Tehachapi, BC

[GaryHinshaw]

Thx for the numbers Mark - my guess of your ratio was in the right ballpark.  In theory the staging will be fluid enough to allow me to recirculate trains and power, so the immediate need is not pressing.  (The need for actual staging track and DCC is much more pressing!) 

Some good news and bad news on the staging: it was pretty straightforward to rejigger SY2 to accommodate 10 tracks instead of 6.  My initial plan used 1.5" spacing; I switched to 1.25", widened it a bit, and converted it to a compound ladder, so it now looks like this (new on top, old on the bottom for comparison):



and it will run along the top wall, under the (forthcoming) Edison shelf:





The good news is that the four additional 13' tracks increase capacity by 4 trains, or 140 more 60' cars, so I think I'm good with that.  The bad news (though not really news) is that the yard, as drawn, is only 7" below the Edison shelf, which I think is a really bad idea.  I can lower the yard by another ~4" by adding one helix turn to the run between SY1 and SY2, so I'll probably swallow that pill.  If you look at the 2nd image above, the lead to SY2 is a straight shot along the garage door wall, on a 1.2% down grade, while the mainline from SY1 to Edison makes one helix turn to gain elevation.  It would be pretty simple to add one downgrade loop to the SY2 lead to lower it by ~4".  Probably a wise idea.

This would mean that all tracks that penetrate the footprint of the Loop shelf have to execute at least one loop.  The Loop on top is cool, but the ones below deck are a necessary evil.  That structure, which contains one 5-turn staging helix (SY3) and 3 separate 1-turn loops, will henceforth be known as the Vortex.

[Scottl]

All I can say is that you need to give formal notice to Kato and Deluxe Innovations about your intents.  They need to seriously start producing intermodal equipment.

[GaryHinshaw]

Well Kato is at least producing - and you can verify with Chuck that I'm buying.  In my fleet, the biggest gaps to fill, in order of importance to me, are:

* 53' containers in JB Hunt, Schneider, Green HUB Group,
* 53' trailers of any model or trucking line,
* Anything resembling modern UPS,
* A second style of 53' well car, beyond the Maxi-IV

No doubt many others are in the same boat.  Sigh.

[DKS]

Gary, I suspect the sky backdrop is a done deal. If not, something to ponder: I'd make a pair of narrow, curved cove units to fit into the corners of the room, notched to go around the door tracks, and permanently attached to the walls. The, I'd make a single flat removable panel that fits in between them and runs top to bottom to cover the door. Done right, you'd have a pair of small vertical seams just to the left and right of the existing room corners you have now, which would be hidden.

At the very least, one thing I'd do is paint the door tracks to match the sky color.

Carry on! This is an incredible project.

[GaryHinshaw]

DKS, just last night I was playing around with corner treatments that would do away with the worst of the remaining seams, and a cove along the lines you mentioned was one idea.   I'll keep the full panel idea in mind too, but it would have to pretty much be a full 4x8 to work as you describe, and that would be a bit unwieldy to remove.  Maybe when I decide that it's pointless to keep the option of opening the door -- it's been over a year since I've even cracked it open...  Fortunately, changes are pretty feasible up until finished scenery work begins, and that's going to be a while still.

[DKS]

Re: the unwieldy 4 x 8 panel, I agree--if it was still Masonite. Perhaps something lighter? IIRC, Foamcore can be ordered in 4 x 8 sheets. Just one thought...

[basementcalling]

Gary, be careful about going to 1.25 spacing instead of 1.5. Will your operators' fingers scale down to fit between tracks if needed to rerail or swap out cars?

I think increasing the vertical separation is a required pill. If you plan to do any kind of fiddling in the staging yard, you might want to take two and check back in the morning. Overhead clearance makes a difference in how easily you can 0-5-0 the cars. I learned this lesson the hard way on a previous layout. In N scale in particular, just because our equipment fits in the space in the plan doesn't mean our hands will.

[GaryHinshaw]

Re: the unwieldy 4 x 8 panel, I agree--if it was still Masonite. Perhaps something lighter? IIRC, Foamcore can be ordered in 4 x 8 sheets. Just one thought...

Interesting suggestion (as always).  Another -- probably crazy -- idea would be to use an edge-illuminated lucite panel, something like this blue one, but a bit paler:



And maybe if you top-illuminate it, you could get a gradient in the illumination:

[GaryHinshaw]

Basementcalling, I totally hear you about the need for human access, and I think I have committed to at least one turn in the Vortex to lower the yard by about 4".  That said, the yard in question (SY2) is really intended for overflow storage: whole trains would be shuttled between SY2 and the "online" yards, SY1and SY3 during a session.  Further, this job would be handled by the terminal manager (usually me), so guests should never have to worry about access.  In the best case, a human never has to reach in there, other than to fix derailments or uncouplings (but that does still require decent access).

The ops plan, as I currently envision it, does not call for much yard fiddling during a session.  I think the locals would be staged at the beginning, and would tie down in the yard when their work is completed.   Between sessions, through trains would be refreshed by shuffling cars amongst similar trains (see the lineup below) to make them look different.  This could be accomplished by bringing similar trains to SY1 and swapping cars.  Hopefully the physical proximity of the three yards makes this a relatively simple process.  With the extra capacity in SY2, a reasonable number of cars could sit out a session, but still easily be swapped in for the next one.

