Two prototpye ideas for modeling

[waltersrails]

sounds good.

[ndbprr]

Yesterday I had time to stop for a few minutes at the south end lead to the IC Woodcrest yard in Homewood Illinois and saw two items for modeling I had never seen before.

1. There are a couple of transfer tracks along the main which is separated by a treeline from the yard. IHB, NS, WC, UP, BNSF, and others have trackage rights to that location and leave cuts of cars for the IC that have no cars for the Chicago area and are being relayed further south. The end car had an air hose attached to the glad hand that was fed from a stationary air supply in the yard. The hose also had a blue flag on it. Thus the train is fully charged for when it is powered and can leave more expiditiously. I assume that the hose is removed by a person with a title rather than the individual who put it there since they sometimes sit there for 24-48 hours.

2. The south lead is directly across from the north end of the AMtrak platform at the Homewood station. On the platform is a large steel tool chest about 30" high by 30" wide and 4' long sitting on rubber wheels. It is chained to a light pole. An individual drove up unlocked the top and took out what appeared to be about a one foot high rubber banded bundle of inner company mail with much of it in those manilla envelopes where you cross off your name and put the person and department on the next line and it is delivered internally. I have no idea what was in the stack but here is a way for freight crews to stop at passenger stations to deliver the mail s I assume some lucky crewman gets to do that.
Thought these idea might add some operating interest.