Switching

Thanks for the kind words regarding my initial module. Much appreciated. A long way to go on scenery, weathering, and building/detailing the unloading augers, but hopefully this will give folks a sense of operations on the module.

The modeled location is loosely based on similar customers we worked on the prototype. The 8-foot x 13-inch wide module can easily keep an operator busy from 10 to 30 minutes.

A little geography to set up the scene: I'm modeling scenes along CINR's Portland Branch, which ran from Decatur south to Portland. In my version of history, CINR recently stopped all service south of Berne. Therefore, the fertilizer dealer (located a couple miles south from town proper) is now the end of the line. CINR has kept a few more miles of the line open for car storage...which may be the focus of a subsequent module. But anyway, trains must turn at the fertilizer spur and return back north through Berne and eventually to Decatur.  

Here's an overview of the module:

During the busy fall/spring fertilizer seasons, up to 3 potash hoppers can be spotted between the unloading pit/auger and the derail.

The spur is on a slight downgrade. So, fertilizer company employees unload the cars by releasing handbrakes and rolling them south, respotting the next hopper bay over the pit. Empty cars are drifted south into the weeds at the end of the spur. Sometimes they are recoupled, often times not, and the railroad crew must do it when they pull the empties.  

The nearest runaround is located a couples miles back in the town of Berne. Crews can ride the shove move out from town, but most elect to continue to the spur and drop the cars by the locomotive here.

On arrival, the crew will confer with fertilizer company employees on which cars are empty. Sometimes they'll wait for the last bay of a car to be unloaded before they switch the facility. (This was the era before cell phones!)

With orders sorted, the engine moves into the clear and loads are dropped by gravity down the main.

Here they come: 

and there they go: 

It's then a matter of pulling empties, respotting any partial loads, and placing the new loads above the respots.

Today, there was one respot, so only two of the three new cars can fit on the spur above it. Therefore, the third load is tied down on the main. It will be the first car spotted the next time the railroad runs out to service the spur. 

Here's our train after switching the dealer. The crew is performing their brake test before heading back north to Berne and Decatur. They have two empties they're taking back north. Two of the three inbound loads were spotted on the spur...above the partial load that was respotted. The third inbound load is tied down and chocked on the old main.    

That's one scenario, which can change depending on how many cars are on the spur to begin with (1 to 3); how many are unloaded (1 to 3); how many overflow cars are spotted on the main; and how many cars that day's local brings out with them (0 to 5-6 depending on how many are received off CINR's Class I interchanges).

But, the dealer also unloads cars of granulized phosphate fertilizer off the SCL in Florida (typically a few cars per month). There is one spot on the spur where a mobile unloading auger can reach in under the cars. When a phospate hopper is spotted, only two potash cars can now fit:  

Notice if the potash cars are spotted normally (upgrade of the pit) then only one bay of the SCL phospate car can be unloaded (that is until the potash cars are unloaded and drifted downgrade).

If the dealer really needs to unload the entire phospate car right away, the train crew will spot the potash cars to the south (downgrade) of the pit auger. The dealer then uses a tractor and chain to pull the potash cars north for unloading:

The crew may sometimes elect to shove out from Berne, especially if they have IPD boxcars going to storage (we are in the early 80's recession after all). It's easier (and safer) to ride the end platform of a hopper than it is to hang onto a boxcar. So, upon arrival at the spur, some additional shifting is needed to get things in order before placing boxcars at the end of track.

And there you have it. Stay tuned for how the storage and resale of IPD boxcars can serve as a busy layout "industry" all by itself. 

Best,

Jack

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Nice switching operation,

Nice switching operation, Jack.

Like your scenery so far especially the ballasting.

Cheers

Deem

My layout: https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/31151?page=27

Simple but Effective

Hi from the UK, just looking at starting to build a small HO switching layout. This is amazing how so little track can give so much operation.

Lee

Gravity drops in scale.

BTW, where did you get that

BTW, where did you get that nice little red tractor?

@Craig. I'm wondering that

@Craig. I'm wondering that also. I created grades on my spurs on a inglenook I used to have.

Ball bearings?

Grain Augers?

Along with the semi, who makes the underground grain augers?  I have searched Walthers, Shapeway with no luck.

