Post by Tom Goodrick on Nov 1, 2008 16:51:42 GMT -5
I decided to take a break from flying and work on a railroad for a while. I've always been interested in trains because they made big impressions on me when I was a young child in Owatonna MN in the 1940's. My mother took me with her several times to visit her parents in Iowa. A few times we road in trains pulled by stinky and noisy steam locomotives. But most of our experience was with trains pulled by sleek and shiny diesel locomotives on the Rock Island Road. Then there were the times when our family went down to the train depot to watch the "400" come through town. It was pulled by a streamlined steam locomotive coming all the way from Chicago on its way to Seattle. So I tried various toy trains and a little model railroading. These efforts were not very rewarding because of many little details like track corrosion and never having enough space. In college I attempted to make an "N" gauge layout that would sit store under the bed and run on the bed in my rented sleeping room. The layout design was fine - a double-track mainline between two loops with the second look hiden below the table top. The only problem was I built it hurridly in the evenings of scrap wood in the engineering shop of the Aeronautical Engineering building and neglected to leave sufficient space between the bottom of the table top and the top of the lower shelf so the train could get to the lower loop. I considered myself lucky to have finished the basic build without getting into trouble so I never went back for the considerable re-build that was needed.
I used passenger trains twice in my adult life as they were fading from the scene in most parts of the US. I took a long trip from Minneapolis to Omaha to compete in the tryouts for the US Air Force Academy. That involde an layover from midnight to 6 am in the depot in Desmoines, IA. I did well on all tests and the physical competition but flunked the physical when I told the doctors about a stomach ailment that had bothered me for years in high school. They called it pre-ulcers. The trip back was extremely long.
While working as an engineer in a Boston suburb, my boss talked me into taking a management course in Boston with a staff car ride to and from the classes. That sounded great. We got the staff car ride the first day and then a general officer came to visit and he got the staff car the rest of the week. I learned how to take the train from a suburb into downtown Boston. (There was no respectable place to park a car in the city so the train seemed the best deal.) I drove 25 minutes from my home in Bellingham to Framingham and then rode the train into South Station in Boston. I sure beat driving except for one day when it snowed in the suburbs and rained in Boston. Driving through the snow was no fun and then there was the six-block walk in driving rain from the train station to the class at the Customs House. The kicker is that a month later a secretary called to say I had not been eligible for the class and the "A grade" I got in it would be striken from my record! One of the other students, who was a real jerk in the class, later became the Director of my Laboratory.
So I began to get the idea that the time for practical train transportation had passed. Today there are about 4 through-trains a day and two local freights on tracks 3/4 mile from my house. Freight trains are active links in our tranportation system. But there is no passenger service to our city (Huntsville, AL). I'd have to drive to Nashville or to Birmingham to catch a train. Each is over an hour's driving time.
But the train simulators have come along to re-kindle interest and spark fond memories. They are a lot cheaper and less trouble than model railroads. I tried the Microsoft Train Simulator and found it neat in some ways but very bothersome because of bugs. Certain turnouts and cross-overs caused mysterious derailments. locomotives could only couple on one end. Designing custom track was not easy though I put in some return loops so I could turn my yard engines. It didn't take long before I tired of the program crashes.
A couple years ago my son gave me a copy of Trainz 1.5 that he'd gotten for $1 in a deal for several pieces of software on Ebay. That seemed to work great. I ran the layouts that came with it and then began designing my own. I was having lots of fun until I ran into the glitch - probably cause by my low amount of RAM - of being limited to 12 cars in a freight train. Having 12 and hooking onto another caused a major system creash everytime. But designing a layout was easy and the operation was simple and looked very realistic. So I have continued to play with it from time to time.
My idea of a good layout is one where you can set up a few trains to run automatically while you horse around in a yard with freight or various other things. I designed one layout that worked well keeping my interest for some time. It involved two passenger trains chasing each other on a single loop which actually looked like a double-track mainline between two distant cities with an independent freight line that has a yard in each city and several industry sidings between the two cities. It had the three main features of the complex cities and the long three-rail cross-country route. To add interest I put a road in parallel with the rails between the two cities so you could also watch cars driving on the roads as the trains passed. There are hills and rivers and remote sidings for coal. Unfortunately I did not know how to set the hand brakes on cars left on sidings so there were a number of crashes as cars ran off the ends of sidings near cliffs or ran down into the industries below the hills. I'll fix that some day.
