Givens and Druthers Dos

Operational givens and druthers

We talked previously about design givens and druthers I have been employing  on the YPG Lines. This week I want to discuss operational givens and druthers, or how I feel the railroad should run.  There are as many different views on what is required for operations as there are model railroaders (maybe more actually as some people seem to hold multiple opinions and waffle between them). So without further ado lets get to the topic at hand.

Long trains

One of the hallmarks of the Southern Pacific was long heavy trains with gigantic locomotive lash ups. Most people are familiar with these trains lumbering over Donner Pass or creeping around Tehachapi Loop at Walong. These trains were also present on the Sunset Route however, with the exception of a few locations, these trains sprinted across the desert. The ore train was 100 cars albeit 26 footers and the iconic beet trains were atleast that many cars long. Five or six locomotives on the point was not out of the norm especially when running four axle power.  I wanted to capture the flavor of this so I set my average train length to 25 cars although since the cars on the ore train are shorter it will most likely be 50 cars. Some trains will be longer and others shorter and most of the sidings will accept a 25 car train and associated motive power and caboose. For interest a 30 car train could be run requiring either the shorter train to take the siding or for a saw by to occur any time a meet was made.  This along with a couple sidings that would be on the short side would definately keep the dispatcher on their toes.  These trains should have ample length to convey the feeling of long trains while still being managable.  There will be some shorter trains especially when the era is flexed to post 1988 as Sprint Trains began to be utilized for some TOFC traffic. The 20 car Sprint trains will be between 7 and 10 cars long in model form.

Long mainling run

In order to show case these long trains I wanted a long mainline run with measurable distance between actual towns.  Switching is not really my cup of tea so I wanted to keep switching to a reasonable amount and prototypically based. There will be no "switching problems" as most prototypes tried to avoid complicated moves whenever possible, time spent on complicated moves is time not spent moving goods over the road.  While the sidings can be close together I tried to keep actual population centers a fair distance apart.

Convey the remoteness

One of the things that drew me to model this area was the desert scenery. I liked the remoteness of the area and trains sprinting across the desert not having to slow for towns. To convey this I omitted towns before I ommitted sidings from the track plan. Redundant sidings were however eliminated and only those with some form of scenic componant or operational quirk were kept. One thing I like about modeling the desert is there are many areas where you can see both ends of a train at the same time, this means that view blocks are not as important as they are on a traditional layouts. However it also means that the model will have more curvature than the prototype in order to fit in the layout space.

Mountain grade

I have always liked mountain railroading as it is what I grew up watching. it is amazing to see a massive train fighting gravity and clawing for every inch and I feel it is the essence of railroading.  Including a mountain grade has always been important to me. There is a slight grade between Yuma and Tucson amd some small "mountains" but not what I would consider a mountain railroad.  With the addition of Beaumont Hill to the layout I was able to include a mountain grade. Between West Colton and Tucson the railroad climbs to around 2605 feet above sea level at Apex then drops to around 200 feet below sea level at Ferrum before the gradual climb out to Tucson at 2389 feet above sea level. I feel this mix of terrain will greatly enhance the operational feel of the layout.

Helper operations

While I really wanted a mountain grade I felt it would be even cooler if helper operations could be included.  Helper operations on both sides is a bonus and thats what Beaumont Hill offers.  As stated earlier I prefer mainline operations to yard operations and I feel the addition and subtraction of helpers would definately substitute for any percieved lack of operations brought on by the minimal switching on the layout.

Realistic Operations

While this appears at the bottom of the list realistic operations is important to me.  That said I am not instituting TTO ops just for the sake of doing so.  I feel many in the operations community are dismisive and demeaning when talking about track warrant operations even to the point of referring to it as "mother may I?" I feel if you are a prototype modeler and what you are modeling used track warrants during the time frame you model, so should you. Either that or get off your high horse on some other topics.

The subdivisions modeled on the proposed YPG Lines layout used a variety of operating schemes depending on where one was.  I believe the Phoenix Sub used track warrants (along with semaphores), while the Yuma and Gila Subs primarily used CTC, although there were some sections of two main track that were directional running with ABS and a provision for running against the flow of traffic.

I think that by following these guidelines a very enioyable railroad can be constructed.  But most importantly it is a layout I will enjoy constructing and operating and isnt that the bottom line.