Great scenario

I’m studying small 1-3 turnout prototype-based shelf designs and have come to appreciate just how much operation can be had with so little track. My interest is in pre-automobile railroads, so this scene isn’t something I had any knowledge of. Just such a neat way to show working trains. 

Nice operation

Impressive amount of operation out of a single spur.  The phosphate car using a potash car spot is a nice operational twist.  Car storage is something I hadn’t ever considered for modeling.  I know some local shortlines have stored cars on unused portions of the line, but I guess I don’t really know how it works.

Given the “crap ton of weight” and velcro on the inner axle mentioned in your previous post I‘m guessing the gravity drop is done with a manual assist?

not as in “spotting” but a

not as in “spotting” but a couple decades back, on a club layout a all brass passenger train broke free ( coupler fail). train was going up grade. the cars started rolling down grade. lucky that the track was mostly open and the ctc set all turnouts so the run aways had a clear route. they got up to full scale 5-8 mph.

this proving just how good the clubs main was built. 

but 40 years back i do not believe many freight or passenger cars had as good of wheel sets (plastic wheels were the standard) as available today.

club rules said all rolling stock must be weighted. this train ? as not on a show night. so most anything was ok.

but just saying as how well your rolling stock can roll on a down grade.

Very nice!

Hope you keep us updated with your progress. I really like the ballast! What kind did you use?

Questions Answered

Thanks for your interest everyone. To answer a few questions:

Nothing complicated on the gravity drops. As Ken correctly surmised, I simply push them by! I'm actually kind of surprised this isn't incorporated more into "prototypical" model operations. As modeler's, we move cars on sidings all the time to simulate loading/unloading, but it seems taboo to lend a manual assist to mimic a very common means of switching on the 1:1   Railroads are cheap and don't like spending money on runarounds everywhere. Crews are always looking for a shortcut to save time and effort too lol.

The tractor is a 1/87 model produced by Ertl some years back. They still show up on eBay and some online diecast dealers like Buffalo Road Imports.

The semi is an Athearn Mack R. They are a 1980's icon. The Wilson trailer is from Lonestar Models. I need to build a second one with the tarp open for loading.

The small, portable unloading auger is a heavily modified Walthers Old Time Conveyor kit.  

I shortened the belt, added rubber tires, a motor & gas tank, and a drop funnel. It still needs a few details and weathering. It's based on a similar, albeit more modern belt machine I noticed on a customer's siding. Now I just need to scratchbuild the partnering tube auger that lifts product into the truck.

The pit auger/loading conveyor is bashed using parts from a Walthers Grain Leg, some square and round styrene stock, and a 1/64 scale grain bin auger from Farm Factor 3D (which is actually perfect size for this application). I cleaned it up a bit and sanded down the belt shield so it has a thinner profile. I still need to build the supports out of some brass angle stock and add other details like the canvas dust curtain.

Inspiration (courtesy of the Everett Railroad website):   

The pit is a simple box built from styrene, covered by O scale roofwalk material. Down inside is a cut-off drywall screw to simulate the auger. The sides will be backfilled once the auger/conveyor structure gets installed permanently).   

The pit cover is a piece of thin Campbell's corrugated sheet glued to a thin piece of styrene. I added wire handles, painted with rust-colored primer, and added some pan pastel "potash".

Finally, my ballast is Highball dark grey, accented with Arizona Rock & Mineral UP/WP Bold grey on the main. All ballast is n-scale, and even then, I sieved it to different grades. I set aside the coarsest material and laid down the medium stuff as a base, choking it down with fine material. After fixing in place, I went back and brushed in some grimy grey pan pastel in various places, then saturated it again with alcohol. The chalk washes into the ballast and does a great job of tinting. It makes the individual rocks really pop, so to speak.  

I have to say, Lance Mindheim's book Model Railroad as Art completely changed the way I look at colors and texture. I took a hard look at the prototype photo and noted the different color ballast in various areas (dark vs light and coarse vs fine). Although much of the ROW will eventually be covered by grass, the difference in appearance when using multiple shades and textures of ballast is astonishing when compared to my previous layouts!   

Sorry this was so long winded, but I hope that catches folks up.

Cheers,

Jack

Details

You say, "Long-winded", my take is "Comprehensive".

