Finally operating!

In June 2008, Version One of the CR&E was dismantled following our regular operating session.  Tearing down the layout was a painful process and uncovered many great memories of the construction sessions that got it to where it was.


In September 2008, I moved into the new house in which Version Two of the CR&E would be built.  Immediate attention needed to be focused on getting the house organized, but before long I was in the basement finalizing ideas and getting ready for construction.  Beginning in October, a group of friends helped me unfinish and then refinished the already finished side of the basement to make it more appropriate for a model railroad.  The first piece of benchwork was hung on the wall in November 2008!

Steady progress was made in the initial layout room through summer 2009, when the same group of friends and then some labored hard to frame out the second room for the rest of the layout.  Benchwork and basic trackwork was in place by Thanksgiving Weekend 2009 and we were up and running on a trial basis in December 2009.

Progress continued into February 2010, when the CR&E was a part of the NC Rail Run N Scale Edition.  A group of visiting operators attended what was the first full-blown CR&E V2 operating session that weekend.  The railroad experienced a few teething issues, but everyone seemed to have a good time.  The layout and the crew that built it received a lot of compliments.

On April 17, 2010, the CR&E was back in full operations with its first official regular operating session.  A dozen operators took part in the event, a six hour "dual session" separated by a lunch break.  I was very excited to have the CR&E back in regular operation again, just 22 months after the embargo in a previous residence.

A few photos of the first operating session can be found on the CR&E's website at www.kntower.com, under the Version Two Ops tab.

I owe a lot of thanks to family and friends who supported the rapid, focused construction of this railroad.  I hope to be able to share it for many years to come.

Prelimary coal moving plans: The plans

I hope you read "The Preamble" so you have an understanding of the proposed layout configuration that these proposed coal moving operations will take place on. If not, please go down one post and read that first.

Over-the-road Unit Train Operations

The over-the-road unit train operations are the simplest in the plan to describe. These will be coal trains simply moving from staging yard to staging yard. There will be both Norfolk Southern and CSXT coal trains moving over the modeled territory. NS trains will originate in West Yard (Charleston) staging or K&N (Cowen) staging and move east over the railroad to Roanoke staging. CSXT trains also originate in West Yard (Rainelle) staging, but terminate in the CSXT Salem staging yard.

The NS unit trains will be 24-25 cars long between their originating point and Paint Bank, VA, on the upper level. At Paint Bank, they could potentially fill out to 35 cars for the run to Roanoke. The loads they pick up at Paint Bank will be miscellaneous loads dropped there by other mine runs (more on that later.)

All of these unit trains will be heavy enough to require a pusher from Glace to Paint Bank, and may require pushers from Paint Bank to New Castle if they add tonnage at Paint Bank.

Basically, crews will pick up these trains in staging and run them to staging.

Kanawha & Northern (K&N) Branch operations

The K&N will see a variety of coal operations. These will include:

• Power plant unit coal trains originating at the two flood loaders

• Miscellaneous coal trains with cars from the small and medium sized loaders

• Raw coal/clean coal operations between a raw coal shipper and a prep plant

K&N Power Plant Trains

The operation of power plant trains is best explained as a cycle beginning with the empties and ending with the loads.

Empty 24 or 25 car hopper trains from power plants will originate in Roanoke staging. A crew will take these trains from Roanoke to Lewisburg, where the crew will swap with a shifter crew that will take the empties to the K&N.

The shifter crew (C81 in the AM session, C83 in the PM session) will take the entire train to the flood loader at either Clearcreek or Wildcat on the K&N. Work orders will tell the crew which loader to take the empties to. Upon arrival at Clearcreek or Wildcat, the crew will pull a loaded unit train of 24-25 loads out of the loadout tracks and spot the entire empty train in the loadout tracks. Once the train of loads is assembled and empties are spotted, the shifter crew will return to Lewisburg with the loads.

At Lewisburg, the shifter crew will swap out with a mainline crew that will take the loaded train to the power plant/staging.

K&N Miscellaneous Coal Trains

Again, the easiest way to explain the process is to start with the empties.

A crew will depart Roanoke staging with an empty hopper train or a merchandise train with empty hoppers included in the consist. Upon arrival at Lewisburg, the crew of a merchandise train will set off empty hoppers that will load on the K&N. The crew of an empty hopper train will take the empty hoppers to the K&N coal/hopper yard west of Lewisburg. Empty hopper trains terminating at the K&N yard will take their power back to Lewisburg to tie up.

