I was the DS for Joe's Valentine's Day Massacre. It's all a bit hazy now 3 days after the debacle but I'll try to remember what went on...

It was an unusual session. There were a number of trains out on the road as the session started. Iirc they were the Siskiyou Line East at Rice Hill bound for Eugene with 2 water cars and the helpers, the Fruit Loop (Dole Turn busy switching Roseburg Forest products) at Dillard and the Seagull East sitting in Roseburg yard but without water cars.

The first order of the day was to get the SLE into Eugene. No problems there except once the helpers cut out at Cottage Grove they were ordered off to Eugene also for desperately needed maintenance. This left the railroad with all 6 water cars in Cottage Grove, the replacement helpers sitting in Roseberg yard (on the opposite side of Rice Hill), and 3 through trains leaving Eugene - Siskiyou Line West, Coos Bay Hauler West, and the Sea Gull West - next on the train line up. The Siskiyou Line West was over tonnage for the trip over Rice Hill and the helpers were on the other side of the hill.

Simple, just run the helpers light to Cottage Grove, right?

Wrong! Forest service regulations say that ALL train movements over Rice Hill in the summer months MUST have water cars to sprinkle the tracks and keep Joe's basement from bursting into flames...

I checked the tonnage of the next train in Eugene, the Coos Bay Hauler West and it was over tonnage also...

So I ordered the Siskyou Line West to double the hill. Yuk.

This happened, but it sure did put a dent in the timely operation of the train line up!

The Siskiyou Line West finally made it to Roseberg but instead of dropping the water cars at the east end of the yard where they were needed the crew took the water cars to the west end of the yard. Sigh, more delays. This was caused by the crews of the two trains not communicating well. The normal set out spot for the water cars was blocked when the Siskiyou Line West entered Roseberg (problem #1) and the crew of the Eastbound failed to negotiate with the arriving crew to pass the water cars directly. There was also a delay (iirc) in rousting out the new helpers and getting them cut in the departing train (should have been done before the Siskiyou Line West arrived). In the meanwhile trains that should've been running over Rice Hill were just sitting, and sitting, and sitting.

To make thing more interesting the Yoncalla turn was called in the middle of this mess so now moving water cars and a helper there would be more difficult for the next train that arrived in Cottage Grove.

The Eastbound finally got their train together and were off to Eugene (dropping water cars and helper in Cottage Grove - all 6 water cars in Cottage Grove again. where the water cars were added to the East bound waiting there.

The Coos Bay Hauler West had been waiting in Eugene for the hauler East to arrive. Cottage Grove is an itty-bitty siding so only a real fool would try to have haulers pass each other there - while the Yoncalla Turn is in town (this is where the expression 'check box 13 - the dispatcher is an idiot' came from - don't ask who was dispatching when this happened...). Since I'd graduated from real fool to generic fool status I held the Coos Bay job in Eugene to wait for the opposing traffic.

Once EUCBY (Coos Bay hauler) got to Cottage Grove I had 'em pick up 4 water cars instead of the usual 2 because there would be a flurry of east bound traffic coming up shortly (including CBEUY - Coos Bay Hauler East).

At this point things started to settle down a bit - really late but almost workable.

So here's a question for all you arm chair dispatchers out there - What could I have done differently to mitigate the delays caused by 1) helpers in the wrong place, and 2) unprecedented amounts of fleeting (3 trains in a row going west)?

0-5-0 is not a valid answer.

Your friendly neighborhood delayer,

Charlie

....those DRG&W helpers would have started out in Eugene, not Roseburg. That would have solved a fairly large stack of problems off the bat.

Perhaps Joe could set a rule that visiting power actually "enter" the railroad from a connection rather than simply just show up in the middle of it?

Actually, most of the photos I've seen of the Siskiyou Line circa 1989 show the DRGW power coming up from Black Butte through Medford - in other words from the south to the north. So it's entirely within reason the helpers could have come from Medford.

But running new power onto the railroad from Eugene would make sense too and we ought to do that more than we have in the past. Would give dispatch another "train" to manage.

Am I understanding the problem that you could not run the helpers over light because you did not have water cars to tack on? Is a finite number of available water cars an operational "given", that is.. adding more water cars to the layout not in the cards?

