Tehachapi, BC

[seusscaboose]

a little TOO early my friend

[Smike]

Wish I could make it out, would be nice to see a bunch of Black Horse heads invade the loop 

There better be at least one a$$ hat making video and posting all that... I still need to live vicariously through others until the train room rehab is complete on my end in a couple of months.

[GaryHinshaw]

Wish I could make it out, would be nice to see a bunch of Black Horse heads invade the loop 

Especially your finely detailed ones!  NS power does make a regular appearance on the hill, though not as frequently as it did a few years ago, it seems.  I will definitely have a few on TBC though.

Making some progress on decoder installs, 4-digit addressing, and consisting; so things are moving ahead...  Still finalizing plans for the first session, but it's looking like Aug 27.

If anyone is passing through Vancouver, be sure to look me up (and the rest of the substantial crew here).  I'd be happy to show you around.

-gfh

[Kevin C]

Gary.

I am impressed with the progress you have made so far on your layout.

I found this cool 5 minute video on You Tube of a Tehachapi cab ride.

/>
Kevin

[USMC0351]

Morning all, new here!  Gary, I must say that's a very impressive layout based of the available space. I came across your post during a recent search for Tehachapi Loop layouts.  I've been enjoying following the progress and photos. Its been a real inspiration  to get started on my verison of the Pass. I come from an ho scale background and have been trying to come up with a design that works with ho, but your layout and ChrisKLAS's Tehachpi Pass project over on Nscale.net has nearly convinced me to try Nscale. Been out of MRing for quite a while and recently caught the bug again. Recently purchased a Farm  that has a 30'x40' shop. Been thinking of dividing it into a two 20'x30' rooms and finishing out one of them to build a new layout in. Fortunately for me I have 18 years of residential construction   Fell in luv with the Loop and had a chance to visit the Tehachapi, Caliente and Bakersfield area back in 2000. Also while stationed in Camp Pendelton ,Ca, I had the opportunity to spend alot time down at the La Mesa MR club and really enjoyed the Tehachapi Pass layout. Sadly they did not have the loop portioned completed at the time. Now to decide to stay with ho or switch to N   Please keep the updates and photo's coming for those of us who still have that kid dreaming inside. Thanks, SemperFi

http://www.nscale.net/forums/showthread.php?26282-Tehachapi-Pass-in-900sqft

[Coxy]

Great progress Gary. Nice pic of the LA freeway scene! Almost a shame it will eventually be mostly covered by scenery. Now you have continuous running on the menu, some posted video would really bring this machine to life for us followers in the peanut gallery.

...oh, and a close up of that blue boxcar top left in the pic would be cool too!

[seusscaboose]

Railwire: Where Clearance Height Matters

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Holy *****. I just watched that cab ride video. I can't believe how tight those curves are.


Now I get it.

[GaryHinshaw]

I found this cool 5 minute video on You Tube of a Tehachapi cab ride.

/>
Kevin

Thanks Kevin, I love that video - and I dream of taking a cab ride over the Pass some day!  As EK notes, the curves are perhaps the single most impressive feature of Tehachapi.  There is virtually no straight track whatsoever between Caliente and Summit, and many of the curves are 10 degrees, which is extremely tight for a Class 1 mainline. (Sadly, even those correspond to ~44" radius curves in N scale...)

It's the geography of Tehachapi that draws me to this prototype more than anything else: a busy, torturous, single-track line, set in my 'primal landscape', shared by two class 1 roads, with challenging operations.  The sharp curves make it a plausible prototype to model convincingly (or so I hope).  The near timelessness of the area is also appealing: the Pass itself has changed relatively little in over 100 years.  So, while the grunge and mass of modern railroading appeals to me, I consider it fair game to run older equipment in the future if the mood strikes...

-gfh

P.S. Glad y'all like the freeway scene. 

[GaryHinshaw]

Morning all, new here! ...

http://www.nscale.net/forums/showthread.php?26282-Tehachapi-Pass-in-900sqft

Welcome to Railwire, USMC0351!  Please keep us posted on your plans, and thanks for the link to Chris Kilroy's plan - I had not encountered that one before.

...oh, and a close up of that blue boxcar top left in the pic would be cool too!

That's my favorite boxcar!  A gift from no other than the esteemed Prof.  .  I thought I had a few close-ups tucked away but couldn't find them.  I'll take some when I get home, but maybe Tom has some already online that he could insert?  I haven't done any weathering myself since I moved to BC, but I just returned from bringing my youngest kid to college, which means the 3rd floor space he used for his music studio is now free for the paint booth, etc.    

But I'm still mainly focused in getting track laid for operations...  Can't get too side-tracked just yet.

-gfh

[basementcalling]

But side tracks are were the most challenging operations are, Gary.

Now I get the freeway reference after reminding myself how ugly the I95, I495, I 395 Mixing Bowl is in Springfield, VA. Only on model railroads is heavy traffic a good thing. 

[USMC0351]

Came across this youtube video of  Amtrak's Coast Starlight detour that provides some spectacular visuals of the loop and surrounding area.
 
