Hi all,
I am building a small N scale branchline layout lightly based on the end of the PRR era in the late 1950's-60s. It is a fictional branchline running southwest from Pittsburgh into west PA. coal country. The setup is a mine that ships coal into Pitt., and freight service that ships goods to towns along the branchline route. I have modeled the rural section between the end and begining of the route as I don't have a ton of room. I'm looking to put together trains that are plausible to what may have occured in real life. My layout car limit is 10 (looks the best)
I am confused as to how the customers along the line would arrange to have a car drop for freight and who would "own" the car. To simplify, the trains would leave Pitt. loaded with product and drop along the route, the train would terminate at the end of the line. The train would then return with the empty cars. My route is based on the distance of about 75-80 miles and would include 6 or so drops (not all on layout) I have a roster of cars with different roadnames...B&0,C&O, PRR, etc. What determines who uses what roadname, or does all of the cars on a branchline have to be owned by the railroad they run on? I am trying to figure out how different roadnames get on other routes and if they are shuffled back and fourth across the nation. If this is the case, I would assume not one car would be assigned to a drop over and over but could be a different one each time....sorry if this is the most confusing question ever! Thanks ----Rob
Early on, RRs determined that running a loaded car to the end of the line and transfering the load to the connecting line's cars was a grossly ineficient way to do buisness. The solution was something called Per Diem. It's a daily charge that each RR pays for any other RR's cars on its lines as of midnight. If the Santa Fe delivers a load of Calif citrus for delivery by the PRR the PRR recieved a share of the revenue for that part of the trip on PRR rails and after a set time for the unloading of the ATSF car the daily charges add up until the car leaves PRR rails (the waybill specifying the route of the loaded car determines the route of the returning empty). It is in the interest of the recieving RR to find a load for the empty going in the direction of the owning road, changing a debit (per diem) to a credit (share of the revenue). For your purposes this means that any road's cars could be consigned to your branch and that you could use any road's cars for an outgoing load.
The shipper on your branch would notify the local PRR agent of the need for a car and the agent would arrange for the delivery of a car meeting the shipper's requirements. If no off-line car were readily available the PRR would supply one of its own. If you had a coal mine on your branch it would be almost a dead certainty that all the hoppers loaded for delivery on line to Pbrg would be PRR. Incoming loads would be almost any road
This is a (VERY) brief peek at what's a really comlplex subject w/ all sorts of rules, nuances and exceptions, but it should give you the basics of what you need to know as far as car assignments go.