receiving a load, they connect the hopper to the correct pipe for the tank holding the product, and then they hang a sign from the hose indicating what product is being unloaded.  Since some PD cars have the unloading connection only on one side, there were enough hoses available so they could run one across the track under the car to the other side.  Granted, Rudy's receives flour and mesaca instead of plastics so things may be different.

Of course, that's just from what I've seen.  I've never had the opportunity to talk to a switch crew or business employees to confirm or deny my story.

Craig

Agreed

The explanation given is what I've seen at numerous facilities receiving plastic pellets as feed stock over the years.  We have a similar but different process for the chemical industry I work in.  Tank wagons or rail cars with raw materials are connected via a hose to a pump station or manifold, and each hard transfer line at that building typically has it's own connections, pump and piping to get the material back into the building or pump it directly into a storage tank in an exterior tank farm.  Typically every valve, line and connection has numerous marking to ensure that everyone hooks the hose to the correct location.  When you have 10-20+ tanks in a tank farm, it can get confusing.  Solvent materials via rail typically have their own unloading spot but slurries may be offloaded at different locations simply by using more hose.  

One Plastic Plant's process

Prof - I talked to one of the fellows at the plant in the photo.  They have a piping system similar to that described. He said they "try to take it easy on the railroad guys" and let them place any car anywhere on the two lower tracks.  They can unload any car into any of the storage silos.

But, they cars aren't emptied in any particular order, so when they pickup the empties, they might have to pull cars 2 and 4 from one track, and 3 and 7 from the other track. The upper track is overflow storage and the railroad may also have to shuffle one or more cars from there to the unloading tracks.

They get 3 - 5 cars a week and are serviced twice weekly.

So even though they can deliver any car to any track, pulling the empties can take a lot longer.

gs