Badger State Travels Part 2

During my travels to the Badger State I had the opportunity to railfan a little from Madison up to LaCrosse. Didn't catch to many trains but got a few right of way photos.

Wyeville, WI

For all you modelers looking for the example of the mainline going through a diverging point turnout here it is. We are facing west on the UP Altoona Sub. Just beyond the bridge is the main to St. Paul diverging to the right and a branch line continuing straight to Tunnel City, WI where it connects into the CP Tomah Sub.

View east to Adams / Milwaukee.

Camp Douglas , WI

View east from crossing on CP's Tomah Sub (Portage to La Crosse).

Few minutes later caught the eastbound Empire Builder hauling through.

Lastly a CP manifest was in the hole at Camp Douglas waiting for AMTK, not soon after making the meet this manifest with 2 CP AC4400s was heading west.

First real experience railfanning while traveling and hope to improve the photos in the future, but the overall Wisconsin feel should still be there.

Back to St. Clair Sub Posts next week

GM

Badger State Travels

Currently up in Wisconsin on duty but while traveling had a chance to stop at Madison Hobby Stop in Madison, WI. 

What would a trip be without picking up something and in this case just like last year a great deal on another CN engine. The CN engines remind me of my travels to this great state.

The engine is a KATO mid production SD40-2 with road number CN 6056. The prototype an SD40-3 is sub-lettered for IC and can be found roaming around the DMIR property up in Minnesota. I will be equipping the unit with a Soundtraxx decoder and speaker some time soon. Once in service the unit will look great paired with CN ES44DC handling the Q-CNMC/Q-MCCN on the "Clair".

And of course for my son Grayson - a wooden James the Red engine.

Had a little time to railfan on my off time, but that will be for another post.

Have a great summer

-GM

2nd Operating Session - July 12th, 2014

On Saturday another St. Clair Sub milestone was reached... the first full length operating session. Chris Palimeri, his son, and father joined me for a three hour session that I knew would put the layout through its paces and hopefully reveal gremlins that we all know exist.

Session Recap

Luckily the gremlins were minor such as plastic couplers don't do well when they are on the lead car of a 14 car train operating conventional not distributed power...... A few other items such as ground throw adjustments, rail joiners, and yardmaster lists will need some fixing but the railroad operated as intended and everyone had a great time. 

The session lasted roughly 2.5 hours operating 8 trains that constituted around 100 car moves. My sequential operations plan had 13 trains to operate and we came close to meeting this. The only trains we did not operate specifically were one manifest and four locals but the yardmaster did block them for running. I will finish up operating the layout so it will be ready to start a new car cycle with the next session hopefully sometime in August. I consider this a great success as the layout operating sequentially allows for it to be operated by 1, 2, 3, or 4 operators.

Session Resources
Helping the operators during the session I utilized many resources that I had collected from hands on experience on other layouts and other layouts.

Item A - Train Profile Card (Credit to Steve Rodie)
   Provides instructions regarding specific train operations over layout including info such as train length, HP requirements, and any special instructions.

Back on train profile card on left for M-BAPH and front of train profile card on right for L-BAUH.

Item B - Locomotive Card
   Provides operator information about the prototype and model such as horsepower, address, and functions.

Example of locomotive cards - besides the multiple DCC functions listed, the grayed "Locomotive Card" cell help differentiate between sound / non-sound.

Item C - Operators Handbook (Credit to John Parker)
   The handbook (50% complete) provides operators an overview, Subdivision timetable, and station by       station diagrams to assist with location awareness and switching assistance. The diagrams in the handbook match up with the station guides mounted on the fascia for each switching zone or station.

Here are a few pics taken during before the session..... need to do better at getting more during the session.

T-EXBA-05 "Transfer Job - LSRC Essexville to MCIS Bay Yard" with GP38-2 3823 and 3GS21B 2101 at Bay City awaiting permission from St. Clair Dispatcher to proceed out to west end of Bay Yard in order to shove in interchange cut they returned with. 