My current project has kept me very busy for a couple of weeks. It is set in the desert in the Southwest US. It is mainly a passenger train system for commuters at four out-lying towns bringing them into a central city with a train also connecting the central city to two distant cities. Its operation involves nine simultaneous trains running continuously on two loops and one end-to-end. Showing my considerable imagination I call the depots A B C D E F G. A and B lie east of the central city C and D and E lie west of it. F is a big city north of C and G is a big city south of C. Four trains chase each other on the loop that goes CACBC and four other trains chase each other on the loop that goes CDCEC. While this goes on, another passenger train goes continuously from F to C to G to C to F. The neat thing is when you see five trains simultaneously go through the main "Union" station at C.
There is also a small yard for me to play in while these nine trains are running. The yard is at C, connecting to each of the other loops. The yard includes an operating round-house for turning locomotives, diesel fuelling facilities and sorting facilities for passenger car cleaning and refurbishment. Also observation cars can be added to some trains. Each of the nine trains can come into the yard for a complete change to fresh equipment.
To add interest, I decided each of the small depots in the boondocks needed a small freight siding so they can get periodic deliveries of oil, gasoline, frozen foods and hardgoods since each community is isolated by the desert - no roads! So part of my yard work is to set up a pair of tank and box cars for delivery on the back of a passenger train to the out-lying depots.
To keep the trackwork within reason, you can go from the yard only to the CB train or to the CD train. To get the freight to A and to E the cars must ride CBCA and CDCE.
The connection from C to the outer world is the FCGCF route which is a simple single track with a small turn-back loop at F and G. This works automatically with each turnout at a fixed setting if the speed is a about 16 mph with smooth trackwork at the turnouts. This is adequate for effect.
The trains on the true loops are set on auto using speed signs that slow the train to 10 mph near each depot and 40 mph in between. Point-to-point times are about 18-28 minutes. I use manual control to drop off the freight cars. Then I run a little fast on manual to make up the time lost to the operation. With no manual operations, trains remain suitably separated for as long as I have run the system (1.5 hours so far). I could put a block in one side of each loop if needed to assure a minimum separation.
As you might expect, the desert scenery is a little sparse. But it does look interesting as you follow the motion of the train either from external chase view or from the tracking cameras. The track is laid all at zero elevation. (But, the CFG train has two trestles where it crosses other tracks.) There are gorges for rivers and dry washes. Terrain is mainly two colors, a beige for sand and a red dirt color. There are patches of dried grass and sage brush. Hills and small mountains pop up of various shapes and sizes with some red color and some light sandstone color. The hills are sufficiently numerous to keep the horizon mostly bumpy as viewed from the train.
There are suitable specimens of cactus. Water drains from washes into natural holding basins near each depot. There are some grass and trees in these areas.
I spent many weeks over the past 40 years working at Yuma Proving Grounds. During the long drives from and to Yuma, I had plenty of time to study the scenery. Once I got out of the car and walked up a rise of rock to a peak from which I could see for many miles. While standing on "my" peak, I saw a Santa Fe diesel freight go passing my little car beside the road. It looked like a model. Didn't realize I'd walked that far. (That was in 1970.)
I used passenger trains twice in my adult life as they were fading from the scene in most parts of the US. I took a long trip from Minneapolis to Omaha to compete in the tryouts for the US Air Force Academy. That involde an layover from midnight to 6 am in the depot in Desmoines, IA. I did well on all tests and the physical competition but flunked the physical when I told the doctors about a stomach ailment that had bothered me for years in high school. They called it pre-ulcers. The trip back was extremely long.
While working as an engineer in a Boston suburb, my boss talked me into taking a management course in Boston with a staff car ride to and from the classes. That sounded great. We got the staff car ride the first day and then a general officer came to visit and he got the staff car the rest of the week. I learned how to take the train from a suburb into downtown Boston. (There was no respectable place to park a car in the city so the train seemed the best deal.) I drove 25 minutes from my home in Bellingham to Framingham and then rode the train into South Station in Boston. I sure beat driving except for one day when it snowed in the suburbs and rained in Boston. Driving through the snow was no fun and then there was the six-block walk in driving rain from the train station to the class at the Customs House. The kicker is that a month later a secretary called to say I had not been eligible for the class and the "A grade" I got in it would be striken from my record! One of the other students, who was a real jerk in the class, later became the Director of my Laboratory.
So I began to get the idea that the time for practical train transportation had passed. Today there are about 4 through-trains a day and two local freights on tracks 3/4 mile from my house. Freight trains are active links in our tranportation system. But there is no passenger service to our city (Huntsville, AL). I'd have to drive to Nashville or to Birmingham to catch a train. Each is over an hour's driving time.