If it wasn't for the ammonia carts on the right of the last photo, I'd have assumed at first glance you had taken the module outside for a photoshoot.

Beautiful work.

Tim B.

Inspired

Thanks so much for sharing this "simple" switching idea... I've had a 60" straight single track Free-mo module sitting around for a few years and have been looking for what to do with it and this is a great idea!  I have currently settled on the idea of modeling it with a gravel area around the spur so that it could be a simple transloading area for many commodities including fertilizer/potash.  Once the flat gravel is in place I could also locate grain elevator components onto the surface to be able to model a more permanent looking grain elevator.  A second removable option is a warehouse building with an indoor spur which covers the gravel area completely.  

Thanks again for helping inspire me for what to do with this module.  

Cover, gravity

First class modeling, that photo with the cover on the pit definitely makes you look more than once to see it's a model.

On the subject of the cover, the fact that you modeled both the cover and the grate under it makes me think you intend to use the cover during operations in some way, and I'm intrigued by that.  Are you?

Your point about the gravity drop being common on the prototype and being surprised that more people don't model it got me thinking about how I might make use of that trick.  Which brings up a couple questions.  On the prototype, do you need to have a long stretch of unoccupied track to pull off a gravity drop, or can it be controlled well enough to step pretty accurately where you want it?  Would they attempt one in the direction of a nearby grade crossing?  How about across a grade crossing?

Your point about the gravity

A lot of it depends on what you mean by a "gravity drop".  Are you talking about a gravity drop being a way for a train to get cars to the other side of the engines, or are you talking about the industry using gravity to roll a car to the next spot?

Common is also a relative term.  Yes, it is "common", but in about 15 years of supervising locals and switch engines there were maybe only 2 or 3 jobs that used a gravity drop to get cars by, and maybe twice that many industries that used gravity to roll cars to the next spot.  Probably half the jobs dropped cars by at some point (not a gravity drop).  Most of that was a matter of having the right location.

The first requirement is you need enough grade to get the cars to roll and it has to be in the right direction.  There is a difference in dropping cars by and just moving cars to a spot.  Dropping cars by you need enough speed to make sure you clear the switch.  More speed = longer braking distance = less precision on where things stopped.  If you are advancing a car to a spot, all you need is one mph or less so braking is easier and quicker.

The problem in a model setting is it can take more of a grade to get cars rolling and the cars have no brakes so there is no way to dynamically stop them hands off.  If you are going to roll them around by hand then you really don't need a grade.

If by drop you mean roll cars by a switch, then it depends on the amount of grade.  The more grade the faster they can potentially go, and the more space you need to stop them.  Also realize that on a grade, you may have to set multiple handbrakes to stop the cars, that means setting the brakes on the lead car, getting off the moving car, getting on the moving 2nd car, setting the handbrake, etc. until enough brakes are set to stop the cut.  Also depends on how big a crew you have.

Two primary concerns in a gravity drop, 1. clearing the switch, 2. stopping the cut before it rolls away.  Stopping it exactly 237 ft past the switch wasn't really a goal.

Depends on the rule book, most require an employee to be on the grade crossing flagging the crossing during switching moves.

Tractor source

For a source of tractors, you can find some at your local Tractor Supply in the US. They usually have a nice selection of HO sized tractors and with a bit of weathering will make nice models.

Simple Spur

Great information Jack, I have some 2 inch blue foam and some mirco engineering code 70 track and a empty bed room.Kevin

Gravity drop

In this case I was referring to the sort of move Jack described - getting some cars by the engine.

Thanks for the detail, I guess the situation I have on my planned switching layout is probably not the sort of situation that would work out for a gravity move on the real thing - a track with only a couple car lengths to spare before a grade crossing (which also happens to be the end of the modeled world) and the need to get possibly 5-6 cars around the engine.  It’s probably more reasonable to have the job shove the cars the hypothetical mile from the little interchange yard out to those industries at the end of the track.  Possibly with a shoving platform.  That was my plan from the start, but I do find the gravity move intriguing.

Gravity vs dutch drop

"Dutch" Drop

Whether or not its "legal" depends on the era.  Pre 1990's it was done commonly.  Steam era definitely done.

I've actually dropped cars by myself.  Works best with a several man crew.

@Dave