Mine runs will be called (C85 in the AM session, C87 in the PM session, and C89 as needed) to originate at Lewisburg with either light engines or empty hoppers that were set off by merchandise trains. These mine runs will proceed to the K&N hopper yard to pick up more empties that were left by the hopper trains. Work orders will instruct the mine run crews how many of what type of empty is to be picked up and at which mine the cars will be spotted.

The crews of C85, C87, and C89 will set off empties and pick up loads from the various medium-sized and small-sized loading operations on the K&N branches. There will be some form of randomness to this, as some loadouts may get empties but may not have any loads ready. Others may have loads for pickup but will get no empties. Still others will have loads and empties worked.

Once finished with switching the loadouts, these crews will return with all of their loads and set them off in the K&N hopper yard. The engines will then be run light to Lewisburg and the crews will go off duty.

Later in the session, a "Hill Run" crew will be called to classify the loads that are at the K&N hopper yard. Symbols for these trains will be C80 (AM session) and C82 (PM session). All of the loads from the K&N yard will be taken east. Any coal for destinations west of Lewisburg will be set off at Lewisburg for pickup by westbound trains. Any coal for destinations east of Lewisburg will be taken up the mountain from Lewisburg to Paint Bank for pickup by eastbound trains.

At Paint Bank, C80 or C82 will set off the loads in one of several storage tracks. The crews will have to block the loads for easy pickup by eastbound trains that will fill out at Paint Bank. Once the work is complete, C80 or C82 will return to Lewisburg with light engines.

Eastbound trains throughout an operating session will be instructed by the dispatcher to pick up appropriate blocks of eastbound coal at Paint Bank. From Paint Bank eastward, trains will be authorized to handle up to 35 cars as opposed to 25 cars west of Paint Bank. Preference for pickup of the blocks of coal will be for other coal trains to pick up, but some merchandise trains may be stopped as well to fill out to 35 cars.

K&N Raw Coal/Clean Coal Operations

On CR&E 1.0, we had a raw coal/clean coal operation running between a mine at Caldwell and a preparation plant on the Potts Creek Branch. This made for some interesting operations but the whole concept of shuttling raw coal and clean coal was never fully realized.

Although I have not thought out the details thoroughly yet, I would like to have a more correct representation of this type of operation on the K&N branch portion of CR&E 2.0. Either the raw coal loadout or the preparation plant would be beyond-the-basement, represented on a staging track. The other facility would be modeled on the layout.

A mine run working this type of setup should be shuttling both loads and empties around at the same time. When running to a preparation plant, for example, the train should consist of loads of raw coal as well as empties for loading of clean coal. When returning from the prep plant, the train should have loads of clean coal as well as empties to be shuttled back to the raw coal provider.

This could be an interesting operation. With proper planning, I may be able to coordinate the shuttling of empties and loads between these facilities to simplify staging.

Influences

I have several influences that have provided examples for our proposed coal train operations.

On the Norfolk Southern Pocahontas Division's Pocahontas District (ex-Norfolk &Western), mine runs and coal transfers scurry around picking up and setting off loads and empties. Loaded trains fill to tonnage at Flat Top Yard, west of Bluefield, before being pulled and pushed over the summit of Elkhorn Mountain at Bluefield. It is amazing and interesting to see the crews block and reblock seemingly identical cars loaded with coal, knowing that those look-alike cars are loaded with specific coal for specific consumers.

On the same division's Princeton-Deepwater District (ex-Virginian), "Hill Runs" of approximately 100 cars originate at the yard at Elmore, WV from coal picked up at mines. These full-length trains are pushed upgrade to a location known as Weyenoake. The first "Hill Run" ties down their cut of 100 or so cars and returns to Elmore. A second "Hill Run" originates at Elmore and doubles their 100 or or so cars together at Weyenoake as well. Finally, a "Roanoke Run" is called to take the assembled sometimes 200 car coal trains downgrade to Roanoke.

Also on the Pocahontas Division, the shuttling of raw and clean coal on the former Interstate Railroad is of interest. I still have more to learn about these operations, including the operation of trains from several mines to a huge transloader at Appalachia, VA. This transloader, now out of service, at one time blended coal brought in by train from several mines and also loaded unit trains. It both received and shipped coal, making it an interesting operation to model.

That pretty much covers what I have in mind as of now for coal train operations on the CR&E. I hope my crews are ready to shift around lots of cars loaded with black diamonds.

Preliminary coal-moving plans: The preamble

To understand what I envision for coal operations on Version Two of the CR&E, I first have to explain a little about the proposed layout design.

