Track Plan

The CWE was featured in the June 2016 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman and the article included a beautiful track plan drawn by then editor Stephen Priest. I recently received permission from Otto Vondrak, the current editor of RMC, to post the plan on the blog with proper accreditation.  So here it is!

©2016-2020 White River Productions, illustration by Stephen Priest. Used with permission.

This plan is the result of Stephen's amazing talent and interest in the railroad, and I'm grateful to him and the folks at White River Productions for taking the time to make this happen.

And yet more staging...

As I mentioned in the last post about the dispatcher's panel, the introduction of CTC on the railroad provides the opportunity to run a lot more trains in any given period of time. And of course, more trains require more staging. So I spent the past week finishing the four turnouts on the west end and putting in some new tracks. The photo below shows the results.

The new turnouts (on the left) will provide another five tracks for the west end. I also added the track on the far right. This is a stub track that ends a short distance after it disappears around the corner. It will be used to store power and possibly a work train. The tortoises these tracks won't be wired up until all of the toggle switches on the west end panel are replaced with pushbuttons. And that's the next big project. 

Speaking of storing power, the first occupants of the track on the far right will be the LV C628 and EL SD45-2 that appear in the left of the photo. These two units will be protection power for now. Someday, the EL unit will be weathered and will be run-thru power and the LV unit may end up in CWE colors. Or maybe a CR patch-out. Time will tell.

Crossover Complete

The crossover between the coal yard and the freight yard is complete. The photos below show the results.

The cut of hopper cars in the photo above is sitting on the lead to the coal yard and the GP7 is sitting on Track 4 in the freight yard. The turnout off the coal yard lead is a #6 left hand and the turnout on the Track 4 in the freight yard is a #6 wye. As noted earlier, this connection will enable the crews to hand off freight and coal between the two yards without having to run out to either end of the main yard.

The true test of this new arrangement will come during the next op session- we'll see what the yard crews have to say about it. 

CWE in RMC

The June issue of Railroad Model Craftsman will include an article on the Chesapeake, Wheeling & Erie Railroad. Here's a link to the RMC website which shows the cover: http://www.rrmodelcraftsman.com/. 

Stephen Priest, the editor of RMC, did the drawing of the track plan and it's incredible! In addition to being a real work of art, it includes more detail than I ever thought would be possible. I have always imagined what the track plan would look like if it was drawn by a professional- it turned out better than I ever could have hoped for.

Having the railroad featured in RMC is a dream come true. Thanks to everyone at RMC for making it possible.

Helping Out the Yard Crews

At the end of the last op session, there were a handful of trains that hadn't run. Rather than just leave them for next time, I decided to run a few of them. One of the trains was MN-68 which runs from Morgantown, WV to New Market, VA. This train has set-outs and pick-ups in North Pierce. While I had caught glimpses of this train being worked in the past, I had never brought it into the yard myself and worked it. Actually running the trains on the railroad can teach you a bit about what challenges the crews face and show what parts of the track plan design don't work.

The track plan diagram below shows the layout of Hollister Yard in North Pierce. 

And the photo below shows a close-up of the track arrangement at Hollister Yard.

The yard is really two small yards combined- a coal marshaling yard and a freight yard. The intent of the original design was to have the freight yard worked by the lead on the left and the coal yard worked from Coal 1. Any freight train that needed to be worked would come in on one of the yard tracks. And while I knew there would be locals that would handle both coal and freight, I didn't plan for how the freight and coal would be combined in the yard prior to departure and broken up upon return.

As fate would have it, every yard crew to date has worked the way freights out on the main. The pick-ups are brought out onto either the main or the siding and the switcher works the train. Once the train has departed, the switcher takes the set-outs back to the yard. Looking at the track plan, you can see how far out of the yard the switcher has to travel in order to get onto the main and into the siding. Depending upon the number of pick-ups, the yard crew would have to go past the yard limits to the east. And on the west end, there's almost no room to get out onto the main without blowing through the yard limits. 

So why aren't the freights getting worked in the yard as originally intended? At the end of the last session, I discovered why- the yard gets too full during a session to bring a train in and work it. The yard is relatively empty at the end of each session, and I knew it could get busy there mid-session depending upon the ebb and flow of traffic, but it never occurred to me that it would be too full to work a train. And if the freights were going to be worked on the main, something had to be done to cut down on the time and effort to get cars out and back.

So I proposed a solution to several of the crew members that usually work Hollister Yard. The photo below shows the result- a new crossover that's going in between the main and the yard. 

This crossover will provide much better access to the main from the yard and should cut down significantly on the amount of time and effort it takes to work a train on the main. One of the crew also suggested a connection between the freight yard and the coal yard so that cars could be passed back and forth without having to run out to either end of the yard. The template in the photo above shows the proposed location of that connection. I had originally planned to located a scale here but that won't work for a number of reasons. So the turnout off Coal 1 (where the GP38's are sitting) will connect with Freight 4 just below the fuel tank of 2013.

And in order to provide as much flexibility as possible to the yard crews, another crossover will connect the main and the freight yard on the east end. The photo below shows where this connection will be made.

Hopefully, these changes will help improve the overall operation of the yard at North Pierce. It just goes to show, even the best laid plans...

