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I'm going to model a ficticious part of modern CSX and my layout will consist of roughly two large switching areas, a looping single track main, and an interchange with a small CSX owned branchline modeled after the Turtle Creek Central plan in the January MRR. Instead of the two track coal mine on the branchline, I'm going to do a large coal mining complex (using three loading tracks and one passby track). On each of the industrial switching areas, I'm going to have lots of small industries that will handle a few carloads each, and therefore will only need one dedicated switcher or small road engine (GP38 perhaps) to do the daily switching chores, but since the Turtle Creek area and mining complex will be the focal point of the room, and my hope is to run a minimum of 9 carloads daily of coal hoppers from the mine, I was wondering if a switcher like an SW1500 would look right paired with an SW7 calf (since I can't find any SW1500 calfs). I would think that, the coal loads being so heavy, it would make sense to have the extra horsepower of a slug unit, even if in prototype operations it meant only hauling a few strings of cars at a time until a full train could be built at the interchange siding. I think it would look neat doing this but after doing some research, I've found CSX doesn't have any SW7 calf's active on their rosters. They do have slugs, but all the ones I've found are built on road engine platforms and I don't want to use something that long paired with an SW1500. So two questions... how prototypical would it be to run a cow/calf combination at the coal mine (I would assume most mining operations use higher HP road switchers like GP's), and how believable would pairing an SW7 calf with an SW1500 be if I 'explained' it away as an 'older unit' that was only used for the horsepower boost during the mine shifts? I know it really boils down to what engines I want on MY layout, since I'll probably be the only one to ever see it, but I'd like to keep it believable, at least in my own head. lol
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