Tail end of T-EXBA-05 at Bay City. There was a larger than normal cut of cars that interchanged from LSRC. Looking at the manifest 16 of the cars originated off the Virginia Midland in Virginia. Please see the link below to take a look at these cars fresh from the contract Virginia Midland Shops (weathering / decalling) work.
http://virginiamidlandrr.blogspot.com/2014/07/lower-deck-work-and-weathering.html

Have a safe summer -

GM

Michigan Interstate Map

Over the course of this blog I had spent a great deal of time talking about the Michigan Interstate Network but never provided any map references. Well I present to you the network map.

Overview
The Michigan Interstate Railroad is a Class II regional system operating 1,050 miles in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Making up the network is three divisions; Two Lower Peninsula (Grand Rapids / Bay City) and one Upper Peninsula (Northern). Primary overhead traffic service lanes look like a "Y" funneling traffic between Chicago / Fort Wayne / Toledo interchange to Port Huron (Lower Peninsula) and Sault Ste. Marie / Superior, WI (Upper Peninsula) gateways. Beyond overhead traffic the railroad hosts numerous on-line customers supporting the automotive, agricultural, aggregate, chemical, forest / paper product industries.

Modeled Portion
The western end of the St. Clair Sub from Bay City to the green dot (Grays Lake, MI) is what I am modelling. This is a completely proto-freelance railroad that ties into the existing 2013 Michigan Rail System. Rail lines used by the MCIS come from a fictional history of either being constructed by former predecessor roads and or acquisitions during the great spin-off / abandonment time in the 70s thru 80s.

Any questions please feel free to ask - I am working to create a subdivision map that also shows the history / evolution of the network.

GM

Early July Update

First post for July showing some of the happenings around on the "Clair". While work did not progress as quickly as I had hoped.... life happens a.k.a. sometimes you just get exhausted having a toddler and no matter how tempting the train room is with all of the beckoning projects sometimes my eyelids win.

But what progress made was keeps pushing the layout in the right direction of getting finished and closer and closer to scenery. Notably Main Track 2 (Concrete Ties) continues to progress towards the WSS (West Siding Switch) where it ties back into Main Track 1. I had originally planned foam board based scenery for the area between MT 1 and the backdrop, and do not want to fill every single area with track but based on the mini-operating session this extra main which could be used for run-arounds, meets, and or holding trains was critical. Even with the additional track just out of picture is a good 2-3 inches of space that will be scenic'd along with this 1.5 inch area you see in the picture below.

Sceniking Backdrops and static grass on a 1 inch foam base will fill the gap between the tracks and backdrop on the east end of Bay Yard.  

Switch on MT2 in the background leads off to the East Industrial Spur which will serve Northern Arrow Logistics and Huron Milling. You can see from the picture the lightweight / simplistic nature of the upper level benchwork.

The Bay Yard east end ongoing work is to add operational interest to my next operating session. Finally my operators will have a customer to switch - Lakes Forest Products. All of the siding switches were cut in as mainline line was laid but the focus has been on getting trains running versus just switching.

A centerbeam flat spotted at Lakes Forest Products awaits pickup for return back to Montana for another load of lumber. Trackwork will be embeded in concrete (Sheet Styrene) since it is on N scale cork with the area around it HO scale cork sheets. 

Updated view of Chessie Junction. Foreground track is East Yard Lead follow by Main Track 1, Main Track 2, and LSRC Connection (not connected). You can see the switch and spur for Lakes Forest Products just below the caulk gun.
For readers who are keen they will realize the switch and low relief warehouse is gone. I felt that the scene was over-loaded and decided to move the warehouse over to the East Industrial Spur next to Huron Milling. This area will only host scenery to help balance the amount of trackwork.

Be sure to check out my second post published today showcasing the MCIS network map.

