There’s a new section (Layout Design Basics) under the Articles menu. The first article there focuses on Inglenooks.
Layout design basics
I’ve added a new section on layout design basics under the ‘Articles’ menu. In the first page I’ve looked at the Inglenook. Bought about by the recent posts on the Montpelier, OH grain facility. Which is a double-ended Inglenook.
Inglenooks are a fascinating subject of study on there own, and really handy to come to terms with as a small layout designer since they can be used as a game, or in normal operating usage when switching your layout. All with the change of the number of cars on the layout.
There’s a lot of information on the page, and I’ve added links to the ultimate source of Inglenook knowledge too. Head on over to the page and check it out when you get a moment.
I posted a while ago about a flour mill, here in Melbourne, that showcases a loads-in, empties out flour milling operation. Today we’ll look at another operation, this time in Montpelier Ohio which is an empties-in/loads-out facility for grain. This is truly first/last-mile railroading at its best.
Switching the Montpelier Ohio Elevator
We’ll talk about modelling a facility using the track layout and operations featured in this post next time. For now, I’d suggest that you watch this outstanding video from YouTuber Scott Taipale. With WAER 223 an SW 1200 switcher (ex IHRC 223, ex TRRA 1223) working a unit grain train at the elevator in Montpelier Ohio.
This SW 1200 switcher was built for the Terminal RR of St Louis in 1955. Later owned by the Indiana Hi-Rail and successor Wabash Erie, it is now used exclusively by the Edon Farmers Co-Op to handle the bulk car movements you’ll note in the video.
A couple of notes on the video from Scott:
The line furthest right (North) used to be Wabash’s 1st district which ran from Toledo to Montpelier (now truncated, it ends 4800 feet behind/east of the camera)
The branch line connects to the former Wabash yard in Montpelier (now Norfolk Southern)
In my next post, we’ll look at how you can model a layout based on the track diagram and how you can fit this facility into your space and time limitations. Thanks for reading along. and if you get the chance please like and subscribe to this blog, and to the Facebook page. Your support is greatly appreciated.
First-mile/last-mile railroading, what modellers refer to as customer switching, is the customer end of railroading. That is the setting out and picking up cars from a customer’s premises on the railroad. This can be directly from a customer’s spur, a ramp at the local yard or a team track, off the local mainline.
It is the point at which the customer and the railroad meet. All railroad economics relies on it and always has. While in the modern era the customer has gotten bigger to take advantage of intermodel and block trains, the underlying forces remain the same. Customer shipping goods. Railroads picking up goods and moving them to their destination. Destination (consignee) receiving and accepting goods.
So why is this important to me?
For you, the small layout builder/operator, the first-mile/last-mile end of the operation is the:
simplest to model,
easiest to operate, and
most interesting to work with for the longer term
Whether you use a ‘tuning fork’, inglenook, supernook, or another layout design element you enjoy, by focusing on the customer end of the operation you make the layout simpler to build, which means getting going faster. You can operate for 10 minutes, 30 minutes or for as long or short as you have the time for. And over the life of the layout (whether that is a few months, or a decade or more), operation varies day to day, session by session, from a well-designed customer operation so that no two sessions are ever the same.
If you’ve been following the blog for a while you’ll know that I enjoy watching Railfan Danny on Youtube. Danny has just released another video, this time a Q&A session. One of those questions was about first-mile/last-mile railroading. I hope you’ll watch the entire video, for those without the time, I’ve linked to the 7:11 mark to watch the section specific to today’s post.
Resources
Railfan Danny’s “Railroad Questions Winter 2021”
There are more switching videos over at Danny’s YouTube channel, just follow the link below to go to all the videos with ‘switching’ in the description:
I’ve written previously on the Allied Mills facility at Kensington (inner Melbourne, Victoria, Australia). Marcus Wong I’ve discovered has a great blog post on his site about the facility that goes in-depth about what it is, what it does, and where it is headed.
Life’s been more complex since the COVID-19 outbreak and being an essential worker has meant no time off and more work to stay safe. I’ve been quiet I know.
Holidays
It’s been a long few months. And with all that has been going on in the world, I’ve had to do a lot just to cope with it all.
Working in the public transportation sector has been very stressful. With extra cleaning and social distancing and so on I’ve been mentally shot at the end of every day. It’s exhausting to do what I do without getting sick.