-gfh

P.S. Here is a sample lineup, culled from this Aug. 2012 video.  I think I could run 18-20 trains from this list during a session.  I'm going to try to string-diagram that session.   

1. SB, BNSF, bare-table
2. NB, UP, intermodal (HUB, EMP, etc.)
3. SB, BNSF, manifest
4. SB, UP, intermodal (HUB, EMP, etc.)
5. NB, BNSF, intermodal (UPS, Hunt, etc.)
6. SB, BNSF, intermodal (Hunt, etc.)
7. SB, UP, vehicle
8. NB, BNSF, intermodal (Hunt, UPS, etc)
9. SB, BNSF, intermodal (Hunt, Schneider, etc.)
10. SB, UP, manifest (lumber, etc.)
11. SB, UP, intermodal (HUB, EMP, etc.)
12. SB, BNSF, coil steel
13. SB, BNSF, intermodal (Hunt, Schneider, etc.)
14. NB, UP, intermodal (HUB, EMP, etc.)
15. SB, BNSF, intermodal (Hunt, Schneider, etc.)
16. NB, UP, manifest
17. NB, BNSF, manifest
18. SB, BNSF, intermodal (Schneider, Hunt, etc.)
19. SB, UP, bare-table
20. SB, BNSF, intermodal (Hunt, Matson)+vehicle
21. NB, BNSF, intermodal (Hunt, England, etc.)
22. SB, UP, manifest
23. NB, UP, manifest
24. SB, UP, cement
25. NB, UP, intermodal (HUB, EMP, etc.)
26. NB, BNSF, manifest

The numbers:
10 NB, 16 SB
12 UP, 14 BNSF
14 intermodal, 2 bare-table, 9 manifest/unit, 1 local

Missing from this lineup (but definitely on my list) are the BNSF grain trains and the "wine train" (lots of 62' insulated boxcars and 82' reefers).  The biggest surprise to me is the near absence of international (40') container traffic; I guess I don't need as many Maxi-I's as I thought I did, but LOTS more domestic (53') platforms, containers, and trailers.

[Scottl]

I would think there would be little international container traffic, as that would go to Long Beach directly. 

I hope you mean "streamline", not string line!

[C855B]

... the "wine train" (lots of 62' insulated boxcars and 82' reefers).  ...

We have "wine trains" here, too. Pretty much any NS train stabbed at the junction having to wait for Amtrak, then CN, then a BNSF coal drag. You should hear these guys on the radio complaining to the DS about "We've been sitting here for 2 hours, blah blah blah." But I guess that's really w-H-i-n-e.

[basementcalling]

We have "wine trains" here, too. Pretty much any NS train stabbed at the junction having to wait for Amtrak, then CN, then a BNSF coal drag. You should hear these guys on the radio complaining to the DS about "We've been sitting here for 2 hours, blah blah blah." But I guess that's really w-H-i-n-e.

The west coast gets the wine train, and the east coast has just a juice train on CSX from Florida to DC. Tropicana cars one and all. I think the wine train wins.

[GaryHinshaw]

I would think there would be little international container traffic, as that would go to Long Beach directly. 

I hope you mean "streamline", not string line!

LOL.  I meant to say put this lineup on a string diagram (not a stringline diagram, as I erroneously called it on the previous page).  I certainly hope not to stringline the trains!

RE international container traffic: there is some on the hill, mostly BNSF to/from Oakland.  I was just surprised to see zero in a random sample of 26 trains.  (It's definitely not Cajon!)  For the record, here is a meet between an international stack train and the wine train.   

-gfh

[James Costello]

There used to be some ISO traffic over the Loop, as the ships often call at multiple west coast ports before sailing west, the railroads could then still make the boat by detouring routes and changing that trains departure port.

[GaryHinshaw]

Between gluing strips of cork in the shoo-fly, I decided to mock up a bit of the lower deck infrastructure a bit to get a better sense of how that will look.  I was especially interested in the clearances between Edison and SY2, as per the discussion above.  Here is an overview of part of the west wall (top wall in the plans):



This shows the desert shelf on top (track elevation ~62"), the Edison mock-up (~43") , and a bit of the SY2 shelf below that (~35").  The separation between the two active decks is quite nice.  The SY2 shelf, as shown, can be easily reached without a turn in the Vortex, but in practice, the Edison shelf will be a little bit thicker than shown, so lowering SY2 may still be necessary.  (Note that the SY2 shelf will be a bit shallower than this mock-up shows.)

For fun I set some track down on the Ediison shelf to see how it might look:



This is supposed to be a dusty packing house district in the Central Valley and the look I'll be going for is this:



Key elements will be: code 40 spurs with plenty of sand & dust between the rails, scrub brush around the phone poles, and lots of food crates stacked everywhere.  One of the key challenges when switching this area will be to avoid tying up  the main line too much.  There is a long siding on the north side to serve the spurs there, but runaround moves will require access to main #2 (NB main on the right).  The crossovers on either side of this district will allow the dispatcher to put NB trains onto track #1 if necessary.  However, to serve the spur off main #1, the crew will have to cross over both mains and tie them up for a while.  No pressure though. 

-gfh

P.S.  Does "used to" mean there is no longer ISO traffic over the Loop, James?

There used to be some ISO traffic over the Loop...