GM

Train Symbol 101

While this is not a post of pictures, I wanted to spend a little time to expand the train symbols that ply the St. Clair Subdivision commonly known to the crews as the "Clair".

MCIS 3823 (EMD GP38-2) handling the Y-BA04-02 holds the main on the east end of Bay Yard awaiting DTC authority to occupy "BAY2" block which allows access to switch Northern Arrow Logistics and Lakes Forest Products. 

MCIS 6051 (EMD GP60) assigned to the L-GLBU-XX idles at Gray's Lake awaitswork which will arrive tomorrow morning on the M-BAPH-03. 

The Symbol:

All trains except Locals, Road Switchers, and Yard Jobs.
Example: M-BAPH-02

1st character - type of train operating, in this case "M" for Manifest freight
--------------------
2nd and 3rd character - Two letter code for trains origin station and or terminal, in this case "BA" Bay Yard in Bay City, Michigan.
4th and 5th character - Two letter code for trains destination station and or terminal, in this case "PH" for Port Huron "St. Clair Yard".
--------------------
6th and 7th character - day of month departure from origin, does not denote month or year just date for example July 2nd.

Local Trains
Example: L-BAUH-02

1st character - type of train operating, in this case "L" for Local freight.
--------------------
2nd and 3rd character - Two letter code for trains origin station and or terminal, in this case "BA" Bay Yard in Bay City, Michigan.
4th and 5th character - Two letter code for trains turn point back to origination station, in this case "UH" Upper Huron, Michigan.
--------------------
6th and 7th character - day of month departure from origin, does not denote month or year just date for example July 2nd.

Road Switchers Trains
Example: R-BAPB-02

1st character - type of train operating, in this case "R" for Road Switcher freight.
--------------------
2nd and 3rd character - Two letter code for trains origin station and or terminal, in this case "BA" Bay Yard in Bay City, Michigan.
4th and 5th character - Two letter code for trains turn point back to origination station, in this case "PB" Port Belle, Michigan.
--------------------
6th and 7th character - day of month departure from origin, does not denote month or year just date for example July 2nd.

**The difference between the "L" and "R" freights has to do with the road switcher taking two scheduled days to complete its work (Up one direction day and back the other direction day two) while the locals are planned to complete and return to origin station same day.**

Yard Jobs
Example: Y-BA01-01

1st character - type of train operating, in this case "Y" for Yard Job.
--------------------
2nd and 3rd character - Two letter code for serving yard, in this case "BA" for Bay Yard.
4th and 5th character - Two digits that identify either shift or specific job, in this case Bay Yard 1st trick job.
--------------------
6th and 7th character - day of month on duty.

Symbol Key:
A - Agricultural Unit  (Grains, Ethanol)
C - Loaded Coal 
E - Empty Unit (All types)
F - Foreign Line 
L - Local Switcher
M - General Manifest (Terminal to Terminal)
O - Officer Special
P - Amtrak / Regional Transit Authority
Q - Extended Manifest (Division to Division with block swaps)
R - Road Switcher 
U - Unit (Non Coal or Agricultural)
W - Work / Ballast 
Y - Yard Job

Station Key: (Stations you will see on St. Clair Sub symbols)
BA - Bay City, MI (Bay Yard)
BU - Buhler, MI
BW - Bay City, MI (HESR Interchange)
EX - Essexville, MI (LSRC Interchange)
CN - Tappan, MI (CN Interchange)
GE - Gerhard, MI
GL - Grays Lake, MI
GR - Grand Rapids, MI (Kent Yard and CSX Interchange)
KN - Kincaid, MI
MC - Mackinac City, MI (Bridge Yard)
MP - Mount Pleasant, MI (GLC Interchange)
MY - Marysville, MI 
PB - Port Belle, MI
PH - Port Huron, MI (St. Clair Yard)
UH - Upper Huron, MI

I hope this helps better understand "Clair" operations as you read through my blog posts.

GM