All of the drivers, customer service and other staff at work have done our best to stay COVID-19 free despite the time spent in, around and with the public. So far no-one has tested positive which is a testament to the efforts we’ve all taken. In addition, I’ve taken on the role of OH&S rep for our work site adding complexity to the already complex. It is good though to be back in a leadership role and being able to assist others when they need guidance and assistance.
Days off have been about family. They’ve been doing it tough too worrying about me. So a big thanks to my wife and children. They’ve been outstanding and steadfast during the pandemic. I could not have done it without them.
My silence? It’s been me, and not you. Seriously. You do what you have to when times get tough. I’ve not forgotten about you or the mission of Andrew’s Trains though. Speaking of that…
Where to from here?
What seems like a lifetime ago (only several months) I began to change the look and feel of the site. Either moving or changing many elements here. The core of the layout design and similar works remain. They always will. That’s what I’m about. But in thinking on my mission here’s what I feel is the right place to go to next:
Focusing on getting you to build your first layout (if you’ve not already done so).
A simple straightforward task-driven format such that over one weekend you can build a simple module (I’m going to focus on a 2′ x 4′ foot standard (or their metric equivalents) and show you how to go from idea to construction, to built and work-ready layout in a weekend.
That’s right, something nice and simple (like an Inglenook) that you can build on Saturday and Sunday and operate from Monday.
I’m looking at a multi-part short and focused video series for these using common components (for those of you in countries outside of Australia). These will be a subscriber series with a written version available for free here on Andrew’s Trains.
Working with others in the same area to share thoughts and ideas.
He’s a gifted scenery artiste whose techniques I’ll be using. Scenery is not my strong point Thanks to Luke it doesn’t have to be.
I’ve got a couple of changes yet to make to the site.
There will be an update to graphics (thanks to my son’s outstanding design and video skills).
The other change will be moving the posts from the front of the site to their own dedicated page, and making a static page the entry point to the site. In addition, I’ll be adding an email list option for those interested in joining. All of this to be completed by 28 June before I head back to work.
Takeaways
More change is coming to Andrew’s Trains. But in a good way.
The focus is on basic layout building technique, using simple tools to build a layout in a weekend that you can operate from Monday.
There will be paid and free content. Paid content will be in-depth, and interactive for those needing more help or greater insight.
Free content will provide the same content but without interactivity and the deep dives into specific areas.
Posts will be moving to their own blog page and a new front site page will appear with access to an email list for those interested in signing up to new content.
Staying in Contact
Interested in keeping in touch or discussing posts, pages and ideas? You can do that in several ways:
Steve Hanson read through the updated Bergstrom Spur line overview recently and got in touch with more information. Being a local who’s seen the spur change since he moved to South Austin in 1981 he has more to share…
A new page added to the Spur’s section
After reading the updated Bergstrom Spur page earlier this month Steve Hanson of South Austin got in touch with some memories of his own. They included industries and additional spurs that are now long gone along the line (due to TX Highway 71 becoming a freeway in the 1980s).
Read all about them from the menu or use the resources section below to deep link straight to the page.
Some of you have asked where the modelling, weathering, prototype and related articles (formerly on this site) have moved to. Here’s the answer…
With the redevelopment of the Andrew’s Trains site to focus on small, easy to build, practical and operational layouts I moved the modelling articles, which are outside of my mission to bring a layout into your home this year, to my other site. That provided clarity for this site and for my modelling interests outside of layout design.
To find those old articles, and the newer ones already added, head on over to the >>modelling site here<<.
Regular readers will know that change is afoot at Andrew’s Trains. Content change, overall direction change and a focus on small railroad layout design is coming in 2020. At the start of the new year it’s time to look at the direction I’ve set to see if I’m on target.
Overall 2019 was the best year yet in regards to total views. Visitor numbers were down a little bit. But I’m expecting things to get better this year with the focus changing to better meet what you want to see.
The numbers
So at the end of 2019 here were our main numbers were:
Total Views: 33425
Total Visitors: 6431
For an average of 5 views per visitor
Views by Nationality (Top 10)
United States
48.37%
United Kingdom
13.82%
Australia
10.54%
Belgium
5.32%
Germany
5.13%
Canada
4.65%
Netherlands
2.50%
Czech Republic
1.80%
France
1.14%
Romania
1.00%
And a big shout out to the individuals from:
Costa Rica
Kazakhstan
Egypt
Belarus
Latvia
Colombia
Cameroon
Isle of Man
Cyprus
To each of you who dropped by this year: I hope you took something away of use , and I hope to see you more often in 2020.