There are two areas of the future basement that will have railroad in them. Those two areas will be connected by a laundry room/half bath that will hopefully be able to serve as a staging yard and as a pass-through from one side of the basement to the other.

The side that is finished is 11.5 X 23 feet in size. That side should see almost immediate layout construction, as basically all that is required there is a coat of paint and to install some extra lights. This room is on the right side of the house, looking from the front yard.

The side that is unfinished is currently garage space and is approximately 23 X 23 in size, to be verified in less than two weeks if all goes well with my move. That side will have a larger portion of the layout in it, but not until I can get the room finished. This area is on the left side of the house, looking from the front yard.

The layout will be double-deck, point-to-point, linear design, and around-the-walls with peninsulas.

The lower level in the left (garage) side will be an extensive coal branch operation serving several coal loadouts of various sizes. Right now I'm planning two large flood-loading operations to load unit trains for power plants, two medium-sized operations for miscellaneous cuts of coal loads, and at least a couple really small-time operations that will ship small single car shipments on a less regular basis. There will also be staging at the end of the modeled portion of the branch to simulate coal trains originating in northern West Virginia. All of this lower-level trackage in the garage side will be known as the Kanawha & Northern branch(es) of the CR&E.

As trains on the branch territory on the lower level twist around peninsulas and walls working their way east, the last station feature they will pass in the garage side will be the K&N coal yard. Several tracks here will be used to store empty hoppers and loads. The mine runs working the small and medium sized loadouts will collect empties and set off loads here.

After the lower level route passes through the K&N coal yard, it will punch through the wall into the laundry room, where the through route will become the CR&E mainline between Charleston, WV, and Danville, VA. In that laundry room will be the staging yard for the west end of the mainline portion of the railroad.

Follow me? The K&N (lower level) line goes through the wall and becomes the CR&E mainline once it enters the laundry room.

After passing through the laundry/staging room, the rails punch through another wall and enter Lewisburg. This is the location of the division point classification yard approximately midway on the CR&E's mainline route. Lewisburg is located in the 11.5X23 foot currently finished room, as are the locations of Caldwell, Archer Fork, and Glace on the lower level. The mainline then climbs through the Loops to access the upper level. The upper level in that room includes Forester, Paint Bank, and some middle-of-nowhere running until the route again pokes through the wall and enters the laundry room area on the upper level.

The laundry room is only a pass-through on the upper level. The rest of the modeled CR&E mainline from New Castle to Roanoke (staging) will be built as the upper level in the garage side. This portion of the railroad will be above the lower level K&N branch territory.

That may be just enough to digest in one post, so I'll follow with another explaining what I currently plan to do with coal operations on the railroad. You'll need an understanding of the K&N concept to get it, since all of the coal moving over the railroad will either originate on the K&N or in staging.

Stay tuned for the meat of the coal-moving message....

Preliminary plans coming together

This past weekend I drew up a preliminary plan for what would be the lower level in the smaller side of the basement that the CR&E will hopefully occupy. The room size is 11.5 X 23. The width of the room restricts the design somewhat, but there is still room for one peninsula that will be used to climb "the loops" as the railroad transitions from the lower to the upper level.

I'm not yet totally satisfied with the track arrangement, but this is a big start for me. My approach to layout design is usually to try to draw up the footprint of the benchwork and then do some rough designing of track arrangement to be sure I can fit in major features. Once I actually build the framework, there will be plenty of field modifications.

I drew 16 different footprint ideas for the total available space (11.5 X 23 on one side of the basement and approximately 23 X 23 on the other unfinished side, with a small laundry room that will be used for the connection between the sides and staging area.) The fifteenth footprint out of 16 appears to be the winning version, as I like it best. Once I actually get into the house and have a chance to look at the available space on the large side of the basement, I'm sure there will be potential changes.

I've already had a lot of very good feedback and suggestions that I am working to implement. Lewisburg Yard design isn't complete yet. Frankly I'd like to get the mainline in as soon as possible and can mess with the details of yard design when I have some more expert advice.

As I get more time, I'll draw the preliminary design for the upper level. It will be very simple though, with the small pulpwood loading spur at Forester (located roughly above Archer Fork), the passing siding at Paint Bank (located roughly above Caldwell and stretching toward the area above the Greenbrier River), a couple industries at Paint Bank and a coal storage yard/branch there, and then the single track mainline stretching around the rest of the upper level above Lewisburg. All of that single track area will be a simple scene depicting "middle of nowhere" running, something I really want to do well on this version of the railroad.

That's all for now...more updates soon!