But the train simulators have come along to re-kindle interest and spark fond memories. They are a lot cheaper and less trouble than model railroads. I tried the Microsoft Train Simulator and found it neat in some ways but very bothersome because of bugs. Certain turnouts and cross-overs caused mysterious derailments. locomotives could only couple on one end. Designing custom track was not easy though I put in some return loops so I could turn my yard engines. It didn't take long before I tired of the program crashes.
A couple years ago my son gave me a copy of Trainz 1.5 that he'd gotten for $1 in a deal for several pieces of software on Ebay. That seemed to work great. I ran the layouts that came with it and then began designing my own. I was having lots of fun until I ran into the glitch - probably cause by my low amount of RAM - of being limited to 12 cars in a freight train. Having 12 and hooking onto another caused a major system creash everytime. But designing a layout was easy and the operation was simple and looked very realistic. So I have continued to play with it from time to time.
My idea of a good layout is one where you can set up a few trains to run automatically while you horse around in a yard with freight or various other things. I designed one layout that worked well keeping my interest for some time. It involved two passenger trains chasing each other on a single loop which actually looked like a double-track mainline between two distant cities with an independent freight line that has a yard in each city and several industry sidings between the two cities. It had the three main features of the complex cities and the long three-rail cross-country route. To add interest I put a road in parallel with the rails between the two cities so you could also watch cars driving on the roads as the trains passed. There are hills and rivers and remote sidings for coal. Unfortunately I did not know how to set the hand brakes on cars left on sidings so there were a number of crashes as cars ran off the ends of sidings near cliffs or ran down into the industries below the hills. I'll fix that some day.
My current project has kept me very busy for a couple of weeks. It is set in the desert in the Southwest US. It is mainly a passenger train system for commuters at four out-lying towns bringing them into a central city with a train also connecting the central city to two distant cities. Its operation involves nine simultaneous trains running continuously on two loops and one end-to-end. Showing my considerable imagination I call the depots A B C D E F G. A and B lie east of the central city C and D and E lie west of it. F is a big city north of C and G is a big city south of C. Four trains chase each other on the loop that goes CACBC and four other trains chase each other on the loop that goes CDCEC. While this goes on, another passenger train goes continuously from F to C to G to C to F. The neat thing is when you see five trains simultaneously go through the main "Union" station at C.
There is also a small yard for me to play in while these nine trains are running. The yard is at C, connecting to each of the other loops. The yard includes an operating round-house for turning locomotives, diesel fuelling facilities and sorting facilities for passenger car cleaning and refurbishment. Also observation cars can be added to some trains. Each of the nine trains can come into the yard for a complete change to fresh equipment.
To add interest, I decided each of the small depots in the boondocks needed a small freight siding so they can get periodic deliveries of oil, gasoline, frozen foods and hardgoods since each community is isolated by the desert - no roads! So part of my yard work is to set up a pair of tank and box cars for delivery on the back of a passenger train to the out-lying depots.
To keep the trackwork within reason, you can go from the yard only to the CB train or to the CD train. To get the freight to A and to E the cars must ride CBCA and CDCE.
The connection from C to the outer world is the FCGCF route which is a simple single track with a small turn-back loop at F and G. This works automatically with each turnout at a fixed setting if the speed is a about 16 mph with smooth trackwork at the turnouts. This is adequate for effect.
The trains on the true loops are set on auto using speed signs that slow the train to 10 mph near each depot and 40 mph in between. Point-to-point times are about 18-28 minutes. I use manual control to drop off the freight cars. Then I run a little fast on manual to make up the time lost to the operation. With no manual operations, trains remain suitably separated for as long as I have run the system (1.5 hours so far). I could put a block in one side of each loop if needed to assure a minimum separation.
As you might expect, the desert scenery is a little sparse. But it does look interesting as you follow the motion of the train either from external chase view or from the tracking cameras. The track is laid all at zero elevation. (But, the CFG train has two trestles where it crosses other tracks.) There are gorges for rivers and dry washes. Terrain is mainly two colors, a beige for sand and a red dirt color. There are patches of dried grass and sage brush. Hills and small mountains pop up of various shapes and sizes with some red color and some light sandstone color. The hills are sufficiently numerous to keep the horizon mostly bumpy as viewed from the train.
There are suitable specimens of cactus. Water drains from washes into natural holding basins near each depot. There are some grass and trees in these areas.
I spent many weeks over the past 40 years working at Yuma Proving Grounds. During the long drives from and to Yuma, I had plenty of time to study the scenery. Once I got out of the car and walked up a rise of rock to a peak from which I could see for many miles. While standing on "my" peak, I saw a Santa Fe diesel freight go passing my little car beside the road. It looked like a model. Didn't realize I'd walked that far. (That was in 1970.)
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