CRI&P Management signed the lease with Vandelay Industries in Blue Island today which will provide latex gloves and other medical supplies to distributors on the east and west coast.
The former Interstate Chemical and Midland-Davis Corporation spur tracks were joined as one double-ended spur track for the new Keller Mills that is under construction.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Progress Report 07.06.11
Removed the switch for the second track at ADM Milling. The vegetable oil business has dried up. Installed a turnout for the new industry in Blue Island. As of yet, I haven't decided what this small business will be. Any ideas? Anyone? Anyone?
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Progress Report 07.05.11
Worked on the layout tonight. First, some changes in industries. The poor economy has been too much for the Interstate Fuel Company and Midland-Davis Corp. A much stronger competitor in the business world, Keller Mills Inc has signed lease agreements with the ROCK. Keller Mills Inc will bring in loads of grain via rail and barge and will ship out bulk flour to various cereal manufacturing plants from California to Michigan.
I removed the HO cork roadbed installed under the spur track at D&D News. I relaid the track with N scale cork avoiding the slope downgrade into Blue Island. I also modified the building where the cars are unloaded on the side of the building vs. inside the building. The building itself is the same size, just turned sideways now.
Also, planned is an additional small industry adjacent to D&D News. This will be switched by the Blue Island local. It will add some more operating interest as this industry spur is out in the single track west of town.
A turnout was added for Oberholtzer & Sons. Previously, to switch D&D News, it required pulling the cars from Oberholtzer all the way out to Burr Oak Yard to shove cars into D&D. Now, crews can use various industrial tracks to make shorter switching moves to accomplish their tasks. Old Man Oberholtzer will surely be upset still over cars being placed on his spur track, but not nearly as mad as before when his cars were moved and came back some time later.
I removed the HO cork roadbed installed under the spur track at D&D News. I relaid the track with N scale cork avoiding the slope downgrade into Blue Island. I also modified the building where the cars are unloaded on the side of the building vs. inside the building. The building itself is the same size, just turned sideways now.
Also, planned is an additional small industry adjacent to D&D News. This will be switched by the Blue Island local. It will add some more operating interest as this industry spur is out in the single track west of town.
A turnout was added for Oberholtzer & Sons. Previously, to switch D&D News, it required pulling the cars from Oberholtzer all the way out to Burr Oak Yard to shove cars into D&D. Now, crews can use various industrial tracks to make shorter switching moves to accomplish their tasks. Old Man Oberholtzer will surely be upset still over cars being placed on his spur track, but not nearly as mad as before when his cars were moved and came back some time later.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Yard Track Labels
Below is a quick pick of the new yard track labels. I decided to make them upraised so that operators in Burr Oak Yard (Chicago) on the upper level can see easily.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Progress Report 06.29.11
My kids have been active this summer limiting work time on the layout. I have made some minor progress this week creating new track labels, car blocking cards for the yard, and the continued solo op session. I'm pleased so far with the recent waybill changes.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Progress Report 06.25.11
I have re-staged the layout with the new waybills. It should be interesting to see how it operates now. I quickly noticed a change as the CNW and N&W locals coming into Davenport now have 10 cars each! Now, time to give it a trial run! I'm looking forward to it.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Progress Report 06.21.11
Last year at this time I was moving along at a lightning pace. Laying track does that to you. This summer has been a much slower pace, but I'm not complaining.
It has been quiet on the progress front, but we have been working on a behind the scenes project. I have found in operating that I'm already seeing a trend with the same cars servicing the same customers. Plus, with changes over time since the original waybills were created, there were a lot of errors and not a good distribution of rolling stock across all the various lines.
I opted not to purchase the Shenandoah software that I used originally to create the waybills because a) I'm cheap and b) while it's ok, it has some quarks that I didn't like. So, I decided to design my own in Word and use a mail merge from Excel. Keying the data in Excel made for really fast data entry. I have changed the waybill process. Now, each waybill is a single cycle vs. 4-cycle as before. Once the car arrives at the location, it will receive a new waybill. It will either go back out with a load or quite possibly could return to one of the individual railroad agents as empty. This will make it highly unlikely that the same cars continue to the same customers. I've also added better routing of cars. Traffic will certainly increase on the NW Peoria, CNW Davenport and AT&SF Joliet lines.
I have also found when re-staging the layout, many times I tend to ship all the cars except for one. This makes it too predictable. I have always used a spreadsheet to track how many spots were available and how many cars I had enroute to a destination to ensure balance when re-staging. I took this spreadsheet and added the Excel RandBetween (Random Between) function that randomly selects the number of pickups. From the remaining available spots, the system will generate a random number of loads to send to that location. As I'm re-staging the layout I simply use my spreadsheet printout as a guide as to how many cars to send en route to a location. I'm really excited about this. It now takes me out of the equation creating a much more random (and hopefully interesting) world.
A sample of the new waybill is below:
The new format is much easier to read and understand.
- Freight Train East/West
- Local or Return to Agent location
- Industry Name
- Town Name
- Commodity / Mty
- Not seen: Car Type
- Omitted Shipper
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I have been pleased with my success so far. I hope that it continues....
It has been quiet on the progress front, but we have been working on a behind the scenes project. I have found in operating that I'm already seeing a trend with the same cars servicing the same customers. Plus, with changes over time since the original waybills were created, there were a lot of errors and not a good distribution of rolling stock across all the various lines.
I opted not to purchase the Shenandoah software that I used originally to create the waybills because a) I'm cheap and b) while it's ok, it has some quarks that I didn't like. So, I decided to design my own in Word and use a mail merge from Excel. Keying the data in Excel made for really fast data entry. I have changed the waybill process. Now, each waybill is a single cycle vs. 4-cycle as before. Once the car arrives at the location, it will receive a new waybill. It will either go back out with a load or quite possibly could return to one of the individual railroad agents as empty. This will make it highly unlikely that the same cars continue to the same customers. I've also added better routing of cars. Traffic will certainly increase on the NW Peoria, CNW Davenport and AT&SF Joliet lines.
I have also found when re-staging the layout, many times I tend to ship all the cars except for one. This makes it too predictable. I have always used a spreadsheet to track how many spots were available and how many cars I had enroute to a destination to ensure balance when re-staging. I took this spreadsheet and added the Excel RandBetween (Random Between) function that randomly selects the number of pickups. From the remaining available spots, the system will generate a random number of loads to send to that location. As I'm re-staging the layout I simply use my spreadsheet printout as a guide as to how many cars to send en route to a location. I'm really excited about this. It now takes me out of the equation creating a much more random (and hopefully interesting) world.
A sample of the new waybill is below:
The new format is much easier to read and understand.
- Freight Train East/West
- Local or Return to Agent location
- Industry Name
- Town Name
- Commodity / Mty
- Not seen: Car Type
- Omitted Shipper
Owning a medium size railroad has been quite the learning experience for me. I have found that in the beginning you need to expect a lot of change. Many times what you *think* will work doesn't play out in reality. This could be due to the various operating styles of members or simply reality doesn't work out like you thought. I have not been afraid to make changes. I'm dedicated to making the railroad run well, provide ongoing interest, and most of all for everyone to have fun. I have been pleased with my success so far. I hope that it continues....
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