Sunday, November 11, 2007

Current construction status

The staging yard is in, I am going to wire in all the track leads and the main bus today.

From staging to Sanford will be spline roadbed construction. Last weekend I cut a good quantity of splines from 1/4" hardboard. This is a new technique for me but it is used by many people these days. IF I get that far today then I will post a picture next week.

Short entry today, the morning construction start time has arrived.

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Sunday, November 4, 2007

The Railroads Operations

Operations based on the current layout design will center on operations around Sanford, Me.
Portland, Me. and Rochester, NH. are represented by a three track staging yard. There will be an Eastbound and Westbound way freight staged here along with a B&M interchange train.

Sanford will host a local that will be powered by the only Portland and Rochester wholly owned locomotive (this will be either an Atlas MP15 or Athearn MP15 switcher) which will be painted for the P&R. The road will also rent power from other regional railroads such as the B&M, D&H, MEC (This will allow my current fleet of locomotives to be used) for the through freights.

Thomas Cement has it's own switcher an ex-Pennsy SW-7, which will bring an additional operator position to the layout.

So now we have 5 possible operator positions for a session:

RP-1 the Rochester to Portland Job
PR-2 the Portland to Rochester Job
BI-1/2 the B&M interchange turn
Sanford Local
Thomas Cement Switcher

I think this would keep 3-6 people busy during an operating session.

Basic Schedule:

Sanford local starts session by collecting outbound cars and spotting any left over inbound cars at the local Sanford industries.

At the same time the B&M interchange Train is arriving at the interchange and swaps it's cars with any interchange cars.

The cement switcher is collecting outbound cars for pick up, sorting them into and eastbound and westbound blocks.

West bound way freight arrives at interchange and picks up cars bound for Sanford and western points. Westbound continues to cement siding and picks up all outbound cars, drops cars for plant. Westbound continues to Sanford and drops local cars, eastbound cement cars, picks up west bound cars. Westbound proceeds to Rochester.

Sanford local makes a run to Talc plant to swicth out cars, while eastbound way freight passes.

Eastbound way freight proceeds from Rochester to Sanford and drops off local cars and picks up eastbound cars. Eastbound proceeds to interchange and drops, picks up cars. Eastbound proceeds to Portland.

Sanford local follows eastbound way freight to Sanford from Talc plant and drops talc loads, picks up any cement plant loads and runs them to cement plant siding by a backing move.

The cement plant switcher would be busy throughout session positioning cars and shuffling inbounds and outbounds from cement siding.

Having fun yet? I am...