Uploaded on Feb 7, 2012
Very seldom Amtrak's Coast Starlight can't travel along the California coast due to track work or derailments. This occurred in February 2012 and the train was re-routed through the Mojave Desert, Tehachapi Pass, and California's central Valley. This unique mountain crossing has not seen passenger trains since 1971 and includes the famous Tehachapi Loop. We cover most of the scenic highlights of the route. Music: "Carried By the Wind" - Ryan Farish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKtci4vffAk

[GaryHinshaw]

Well, the inaugural operating session of Tehachapi BC is now history!  I had a crew of 5 guests over to run trains for a few hours last night and it was very enlightening.  I've appended a few observations.  I didn't take any pictures, but Tim Horton took a bunch with his very nice camera, so I'll post some of those when he gets a chance to sort through them.

Nice to have this milestone behind me! Thanks to the crew (Mark Dance, Tim Horton, Andrew Hutchinson, Rene Gourly, Bill Dixon) for acting as my beta testers.

-gfh

P.S. Thanks for the link USMC0351 - it looks really cool!


Notes from session #1, Aug 28, 2013:
* 6 people fit in the room quite comfortably, so I think I can still squeeze in a small rendition of the Arvin branch to provide another switching area.


* Everyone ran their trains very slowly!  I think the combination of the grades, curves, long trains and helpers had the desired effect.  Also, it's quite different running a single train on the layout with no one else in the room than it is running 3 trains (the capacity of the current upper deck) with 6 people in the room.  There is just a lot more you need to pay attention to, and it's harder to listen to your train.


* Traffic planning.  My forecast was that the full layout should have 5-6 trains on the line at any given time in order to provide interesting, but not overloaded, operations.  Given the performance of 3 trains on one deck, I think that is still true.  So I was very pleased that 6 people fit comfortably in the space and that 1-person crews were feasible.  Regarding helpers, I think the best mode was true distributed (consisted) helpers rather than live helpers operated by the lead engineer with a second throttle.  DPU mode worked pretty well.  There is still room for manned pusher ops - a mode that is still occasionally in use today - but that requires a 2nd crew member to man the pusher.  For now, the main lesson is that 1-person crews will work for most trains, and that traffic levels can be planned accordingly.


* Derailments.  There were a handful of single-car derailments I was aware of, falling into 3 categories:
- The lead freight car truck on the loaded intermodal would sometimes skew off the rails when going downgrade due to the pressure on its (truck-mounted) coupler.  Solutions: body-mount the couplers where possible (this is my plan anyway) and distribute loading better with DPU's (may require tuning the speed match).
- Cars coupled to diesels with short-shank couplers and snow plows could get their trip pins hung up on the plow and derail.  Solution: eliminate trip pins!
- Cars would derail through summit switch frog.  This happened once or twice, and I think only with the loaded intermodal with the consisted dpu.  Solutions: install the guard-rails on that turnout (it's on my to-do list  , but I'm impressed how well the function w/o guards) and possibly tune the DPU speed match..


* Hidden track & staging.  The configuration of the temporary shoo-fly was a bit confusing, but that will solve itself with future work.  The quasi-hidden crossover at the south end is more of an issue since that is nominally permanent.  In the current configuration, this crossover marks the end of the east slope siding, so it had a key role in traffic flow.  In the full plan, the east slope is fully double-tracked from summit on, and this crossover is just there to enable reverse running between there and summit, mainly to allow the cement plant job to occupy the rear main during some switching moves, making the east slope effectively single track during those (infrequent) times.

In general, I think there are still some open questions about how well the staging scheme will work in practice. 1) Is it too confusing for road crews? 2) Is the traffic volume manageable by a single person (me)?  Time to do some more building, so I can answer those questions.

Thanks again to the crew for helping me bring this beast to life!

[Leggy]

Gary, as far as DPU is concerned I've found that 4 locomotives with 2 speed matched the same and the other 2 the same but slightly slower seems to be a good solution to keeping everything in check with DPUs. Quite strange but if the faster is leading the slower they seem to just go along quite happily.

[GaryHinshaw]

Thanks Leggy. When I was doing some testing alone - using live helpers with two throttles - I found it best to have the helpers set to run slightly faster than the leaders on the upgrades and slightly slower on the downgrades.  But generally the speed-matched and consisted DPU's seemed to work pretty well. 

A bigger issue was the comfort level of the operator in charge of a long train with two sets of locos.  That wasn't too much of an issue for me running one train alone, but with 3+ trains going and 6 people in the room, it's more challenging to keep tabs on your train, which can be up to 16' long.   The challenge was slightly compounded by the temporary shoo-fly which a) has the sharpest curve on the layout (17" radius), b) is at the bottom of a hill with upgrade at either end, and c) is semi-hidden.  I'll be glad when I can remove that. 

In planning traffic, I will try to have a range of train lengths and motive power distributions available to match different operator comfort levels.  Maybe I'll take a cue from the Columbia & Western's sign-up board and mark the loaded grain train, with its 3 loco sets, as a double black diamond.