The Little Rock Line

[Bendtracker1]

My last operating session I had was this past March.
After that session I had posted to my blog about the winds of change will be blowing across the Little Rock Line.
Now that my personal agendas are behind me, my thoughts have started to turn back towards the layout.

The change I'm talking about is operations, more specifically, reducing the amount of operations and getting back to the real reason why I wanted to model The Little Rock in the first place.  In recent sessions I've wound up with more trains to run than I have had crews to man them. Over the summer months I've been kind of doing some soul searching and looking at several options.

We've talked about doing nothing, scheduling less trains, reducing the physical size of the layout and even switching to HO and using the same benchwork or even rebuilding the benchwork to an around the wall for either scale. HOn3 was even discussed. I've talked about all of these ideas with a number of other modelers and have kind of came up with a rough plan of attack. I will be staying in N scale, but first a little history. Here's the reason why I fell in love with the overall aspect of the The Little Rock Line.

This line ran from Biddle Yard in Little Rock, AR south 146 miles to Alexandria, LA. Near the end of The Rock's existence, this portion of their Southern Division was set off as a semi-independent segment and labeled "The Little Rock". It had its own Profit-Loss accounting, locomotive fleet and management team. Thus given greater flexibility and the latter did not have to rely solely upon the home office in Chicago for sales, maintenance or operating decisions.

There was one local that worked the entire line. It ran six days a week, running south on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays as train #773 from Little Rock and would return on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays as #774. Sharing the rails with the local were two scheduled night freights #34 & #35. Basically not much traffic as it operated almost like a branch line. To me, there was always something enchanting about seeing a short train trundling along at a snail's pace over a pair of rails half obscured with weeds. Maybe a couple of first generation diesels on point with just a few cars in tow and a caboose bringing up the rear. The laid back operations was the main thing that intrigued me. No hurry to get anywhere fast.

Over the last several years the layout has quickly moved away from this laid back kind of operation to that of a busy 1st class mainline. While it's been fun and a learning experience, the last session I had 22 trains scheduled to move in a 3-4 hour period. This was done for several reasons, I wanted to see more train running, I wanted to make sure I had a plate set for everyone that showed up to operate. But in doing so this would require myself and a friend almost a week of evenings to get things cleaned up, cars staged and consists readied. After the last session was over, only about 1/3rd of the scheduled trains actually ran. Due primarily to the lack of crew that was able to make it. After the session was over, the crews present and I decided that things needed to change. There was too much work for what few trains we ran.

There's one layout that I've watched videos of over and over again this summer, that would be this one. Thomas Klimoski's Georgia Northeastern Look for his video link page. it just amazes me how much operations he has with this small of a layout. Also incredible is how long it takes him and friend to move one or two trains and the detail that he puts into the movements. It actually draws out the work and makes it take longer. Which makes up for the small layout.  This has been brought up by several other here on TRW.  @Ed Kapuscinski has even went to the trouble of making sounds if I recall correctly, to help enhance the session.

I really want to get back to the basics and if that means being a little selfish with only a few trains to run with one other friend at times, then so be it. I think even if I go this route, I can still have 5-6 crews working during a session, but we'll have to take turns or double up on trains with a two man crew. 

I plan to eliminate ten of the current twelve through freights and detour trains. As for the locals, I will move their base of operations from El Dorado yard back to the staging yard, I might even condense both locals into one train that works the entire line in one session as an out and back, just like the prototype did. This will of course depend on the amount of time it takes.

El Dorado yard will remain as it is for now in case I decide to change things later, either way I will model it overgrown with weeds but operational and only have the A/D tracks somewhat clean. I will keep one loco stationed there to deal with any cars that are dropped off for the industries in El Dorado.

I will also keep the W&OV in Malvern and the ICG interchange as they are part of the layout for now. If this works out, it'll be even less trains than I mentioned in the earlier post.

The layout itself will stay intact with no physical modifications to it other than reworking the tracks in the staging yard. I'm kind of thinking of tearing them up, cleaning it off and redoing the tracks with a much smaller yard, say 5-6 tracks and a couple of tracks for the locomotives and one for a caboose track. Then I'll update it with better track and turnouts so that it's more reliable. There's also a possibility with more room in the staging yard from removing most of the tracks that I'll have enough room to add a small industrial scene with some of the larger Cornerstone kits that I still have. This could also be ran as a separate mini layout by itself much like we've done with Malvern.  But it may be a ways off, but a good possibility.

