There is a direct link between understanding prototype operations, layout design, and how enjoyable operating our layout is. Richard Paseman’s “Railroad Man” is an absolute clinic on switching operations.
Page 61.
“One night on the Harbor District, we ran cab hop from Watson Yard to Alcoa and kicked the waycar down the spur. The other brakeman and I took the engine and began switching spot cars from the storage tracks. For hours, we worked lining up grimy black tank cars. At a glance, they might all look the same, but the switch list tells which ones are to be spotted and the order they are to be lined up.”
In other words every car spot is, in effect, its own separate industry.
Watson Yard is located just north of the port and is still very active.
Federal Cold Storage gets switched out on my LAJ layout. In the foreground is my newly acquired Rapido MTC (Mechanical Temperature Controlled) reefer.
Located at the intersection of Downey Rd. and District Blvd., the prototype was imposing to be sure. Although it did receive rail service, from listening to former LAJ workers, I get the impression it did not see large volumes of activity. Sadly, the structure was demolished sometime around 2018.
My only photo, taken on a trip in 2015. I made the mistake of assuming it would always be there, so I didn’t take more shots of it.
The model on the layout is a lightly kitbashed version of Walthers Frost Cold Storage.
A duo of Nashville and Western units uses a series of push/pull moves to switch the 3M plant in Old Hickory (Nashville suburb), TN.
After posting yesterday’s blog and track plan, I reached out to my resident expert on prototype operations, retired NS railroader, Tom Holley. My question was, at what point does a shoving move distance become too long as to be impractical? Tom replied:
Hello, Lance.
The actual answer is, it depends. A lot of shoving moves depend on era. When railroads regularly used cabooses, they often shoved a long way, often several miles.
The last 12 years I worked I was on a NS paper mill switch engine. We made a daily three and 1/2 mile shove to the NS interchange. On occasion we would shove seven miles out to the CSXT interchange. We didn’t have a shoving platform; instead, the conductor lined up a covered hopper or a tank car on the bottom to ride on. That’s a lot easier than hanging on the side of a boxcar.
Another factor, again era specific, is the rules don’t allow you (in most cases I know of, other railroads/divisions may vary) to jerk cars by or even gravity drop them to get around them. So you’re compelled to shove the cars if the switches are facing point, or split the engines to work the industries. Many shortline operate with an engine on each end exactly for that reason.
On one of our local jobs, we had no runaround track at the end point. It was in a dip with a pretty good grade on each side, so we’d put the engines toward the industry, bleed the cars off, let them roll by. and then run out and catch them. Because somebody on another division messed up doing that, we had to stop and start splitting the engines to run around the train. That just took a lot longer…
Another factor is speed of the shoving movement. We were limited, on my territory, to a shoving speed of 15 mph. That’s not a consideration on a branch or short line, but makes a difference on a high volume main line.
As a trainman, I never minded the regular shove of three miles, or even the long seven mile shove if I had a good car to ride on. What is important is having a good engineer who won’t beat you to death with jerky movements while shoving. As an engineer, I always tried to make a light trainline application to make the ride smooth, and not use the engine brake to avoid beating the man on the bottom up with slack.
So, with a good engineer and a good car to ride on, I never minded shoving. I hope this wordy reply answers your question!
There is a direct link between having an understanding of prototype practices and model railroad design. Runarounds take up an enormous amount of space, space most of us modelers don’t have. If we follow the prototype’s preference for shoves instead of runarounds we can save space, open our designs up, and have a plan that is much more plausible.
My latest project of late has been the W.S. Dodge structure on the LAJ extension (prototype address is 3710 Fruitland Avenue). I chose this particular structure because of its nondescript appearance and typical “LA look”.
Construction followed my usual photo laminate technique over a styrene core. The base images were captured from Google Streetview. It took a LOT of photo editing but I was able to get the shots where I wanted them.
Here’s my final laminate image if anybody wants to take a stab at it. Print it out at 10.9 inches on glossy photo paper.
(Note: For those who don’t get my monthly newsletter, what follows is a copy of the March issue.)
The local out of Hiaeah Yard works Sentry Chlorine in Miami’s East Rail Industrial Park in this 2010 shot. All of the switches in the park face the same direction so that each industry can be worked using push/pull moves without the need for a runaround.
The best guidance for designing a model railroad can be as simple as copying what the pros do, or at least relying heavily on them for guidance. “Pros” being defined as the actual rairloads. Going hat in hand with this is how the prototype typically approaches things from an operations standpoint. The two are linked. Over decades, they’ve become clear on the most effective way to do things, and their “track plans” are designed accordingly.
If you compare the design approach of model railroaders versus that of the prototype, you’ll see a vast difference. Model railroaders often employ multiple runarounds, numerous switchbacks, turnouts facing every which way, as many switches as possible, and highly compressed scenes. They also lean towards artificially inserted operational gimmicks, complexity, and gotcha’s.
The pros? The total opposite. Any railroad design team that employed a “model railroad” approach would likely be fired in short order! The goal of the pros is maximum efficiency, not entertainment and artificially created operational problems.
“Professional” Design Criteria
Let’s take a look at how prototype designers (typically) do things. As an example, we’ll use an industrial park fairly close to the yard, say a mile or so. A professionally designed arrangement (i.e prototype) is generally typified by:
-All turnouts face in the same direction. -No runaround in the park or en route (the run around is done in the yard). -No switchbacks. -A minimum number of turnouts.
Here’s a diagram of CSX’s East Rail industrial park. It would be worked when the local is heading northward (running from bottom to top of page on the diagram). The train backs into the park and switches the industries using push/pull moves. There is no runaround in the park, per se. There is one outlier in terms of turnouts. Weeks Gas faces the other direction. The solution? Just work it on a different day when the train is heading in the opposite direction.
Here’s a track plan that leans heavily on the “pros” way of designing things.
An operating session would likely unfold as follows:
-The crew builds their own train. They begin by pulling cars from the yard and building the train on the siding. All cars are blocked in the correct order in the yard before leaving. -Once the train is assembled, the loco. runs around the train. -It then pushes the train towards the industrial park. -If there are no gates at the grade crossings, they likely slow or come to a complete stop. -Once in the industrial park, they then use a series of push/pull moves to set the cars out. -The large industry takes a variety of cars that need to be placed at designated locations or “spots”. If not all of the cars have finished unloading, they need to be temporarily pulled and then re-spotted. -A “sorting” track is provided at the end of the line to help with keeping the cars in order as the crew works -When complete, the empties are pulled back to the yard.
New York – New Jersey Rail in Brooklyn provides an example of track arrangements near the yard on a smallish shortline. Note the open-air engine service and offices on the right. On the left is a team track with some centerbeams on it. Note the recently unloaded lumber stacks waiting for pickup.
If you’re in the mood for a shorter session, you could do some relaxed blocking in the yard, take some cars to the interchange track, or work the team track.
Bottom line, if you’re struggling with a design an easy out is to simply copy a prototype track arrangement and operations format.
