At the start of operations on the S&BC, there was very little main line track to other towns. The entire layout pretty much was the Grand Forks town, plus the upper and lower staging yards. This resulted in some traffic to and from the local industries in Grand Forks, but most of it simply was interchanged between the CPR and the S&BC and went to and from the staging yards. Consequently, it made sense to operate the yard as a classification point in order to best handle the interchange traffic.
Now, with the addition of the new towns of Carson and Curlew that have in combination more industry spots than the entire layout had before, continuing to operate Grand Forks as a classification yard is proving to be a big mistake.
The idea of selectively compressing aspects of a model railroad has been around for a long time, but it has mostly been applied to physical things such as building size, number of windows, bridge length, etc. The motivation is that our model railroad layouts are significantly smaller than the prototype.To help compensate for this, we reduce the size or number of various elements to help make the layout seem bigger. The notion that this same idea can be applied to the operational aspects of running a model railroad has not been popular, but it will be explored here.
Model train sizes and distances are already vastly smaller that on the prototype, so we often operate with a “fast clock” to enhance the notion of time and distance, but there are a few more things that we can do from a timing perspective to enhance layout operations.
Following the construction and commissioning of the new towns of Carson and Curlew with their additional industries, a new operating scheme was developed to include service to these new towns. It was a simple extension of the one used to date, whereby trains from all four compass points would exchange cars in Grand Forks as well as service their assigned industries. The local industries at Grand Forks were switched also as part of the classification switcher duties at an appropriate point in time. This proved quite successful, and it was used during VanRail 2017 for two sessions.
With the significant increase in industries wanting cars, the classification role at Grand Forks was expected to become a full time position, leaving the local industries to be switched by a different job.
The Saturday gang bravely agreed to try out these ideas on one Friday evening that will be well remembered for all the wrong reasons. Let’s just say that my ideas didn’t quite work out as planned. If you are interested in the gory details of my analysis, it continues below the following pictures that were taken before everything went wrong.
This is a start of the new crew job descriptions for operating the layout with the addition of the new town of Curlew. The number of operating positions grows to fully four with the added number of industries to be switched at Curlew and at Carson.
A Bit of Philosophy
Grand Forks is a true interchange hub, as the S&BC runs north and south through it, the CPR runs east and west, and the GN comes in and back from the southeast. Lots of cars must be interchanged between trains at Grand Forks, which requires a dedicated switcher job to classify the incoming cars. There are also 6 industries in Grand Forks that need to be switched, plus the new adjacent town of Carson has a few more. As Carson is right on the US border, it did not make sense to switch it with a way freight that crosses the border, due to the paperwork involved. Instead, all deliveries and pickups at Carson are made by a turn out of Grand Forks that never crosses the border. Southbound cars leaving Carson will be brought back to Grand Forks and then sent south on the next scheduled way freight, after their customs papers have been drawn up.
The new town of Curlew is located between Carson and the original temporary end of the line at Darestof. It has only S&BC trains passing through it, and a number of industries that need to be switched. The initial ideas around how to switch Curlew were to parallel Grand Forks with a dedicated switcher that handles blocks of cars from the passing trains. This is really not a good approach as there is not enough work for a full time local switcher because there are no interchanges with other trains.
The Saturday gang was over to test out all parts of the new extension to Curlew and Darestof following the installation of the DCC auto-reversers and other wiring. Many thanks again to John for capturing the day in pictures.
The next Saturday after I returned home we continued on from where the elves had left off during my absence. Work began as Gordie contemplated various connection schemes between the two sections which were almost on top of each other. He was inspired with a concept of two temporary switching leads one for Curlew and the other for Darestof. (What would we do without him?) Thanks again to John for the photos and comments.
Gordie contemplating
Most of the day was spent locating, adjusting heights, unwarping new plywood and securing the temporary Darestof section so it could be connected in a manner that would ensure smooth operation of both sections.
Gordie gluing
While leveling and arranging was ongoing, Greg and Brian were busy locating and installing track feeders in the permanent Curlew section.
Greg and Brian contemplating track feeders
And Tom was working on the cardboard web supports for the mountain behind the Morning Star mine. Tom is also responsible for the very nice retaining wall at the bottom of the hill beside the track. That is the narrowest spot, due to the proximity of the lower main line, and he offered to build a wall for the spot. Thank you!
Tom “webbing”
Off to one side Ken was quietly busy building the land of the “Ents”. (Tree-hosts, look it up online.) Although the scenery in this area does not represent a West Coast rain forest, nevertheless many, many trees are required to achieve scenery appropriate to the area around Grand Forks, British Columbia and looking down towards Spokane in Washington State.
Ken, the Tree Maker
For once, we had everyone present for the work session, but unfortunately somehow Brian got missed in the final shots of the gang. Everyone looks a bit tired from a good days efforts on the layout. Many thanks to you all!
In May, I attended the NMRA Pacific Coast Region convention in Sacramento, followed by the joint UP/SP historical societies’ convention in Ogden Utah commemorating the 150th anniversary of the completion of the US transcontinental railroad. It seems that while I was gone the Saturday elves were hard at work in my absence, working to get the portable end of the line section known as Darestof installed in preparation for VanRail in September. What is not evident in the photos is the amount of stuff that had to be moved to make room for the new L-girders and benchwork to support Darestof. The event was recorded once again by John.
The elves at Darestof
They did leave me to install the track to connect Darestof to Curlew. I didn’t want to compromise the design of Curlew just for VanRail, so the very end of Curlew was left unbuilt so that we could join it temporarily to Darestof. Once we continue along the wall and move Darestof to its next location, the south end of Curlew will get finished. For now, there is lots of track that has just been nailed down instead of glued.
Darestof installed
Darestof was not the only location where the elves were working. The sawmill in Curlew needs some sort of a log pond, so the trusty sabre saw was put to good use to cut out the plywood. They installed another piece lower down for the pond bottom.
The sawmill pond cut out.
Many thanks to the guys for doing this to advance the construction, and to Suzy for inviting them over in the first place! . There was considerable consternation amongst the group that I may be mad at them, but why would I be, after they did so much to help me.
Once all of the cork roadbed was in place, the track was installed using the normal latex caulk as a glue. The mainlines are Peco code 83, and some of the sidings and spurs are Shinohara code 70 from way back when.