When I say Mini layouts, I'm referring to using those sections as a small switching layout. Malvern is a good example of this. It is for the most part self supportive. I can pre-stage the cars I need for the industries in Malvern on the siding in Haskell. The Malvern switcher can bring those cars into Malvern and deliver them and take the pickups back out to the siding in Haskell without the need to run a full session on the rest of the layout. The main layout can be run as one large layout or it can be broke down in two sections as it is now with one local working the North side and the other working the South side. If the industrial section in the staging yard would happen to come to life, that too can be switched by itself.

So I'm seeing lots of options on the horizon.

[Philip H]

Allen,
It seems your thought experiments have paid off.  Congrats.  Finding your mojo really is the best part of all this, and as you note, your mojo can change over time and with different inputs.  Looking forward to how you do your weedy track.

[Bendtracker1]

So far they seem to have @Philip H.
Last week I got the layout all staged for the new reduced Ops and a friend came over Friday night so we could make the dry run.  While staging the layout I knew I wasn't going to be running the W&OV, the ICG or the yard in El Dorado, but I wanted to setup cars to pick up in Haskell that came from Malvern, and seeing how I just got a new phone I wanted to play with the camera, so I shot a video of the malvern switcher gathering these cars up.

This picture shows the overall view of the area, Malvern is on the left and Haskell is on the right.


This is the track plan of Malvern.


The letters signify the industries in Malvern.

ER1 - Effin Recyclers track 1
GG2 - Gritty Gravel track 2
CP - Crushmoore Pulp track
CC - Crushmoore Chip track
HM - Heavy Metals
OC - Olin-Chlor
FG - Frump Gas and Supply

Enjoy...

I must say that everything went as planned and we had a blast.  Unfortunately I didn't get any photos or videos this time as we were to focused on getting the train ran.  I apologize for that.  I have plans to hopefully get several small videos of the train while it switches each town in the future, kind of a like a mini series.  Gonna have to give this some thought on how to go about this?

The only train we ran was the Winnfield local which was staged in the main yard.  It was ran as an Out and Back turn starting in Little Rock and running down to the yard in Alexandria, LA.  Since I just wanted to see how the local would go about it's chores, I planned not to run the W&OV switcher, the ICG interchange or the El Dorado switcher, thus saving time.

After I had the cars staged and tabbed to be picked up, I moved them by hand into position so the local could just pick them up. This included the cars from the W&OV at Malvern, the interchange cars at Ruston from the ICG and the cars that needed to be picked up from the yard in El Dorado.

It was then that I realized some of the cars would not be run from the staging yard.  For example, some of the cars from the ICG actually wind up in Malvern.  Normally these cars were picked up via the local and drug back to the yard in El Dorado where as before the W&OV would run a train from Malvern down to El Dorado and exchange cars and then drag them back to be set out at the industries in Malvern by the W&OV switcher.    So I sat those cars bound for Malvern on the ICG interchange track and had the NB Winnfield local pick them up.  They were then actually hauled all the way back to Haskell where they were set out on the siding there for them to pick up via the Hand of God and moved back into Malvern.  The cars at El Dorado was pre-staged sitting on the A/D tracks as well.

Next I was just randomly placing NB or SB white tabs on the cars to be picked up when I realized that I shouldn't be dragging these NB cars ALL the way south end?  They should actually be going North.

Let me back up a bit.  Since the local was going to be ran as an Out and Back Turn , it was only going to work the Trailing Point turnouts.  This would save me from having to make any Run Around moves to get cars off the Facing Point turnouts. 

This dictated that any cars sitting on a trailing point turnout that had a NB tab was going to have to be picked up and set off at the nearest siding or drug down to the yard at El Dorado, sat out and would then be picked up by the NB local.  This posed some interesting movements, ones that I hadn't thought of before.  Likewise, some of the SB cars that would be picked up by the local from the W&OV in Malvern needed to go to A&A Concrete in Dubach and the rest needed to go to the ICG at Ruston.  The Hoppers bound for A&A Cement wouldn't be an issue because the Pit Track in DuBach was a trailing point turnout that could be worked by the SB local.  But the ICG interchange track was a Facing Point turnout that would needed to be worked by the NB local.

