I'm curious about how everbody simulates during there operating sesssions at the industries for loading/unloading cars.
How exactly do you perform a load and unload, how much time do you wait for each car to load/unload, etc. Do you simulate the load by placing something in the car?, either home made, or by those walthers loads.
Specifically, with my industries which will be: Ethanol Plant with Corn/Grain, Gasoline, Ethanol Alcohol, Lumber Yard, Oil Plant, and a Gravel Quarry.
Thanks,
Michael
CEO- Mile-HI-RailroadPrototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989
I assume that it takes at least until the next session to load or unload a car.
Open top loads are stored in a storage unit with small drawers and between sessions the loads are added/removed as required. I had coal/rock loads by car make and then gon/flat loads by car length. Sometimes I just set the steel mill loads on the ground in the steel mill and then put one in a car as required. When not being used they were just stacks of steel product sitting around the mill.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
dehusman I assume that it takes at least until the next session to load or unload a car.
I can see instances where cars would be loaded or unloaded within an operating session such as in icing and stock-animal movements with the car/cars moved to different locations during the same session.
Mark
Just for starters, usually the loading/unloading process isn't modeled. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it can't be or that it hasn't. The waybill tells an operator if the car is loaded or empty. This is important for cars like tank cars, box cars and covered hoppers where the load can't be seen. Other cars like center beam flat cars for your lumber yard do the same, but also can use removable loads. Just take off the load and flip the waybill.
I'm also trying to figure how to model a lumber supply yard. Not as easy when you're working with a narrower shelf layout. There are too lumber suppliers by my apartment, Amerhart and Stock Lumber. I don't see Stock getting as much rail traffic, but the way the tracks are and their siding it's also pretty hidden from view on the road. Amerhart on the other hand....woo. There's usually a box car sitting by the biggest warehouse (there are a few smaller ones too), sometimes two, and they can get anywhere from 1-3 larger 72 foot center beam flat cars fully loaded with dimension lumber every few days. You can tell building season is coming, two days this week they have gotten lumber so far, 2 center beams full each. The loco crew just got out there today when I was heading to the edu center to use the web and they had a center beam in the consist. Not sure if it was for Stock or Amerhart though, but my money would be on Amer.
My cycle depends on the degree of service required, when working the packing houses, loaded reefers are pulled in blocks and replaced with empties immediently, but not always those destined for team tracks, partially iced, they can sit for several days until loaded. The shook mills are a bit more casual, I presume they have a two week supply of lumber and other supplies on hand , thus a move might occur once per every two weeks, during the height of packing season this movement can be once per week, generally these shook movements move in mixed freights that service several independent lumber yards and other industries as well.
To keep it interesting, the car routing/assignment department (me) has been known to assign a reefer or two that is incompatable with packing house loading doors, this requires addtional switching to resolve!
Dave
At the Westport Terminal RR cars are loaded / unloaded over night.
When I change the waybills I change the loads. This way the next session starts with changed loads.
Wolfgang
Pueblo & Salt Lake RR
Come to us http://www.westportterminal.de my videos my blog
Let's say you're loading grain. You have of course a track to the grain elevator. You have a track for empties, and a track for loaded. By loading a single car, how much time passes before you swing it over to to your loaded track, and pick another empty car to be loaded.
During this maneuver, do you pass time by doing something else on the layout, perhaps working a passanger train, or sorting cars in the yard, etc.?
My thought was to pull a car for loading, run my passenger train around the layout a couple of times, then come back to the loaded car, and so on and so forth. Like 10 minutes between cars.
wedudler At the Westport Terminal RR cars are loaded / unloaded over night.When I change the waybills I change the loads. This way the next session starts with changed loads. Wolfgang
Wolfgang, did you make your own load there? If so, how do you do that?
I have used a coal dealer that receives hopper cars of coal, a lumber yard that gets flatcars of packaged lumber, and others that use loads. I find it adds a little to the realism...a flat car is spotted at a team track with six farm tractors on the car. Next operating session, the flat is empty and the tractors are gone.
MILW-RODR I'm also trying to figure how to model a lumber supply yard. Not as easy when you're working with a narrower shelf layout.
I'm also trying to figure how to model a lumber supply yard. Not as easy when you're working with a narrower shelf layout.
You could just build a loading dock on the aisle side of the tracks, and say the lumber co. buildings are off the layout on the aisle side. With a few details like a fence around the spur track, a sign for the lumber co. etc. it should be believeable.
wedudler At the Westport Terminal RR cars are loaded / unloaded over night. When I change the waybills I change the loads. This way the next session starts with changed loads. Wolfgang
That's pretty fast for cars like covered hoppers,tank cars and some boxcar loads....Unloading some cars can take up to 2 days at some industries.Now if there are more then 1 car then it will take longer for cars to cycle through the unloading/loading process.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
This way, a piece of foam, wood or whatever you like. Cut to the loading room, or better a bit shorter. I've glued the steel piece (from Athearn cars) and dumped the coal (ore, sand....) in the desired shape. The I worked like with ballast, thinned glue.
MotleyLet's say you're loading grain. You have of course a track to the grain elevator. You have a track for empties, and a track for loaded. By loading a single car, how much time passes before you swing it over to to your loaded track, and pick another empty car to be loaded.During this maneuver, do you pass time by doing something else on the layout, perhaps working a passanger train, or sorting cars in the yard, etc.?My thought was to pull a car for loading, run my passenger train around the layout a couple of times, then come back to the loaded car, and so on and so forth. Like 10 minutes between cars.
One track. It has room for 5 cars - 2 beyond the loading spout (or unloading shed, depending on what kind of elevator you are modeling), 1 under the spout/inside the shed, 2 between the spout and the turnout.
When you arrive to pick up cars and spot other cars to be loaded or emptied, you pull the three outbound cars (which will be the two cars by the turnout and the one under the shed/spout).
You then push in the three inbound cars - all the way to the end of the spur, with the third car under the loading spout/unloading shed.
Before the next session, you push the three cars two places over - so the cars are ready to be picked up again.Loading or unloading takes place while you are running trains somewhere else.
That's one way of doing it. I am sure you can come up quite a few other ways as well.
Smile, Stein
Motley My thought was to pull a car for loading, run my passenger train around the layout a couple of times, then come back to the loaded car, and so on and so forth. Like 10 minutes between cars.
My advice would be to take only as much time as you need before boredom sets in. I don't think modeling each individual car being loaded is found to be that entertaining. I hope you don't have a 30-car unit grain train there do you?
Generally, I think once the entire cut of cars is spotted at the loading track, and the passage of some amount of time occurrs for loading (depends on your schedule), the entire cut is then assumed to be loaded and moved over to the storage/outbound track for the local to pick up. How much time passes is up to you.
- Douglas