04-02-2014, 10:25 AM
Brakie Wrote:Mike Kieran Wrote:If we put a small Pikestuff engine house on the end of the engine storage track, we would have the offices with the engine storage facility.
Could do that or maybe have the crew room there and a stand alone office building much like BLMA yard office.
Small layouts like that can be a ton of fun to plan and operate as a "job".
Example..
Your crew signs in at 6 AM the conductor looks over the day's work while the engineer fires up the (say) Alco S4..
They proceed to the interchange track to pick up the inbound cars and they switch them into setout order.
They proceed to pick up the caboose and off they go..
Upon returning to the interchange they drop the caboose and proceed to place all the outbound cars on the interchange.
They then proceed to the engine house where they fuel and then shut off the S4 turn in their paper work, sign out and go home.
That should help the operational enjoyment and probably take a 1- 1 1/2 hours to do at scale speeds and allowing time for the conductor to do his ground work.
Can I change this slightly, as I think a loco shed for an operation like this is unlikely- loco and shoving platform are parked overnight at one of the industry sidings for security to keep an eye on - in the morning they proceed to the i/c to collect cars dropped there overnight, sort them and proceed about their business - they complete and take outbounds dropping them back at the interchange - loco and shove platform parked back at overnight stop - there is a container there or at the fuelling point (see below)for storage of bagged sand, and any fuelling is done by the local fuel distributor who send one of his drivers down with a tanker truck - at the roadside by one of the road-crossings- it gives reason to change the usual operations - maintainance is done at the nearby yard on an "as required" or monthly schedule when a "loaner" loco is supplied (reason for an alternative loco to appear)- or it could be a weekend job