The lead photo captures a pair of steam switchers simmering after another successful Wheeling Freight Terminal operating session! This was the second session here at the Philadelphia home.
Three local modelers gathered for the 10am session. Steve Wysowski and Gary Stroh covered the team yard crew duties. Gerry Futej and I handled the freight house tasks. A pair of Proto2000 USRA 0-8-0 switchers were used to shuffle freight cars around the 10×16 HO scale layout.
Some gremlins had settled into the layout since the May operating session. A couple of track switches acted up and some vertical bumps were found at layout section interface rail joints. These were not issues in May. At the same time, the two freight cars that were having problems in May acted fine this time.
Everyone worked slowly and thought through the various moves to move the inbound freight cars and pull the outbounds. While the Wheeling Freight Terminal looks like a simple layout, the operational side requires more thinking and planning than expected. Gary, Gerry, and Steve did a great job on their first visit.
Here’s the original inventory of inbound cars from one side of the yard. The freight house crew worked on this list. It’s been marked up as freight cars are handed off to the other team yard crew and as strings of cars are prepped to be spotted at the freight house. Not seen here is a shorter inventory of freight cars the team yard crew sent over. After the inbounds were spotted and the outbounds brought back to the yard, both crews took a lunch break.
The final task was sorting the outbound cars by the destinations beyond Wheeling. The B&O has five routes out of the city, plus a clean out track. Destinations include Pittsburgh, Grafton, Kenova, Columbus, and Cleveland. Here’s a look at the yard after the crews departed.
Any operating session will raise issues to work on to make the layout run better. I have several items on the check list to keep me busy before the next crews arrive.
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Wish I could run there! Alas, we might be moving too soon. Boo-HOO!
Eric,
Glad to hear that the B&O Wheeling Freight Terminal is making money again for the railroad!
Thanks for sharing this event and the “Murphy” incidences as well. Gremlins always show up when guests are around!
Your track plan is really nice Eric. I like the main yard layout very much, giving you a nice place to showcase your car fleet. I look forward to seeing the freight house built and in place. It will be a very busy and impressive structure when completed.
I’ve always run my layout between sessions. It helps to weed out some problems but it never fails that Mr Murphy will make an appearance when the visitors are present.
Dave, I often run the layout between sessions. My granddaughter often runs a couple of trains when she visits. She now likes to help me with switching, too. I didn’t have any problems in the week or two before the session. But I guess Mr. Murphy decided to attend and cause issues. – Eric H.
Thanks for sharing your operations.
I’m curious as to what you might be using to generate car movements. I also wonder what the zeros or circles with the slashes signify.
I’m always trying to learn more even as insignificant that may be. I wondered if on the prototype freight house each car had a specific door it had to be spotted at? That would make for some very interesting switching.
Thanks for your comment, Ken. I set up the layout as a clerk would review the incoming cars. I inventory each track, listing the cars in order. After all inbound tracks are inventoried, then I can add the on-layout destination. I made index cards with a track or sure spot on each card. These are shuffled a couple of times before I pick the top card as the destination for the first car on the inventory. If a gondola is next on the inventory and a freight house spot turns up on the card, then that destination is assigned to the next box, ventilated, reefer, or stock car on the inventory. The next card that comes up with a team yard destination, or on the front or rear freight house tracks, that gets assigned to the gondola. I try to keep this process simple. Crews don’t really care what is in the freight car, only where it needs to go.
As to the zeros and slashes, some freight cars are not yet painted and lettered. They do not have a reporting mark or car number. I use tags on the cars that are marked with a letter and a number. Car B01 is a box car with number one. G04 is a gondola with number 4. I use slashes across the zeros to set them apart from capital O letters. It’s an old writing habit. – Eric H.