Who referred you to Andrew’s Trains
Most people were referred through Google searches. Followed by Facebook, Pinterest, Bing, TheRailwire.net and model-railway-hobbyist.com.
The top 10 looked like this:
Google Search
30.10%
Facebook
3.44%
Pinterest
2.02%
Bing
1.84%
therailwire.net
1.79%
model-railroad-hobbyist.com
1.42%
diskuze.modely.biz
1.16%
hobsonsbaynorth.blogspot.com
0.82%
Yahoo Search
0.59%
duckduckgo.com
0.37%
Most popular sections
Small Layouts – 2,128
Brett – a great small layout you can model – 731
Layout Designs – 477
Kendallville Terminal Railway Co (Kendallville, IN) – 372
Corio 2016 GWR Micro Layout – 361
Layout Ideas – 289
Medium Layouts – 250
Track Plan Ideas – 211
By far the biggest items on the list in all categories are small and micro layout designs, build reports and reviews. This backs up what I’ve been seeing from the currently running survey. If you’ve not taken part in the survey would you mind helping me out and providing me with answers to some simple questions. It takes about 3 minutes of your time and will help me make this site better suited to what you want. Click here to go to the survey
What’s happening in 2020
Well…
First off all the unrelated content, that is not layout design and build related, has been removed from the site. It will be appearing on my personal site and will be available there in dribs and drabs as I get to it. Mainly this is the modelling and image gallery pages. More on that here once I get all of the pages and the content uploaded and setup the way I prefer.
Content is moving around, and off-site to my other modelling related website to simplify the purpose and the mission of Andrew’s Trains.
Simplification
I’m in the process of transferring all of the modelling related content off site to my modelling related pages on my personal website. THe aim is to keep layout designs here and all other content including the modelling articles there. That will take place during the first quarter of 2020. I aim to be layout designs only by April 2020.
Where will it go?
All of the modelling content will be transferred in stages to:
It’s a work in progress. However I’ve written up an new landing page for the VR GY wagon series as well as a part 2 of the build process this couple of days off. So you can head on over there to read more about that process. More information on the build was requested by a couple of readers and I apologise for the delay in getting that completed. Life has been busy, and my time is limited. But it is getting there.
I’ll keep you advised as things change and changes to both sites rollout.
Ever wondered how you should load an open top (think gondolas, flats, pulp wood racks, etc…) car. Well now you can answer that question thanks to Douglas Harding. Read on for more.
You’ve got to be a member
To get Doug’s file you have to be a member of the Ry-ops-industrialSIG at groups.io. This group’s primary mission is to discuss railway operations and industries and how to model them and is the primary discussion list for the Operations SIG of the NMRA and the NMRA’s Industries SIG. So there are some operations heavy hitters here with the answers you won’t find elsewhere. It can get a little esoteric at times, but well worth the time spent here. If you are modelling the North American scene then this group is a worthwhile addition to your modelling resources.
Click this link to head over to the group home page. Complete the sign-up process and once you’re done click the link in the “Get the PDFs section below to download.
Get the PDFs
OK so now you’re a member, it is time to get the 2019 XMAS Goodies. Before you blindly start downloading though here’s what’s covered in the AAR Car Codes Open Top Car Loading Rules as supplied by Doug:
Section 1 Rules 1988.pdf
Section 2 Loading pipe part 1 1987.pdf
Section 2 Loading pipe part 2 1987.pdf
Section 3 Road Farm Equipment 1987.pdf
Section 4 Misc Machinery 1987.pdf
Section 5 Forest Products 1983.pdf
Section 5 Forest Products 1987.pdf
Section 6 DOD Military 1984.pdf
Section 7 TOFC Containers 1987.pdf
If you’ve not fallen asleep yet from too much eggnog, or the technical nature of this post, then Click this link to get to the PDFs. Happy reading and modelling.
Resources
This time around all of the resources are mentioned in the section above. Don’t forget to take part in the reader survey right now! Your thoughts and feedback will assist me in writing and presenting more of the content you want to see.
Andrew's Trains 