Chris

Under typical circumstances, 6 water cars is about right. Each train must take 2 water cars, so dispatch just needs to keep in mind what's coming from where and plan ahead. He might, for instance, have one train take 4 water cars if a lot of upcoming traffic is expected from the other side of the hill.

We could do 8 water cars, but then the puzzle gets a bit too easy and that many water cars also starts to get in the way, given the size of the tracks we have for storing the water cars. Plus the prototype does not have an infinite supply of water cars either.

And finally, 6 water cars is just about right. No matter how many water cars we had (assuming we had a place to store them all), a dispatcher who wasn't paying attention could still end up with all the water cars on the wrong side of the hill eventually.

So the idea is to make thew dispatcher think and plan what is coming up ahead. That's not such a bad idea as it may sound on the surface. Jobs in the  real world require that so whay not include in operations?

In look at my layout plans I may find I don't have enough locomotives to run a heavy schedule and that may make it necessary to limit the number of car floats that dock during any given period of time. In addition to that I will also have to consider the yard capacities to hold incoming cars bound for the car floats and incoming cars from the car floats. That's how I originally arrived at having the yard hold 90 cars. now there shouldn't be any situation where 90 cars will be in the yard at any given time but it could happen if things aren't planned correctly. This will will have to wait until I have the yard design finalized and that is going to take a bit of fidling with track, turnouts and something to temporarily run things on.

Irv

Joe,

Sitting out east and reading you delightful narrative, I'm sure I speak for many when I ask how, exactly, you are modeling the water cars?  Is there a standard kit or kitbash?  We'd love to see 'em either here or in MRH.

Though the dispatcher didn't see it, the Yoncalla turn ran pretty smoothly. Only two cars out, and three went back. What caused delays was the discovery of a faulty coupler on the nose of the lead unit, so we had to wait a bit until the roundhouse could get out there and replace a spring.  Who needs situation cards when you can have the real thing?

I have yet to really model the water cars properly. For now, we use black tank cars - which is not completely unprototypical - I've seen black, white and red water cars on the prototype - however, in the 1980s, white water cars are the most common.

Here's some photos of prototype water cars. Notice they vary all the way from plain-looking 1950s-60s style tank cars to altered cars with extra walkways and pump equipment on the top of the car. When the car has a full walkway on top, it was common to cut down the tank dome. Anyhow, here's some photos:

The water cars above are more stripped down versions.

Here's a red water car with an extra platform added around the dome. Again, this is a fairly stripped down version.

When I think of SP water cars, this is more commonly what I remember seeing on the Siskiyou Line in the 1980s - the ones with the full-walkways, hose, and pumps.

By the late 1980s, this is more how the water cars were looking ... grungy and rusty. When run behind the locos, the cars are to have spickets open and be dousing the roadbed. If used as required by the Forest Service, these cars will be damp a lot, and it doesn't take long for the rust to start showing through.

The US Forest Service rules are still in effect (were enacted in the late 1950s, according to my research - about the time Smokey the Bear became a national symbol). Here's a recent photo on the UP Cascade Line in Oregon. Notice the are 12 water cars in this string - proving these cars are still very much in service on mountain grades in Oregon!

And finally, here's a photo from the late 1990s on the Siskiyou Line. CORP has taken over at this point, so the water cars have been repainted into their light gray MOW scheme. But presumably, these are the very same water cars the SP was using on this line in the 1980s, so it should be easy to backdate them a decade or so for use on my HO Siskiyou Line.

Mainline Modeler had a nice article by Bob Fink on modeling these cars, and I have that issue in my collection. One of these days, I need to get busy and model some of these cars. Anybody out there interested in doing a few of these as a modeling project and doing an article for MRH? We pay upon acceptance ... [wink and grin]

DS:

It's tough to generate answers to the problem without knowing what the options are.  But here goes.

How about using the nearest hopper or covered hopper that needs a rinse job as a water car.  Just let it leak on the ROW just like a water car with open spigots?

Is there a switch job you could run as a water car extra?   Sure, it's an extra days pay for the crew, being that it's a separate job, but it may be cheaper than leaving through trains to sit.

Can you do a sort of triple saw-by with the haulers and Yoncalla turn at Cottage Grove.  I don't know train lengths, or whether the extra time necessary to split two of the three trains up enough is time-effective.  (Sounds like a fun switching problem, though.)