Switching Action at Mountain King Potatoes

[steinjr]

So this potato industry is just like a timesaver in one regard - limited space is a challenge.

Not really. If you look at the potato industry, you will notice that it has adequate work space. Each of the two tracks are long enough that you can gather all the empties on one track, allowing you to move all the loads into the other track.

The Timesaver is based on not having adequate working space. The game is equivalent to playing a game of sliding tiles, moving the "hole" around.

Anyways - thanks for the nice photo sequence, Gary!

Smile,
Stein

[ocalicreek]

Stein - show me how you can fit 6 cars into 5 spots.

[steinjr]

Stein - show me how you can fit 6 cars into 5 spots.

There are five unloading spots on each track. But the tracks are longer than just the area where the unloading spots are.
Look at this picture from earlier in the thread again:

   

Smile,
Stein

[ocalicreek]

Yes, there's plenty of room on the tracks. BUT ONLY FIVE SPOTS ON EACH SIDING. You cannot unload more than TEN cars, five on each siding.

It's NOT a slide the tile game? You can ONLY put a car next to one of those unloading chutes. So how is that different?

It's very different from the timesaver in that you have plenty of room to work with, yes. But it's exactly like the timesaver in that a car has to be spotted exactly where it must go and NO WHERE ELSE.

Galen

[steinjr]

Yes, there's plenty of room on the tracks. BUT ONLY FIVE SPOTS ON EACH SIDING. You cannot unload more than TEN cars, five on each siding.

It's NOT a slide the tile game? You can ONLY put a car next to one of those unloading chutes. So how is that different?

You are focusing on where the cars end up. I am focusing on how they get there. I.e. how the industry is switched.

In the timesaver, the core point of the game is to deliberately make spurs so short that you don't have room to temporarily leave all outbound or all inbound cars somewhere during switching.

It's very different from the timesaver in that you have plenty of room to work with, yes. But it's exactly like the timesaver in that a car has to be spotted exactly where it must go and NO WHERE ELSE.

Again, fairly irrelevant for how the industry is switched. All spotting of cars at industries tries to end up with cars where they should go. The challenge/game is how to move those cars during switching in such a way that you end up with the cars spotted at the right place.

Smile,
Stein

[Gary S]

Here's a close-up of one of the cars with the diesel running. Look closely at the upper left of the car, you will see the exhaust flapper open and a slight hint of exhaust.

   

[Gary S]

I think I will model this on the layout. After seeing the switching being done, I like it. Simple building, but complex equipment, that should keep me busy for awhile. Not necessarily going to start on this right away, but need to find a place to put the industry with the double spurs.

I have also aquired a big handful of blue box undecorated 50 foot reefers that are a decent match to the SLC cars. That will help in my decision making.

[Gary S]

Another car of interest at the spud factory. OIbviously ex-ATSF but no reporting marks?

   

[Tom]

That's odd, I have never seen these SLC reefers before (obviously in captive service hauling spuds which is why i haven't seen them this far west), but they all appear to be ex ATSF, GN and MILW cars. These cars, you'd think, would be coming up toward the end of their 40 year life cycle, no?

[Gary S]

I see SLC cars weekly. The Mountain King factory gets a couple shipments each week, usually in SLC cars. During the summer, it was routine to see those white Cryo-Train reefers. Now it is the SLC cars. I actually like them alot, being that they areso beat up and patched and all. I've been acquiring some Athearn mechanical reefers to do a big batch of these cars.

[Gary S]

While waiting for the glue to dry on the Wayside Bridge trackwork, I decided to do some R and D on the refrigerator cars I'll be needing for the layout.

First, the real thing:

   

And one of the Athearn 1624 Blue Box 50 foot mechanical reefers that I have been acquiring. Now, I purchased this particular car a few weeks ago, was at the LHS and their stock of Blue Boxes is dwindling, so I bought all the remaining undecorated 50 foot boxcars and 50 foot mechanical reefers for $5.95 each. I wasn't planning on using the reefers, just bought them to have some spare floors and frames and trucks around. But then the trip to the potato factory and watching the switching being done convinced me that I wanted to replicate that on the layout.

   

Comparing the SLC car to the Athearn, it is quite different. First, the door is too small on the model. Second, the ladders are full height on the model, but half height on the prototype, and the model has grabs on the left side instead of a ladder. Third, the refrigeration louvers are different. Fourth, the model doesn't have exterior ribs like the real thing. (Athearn does make a 50 foot outside braced reefer, but it has angled ribs on each side of the door - it is a good match for the ex-Santa Fe reefers that I'll need, and would have worked for this one too, just carve off the angled ribs and replace with straight ones, but I haven't been able to find many of them, so I started with the non-outside-braced car as shown in the photo above.)

On to the mods -

Door: I have a bunch of Accurail plug doors left over from some 50 foot boxcars that are a decent match of the prototype. Not exact, but close. So, I cut out the door and sides on the model to accept the Accurail door, and used some sheet styrene to go across the opening and give a surface to mount the new door. Then added longer door slides on top and bottom.

Ladders: carved them down to half height with a hobby knife. The good thing about the real thing is the paint is heavily weathered, and that will help hide the areas where the ladders were cut down. As for the grabs on the left, haven't decided whether to shave them off and put a ladder on, or just leave them.

Louvers: Gonna leav'em just like they are on the model! :o

Ribs: Used some .030 square styrene to do the ribs, they center nicely on the double row of rivets on the model, similar to the real thing.

   

And a close-up photo of the braces and rivets on the real thing:

   

Anyway, it was enjoyable to work on this tonight and was a change of pace from all the bridges.

[tetters]

Man, I envy you guys who can look at these things and just start cutting them up to suit your modeling needs. I already know that this is going to turn out great. If I may offer but just one suggestion... if you are willing to go this far do the small ladder at the other end. I know I would.

[Gary S]

Hey Tetters, you're right, I'll shave off the grabs and add ladders. As for the mods, that will be one of the easy parts. Still, nothing really hard about this, I am betting you could do it, considering your engineering marvels I've been seeing on your layout.

Mainly just have to get up the gumption to "just do it!"

[Russ Bellinis]

That's odd, I have never seen these SLC reefers before (obviously in captive service hauling spuds which is why i haven't seen them this far west), but they all appear to be ex ATSF, GN and MILW cars. These cars, you'd think, would be coming up toward the end of their 40 year life cycle, no?

In the mid 1990's or early 2000s both BNSF and U.P. were experimenting with the idea of using the latest microprocessor controlled truck reefers on mechanical refrigerator cars to see if the potential fuel savings made the conversion worthwhile as well as to find out if Thermo King or Carrier units would work better for railroad service. In the case of BNSF, they rebuilt 100 cars to original specs, 100 with T-K units and 100 with Carrier units for test and comparison purposes. The tests successfully resulted in the railroads switching over to the truck units, but at least in the case of BNSF, they had so many blue flag law violations by T-K mechanics that they pulled all of the T-K units off and changed them out to Carriers and told T-K to not allow employees to trespass on railroad property any more. Obviously that painted out ex-Santa Fe with no reporting marks is an original used Santa Fe reefer, but I wonder if BNSF sold off the 100 units they had rebuilt to original specs at the conclusion of their test period? If they did, those SLC cars might be fairly fresh rebuilds

[Gary S]

Russ, what exactly is a blue flag law violation? What was the issue with the T-K mechanics?