There were several options.  Those cars could have been left in DuBach and worked by the NB turn, but they would have had to run back down the line from DuBach to Ruston.  The other option was to drag all those ICG cars to the yard at Alexandria, then placed in with the cars sitting there waiting to make the run North.  This was chosen as it gave us a little more work to do in the yard other than just swapping the power and caboose onto the NB cars.  Then as we worked our way North, we worked the interchange with the ICG by grabbing the NB cars for Malvern that were sitting there and moved the ICG bound cars back on to the interchange track and headed on North with the Malvern cars in tow.

NB cars that we had left at DuBach and El Dorado was picked up and hauled north by the NB local.  All in all it made for some very interesting moves to be made and really made us stop and think about how we were going to get the jobs done.

Bottom line......I plan to move forward with the new operations.  It took Quin and almost three hours to run just the two trains.  Of course this was due in part that we were dealing with some new situations that made us stop and think them through.  I think once we run a it a few times, the time required will be reduced.

It was also a lot more laid back, much more like the prototype that I had always envisioned.   

Another thing I plan to move forward on is rebuilding the staging yard.  I plan to rip up 90% of the tracks and make a much more smaller, simpler yard, something with maybe 5-6 tracks and small engine facility.  The green tracks at the top will be a couple of extra storage tracks if needed.   

Similar to this plan


If and when the yard gets rebuilt, there should be enough room that I may include the industrial scene using some of the larger Walthers Cornerstone buildings that I've collected over the years.  This area could then be worked as a separate Mini layout if I wished or could be included in the operating session if there are enough people on board, or it could just be left alone.  Time will tell.

[LIRR]

not a good place for a column...

[Bendtracker1]

not a good place for a column...

Nope, sometimes you're forced into giving a reach around.

[davefoxx]

Nope, sometimes you're forced into giving a reach around.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!

[Bendtracker1]

It's been a long time since I've been able to post any kind of meaningful progress of the layout.
2018 was an insanely busy year and I'm glad it's behind me.  The only thing I accomplished since getting some of the backdrop painted was to run a couple of abbreviated Op sessions to test the reduced operations, which for all practical purposes should work just fine.

This weekend I finally found some spare time to get back downstairs and assemble the last building for the Gavilon Fertilizer complex.  I was able to get the last structure far enough along so that I could locate the position of the wood crossing which will allow me to start the long awaited ballasting of the tracks in Haskell.

To recap the process....

The track work for Riceland and Gavilon in Haskell is complete and painted.

 




The backdrop.








Now the main structures for Gavilon.

The liquid fertilizer area.



The granular fertilizer area.






Hopefully 2019 will be a better year and I can continue to make progress on The Little Rock Line.

[Bendtracker1]

I finally got Gavilon's grade crossing installed this weekend.  The actual crossing was some laser kit I picked up awhile back.  The asphalt road is made from scrap styrene and painted gray.  The shoulders were made using Floral Foam glued in place and formed using my fingers and painted.









The rest of the story can be found on the blog. 
Now I think I can start ballasting most of Haskell!

[Bendtracker1]

I finally got a chance to play around with some ballast at the Gavilon grade crossing.
This has only been tamped and not glued yet.

[GaryHinshaw]

Nicely done Allen.  Are you going to weather the roadway?

[Bendtracker1]

Nicely done Allen.  Are you going to weather the roadway?

Thanks Gary.
Yes I plan to do something with it, not sure how to get it to what's in my minds eye, but it will be weathered, cracked and patched.
I hope....
Gonna try and take some ideas from Mr. Foxx and his Seaboard vr2

I had thought about using some of those foam meat trays and cover them with plaster then gently press on them to get the cracked appearance, but since I made it hollow underneath, I'll try that later. 

[Philip H]

I had thought about using some of those foam meat trays and cover them with plaster then gently press on them to get the cracked appearance, but since I made it hollow underneath, I'll try that later. 

I started that on the last layout and it was coming along pretty well. Another alternative is 1mm craft foam. Not sure if the big box craft stores still carry it but it can usually be had as a lifetime supply on eBay for about $20.

[Bendtracker1]

That's right @Philip H, thanks for reminding me.  That would probably work better since the plaster would grab onto the porous foam better?

[davefoxx]

Gonna try and take some ideas from Mr. Foxx and his Seaboard vr2

@Bendtracker1,

All I did was use ground up black chalk to create the weathering in the highway lanes and white and yellow colored pencils for the street lines and markings.  Looking good, Allen!

DFF

[Bendtracker1]

Thanks @davefoxx!
Looking forward to trying this method out.