Track Plan Re-Do

At the suggestion of David Lehlbach at Tangent Scale Models, I rotated the track plan and enlarged it just a bit. I don't know why I didn't think to do that in the first place! In any event, I hope this one is a little easier to read.








































If you haven't seen any of the Tangent Scale Models offerings yet, follow this link: http://tangentscalemodels.com/. I recently purchased the Bethlehem 70 ton riveted gondola decorated for the Lehigh Valley and it's beautiful model. More to come on this car in the near future.

Chesapeake, Wheeling & Erie System Map

Several of the regular crew members suggested that a system map would be helpful in understanding the geographic location of the railroad and its interchanges with other roads. I had prepared one back in the early 1980's when I first developed the concept of the railroad, but was hand-drawn and fairly crude. In addition, changes have been made to several of the locations and interchanges since that first map was drawn.

The map below is the first interation of the new system map, and it was done in PowerPoint.

I'll make copies of these for the next operating session and have them available for the crew members. Hopefully this will help orient them to the railroad and its connections.

Track Plan for the Chesapeake, Wheeling and Erie

The track plan for the layout is shown in the stone age drawing below. When I drew the plan back in the early 1990's, I used HB lead because it was easy to erase. That made the drawing too light to scan, so I eventually went back and re-traced it with darker lead. It's still pretty rough, but it depicts the basic layout and features of the railroad. I've made several attempts to draw it with some of the layout design software that's available now, but it always ends up being a lot of time and effort for something that's already complete.

The Chesapeake,Wheeling and Erie is a small class 1 railroad that runs from Erie, PA to coal docks on the Chesapeake Bay. The railroad was constructed primarily as a coal hauler to take coal from the mines in West Virginia and Pennsylvania to Great Lakes and Tidewater ports (think Virginian). The line runs south from Erie, PA, has a branch that goes to Wheeling, WV and one that runs east to Pittsburgh, PA, and then heads into West Virginia. The layout represents a portion of the line from approximately Thomas, WV to New Market, Virginia. The main line then runs through Virginia to the Chesapeake Bay. The "Central Belt" moniker comes from the geographic location of the railroad.

The layout is point-to-point with two 6-track staging yards (one above the other) located in an adjacent room. The main line enters the layout from New Market (staging) and the first stop is Nelsonville, VA. There is a small yard here along with an engine servicing facility. Two branch lines leave the main here: the Dry Creek Branch and the Wilson Bridge Branch. The Wilson Bridge Branch Branch serves as the yard lead for Nelsonville and proceeds into staging. The Dry Creek Branch actually connects to the other side of the layout by running through hidden track around the perimeter of the room (more on this design flaw later). There is a connection between the main and the Dry Creek Branch that serves as a wye to turn equipment. The photo below shows the yard at Nelsonville with the main line at Summit Springs running up above the yard.

After leaving Nelsonville, the main line continues to Summit Springs where a large coal preparation plant is located along with a smaller tipple. You can see photos of the prep plant on this post: http://cwerailroad.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=5. Many of the locations on the layout can be seen on previous posts. The main line then crosses the Dry Creek Branch and punches through the summit (backdrop) to the other side of the mountain.

At Sand Fork Junction, the Sand Fork Branch leaves the main and heads up the holler to serve three separate mines and a team track. The main line continues from the junction down the 2.5% grade to Big Chimney, WV. There are several industries and two coal load-outs located here. The Elkwater Branch also leaves the main and enters a two-track staging yard that connects back to the main at Petersburg Junction. After leaving Big Chimney, the main line crosses under the Sand Fork Branch and continues to Petersburg Junction, where the Purgettsville Branch comes in from staging. The main line then continues to Hollister Yard at North Pierce, WV.

Hollister Yard serves as the coal marshalling yard for all of the mines and load-outs west of Sand Fork Junction. The yard includes an engine service facility at one end and a car repair facility, including two RIP tracks, at the other end. Numerous mine and branch runs are dispatched from Hollister Yard, and way freights make set-outs and pick-up here. There is also a local yard job that services the industries in and around North Pierce.

After leaving  North Pierce, the main line enters staging and runs around the perimeter of the room to connect with the Dry Creek Branch. There is a 6-track staging yard along the wall beneath the main line and Sand Fork Branch that is all but inaccessable now. Hidden staging is great, as long as it is easily accessable. Cars will derail, track will move and things will need to be cleaned/checked regardless of the care taken during construction.

The 6-track staging yard that is now unusable will be replaced with a 12-track staging yard that will be located in the other room and will represents locations and connections to the west. The main line will leave North Pierce on a single track and will punch through the wall to staging. The two bridges will be removed and the scenery will be re-done in this area. This will fix another problem with the layout- I absolutely cannot reach the scenery at the back of this area, even with a creeper. I have no idea what I was thinking when I built the scenery so deep here.

The other two 6-track staging yards will now be used for connections to the east and the Wilson Bridge Branch. My friend Stuart Thayer has been scheming to have a run-through freight from some foreign road connection come on the line from this branch along with some foreign road power to jointly switch the tipple at Nelsonville. A lot of new ideas for operating the layout have come out of the recent operation sessions, and I'm excited about the possibilities for expanding operations.