The Madisonville Sub: The Diesel Servicing Facility and Shops at Preston Miller - Operations

The area around the roundhouse and turntable is about 85% finished. It is still lacking a lot of little details and figures but it is time to move on. As the mood strikes me, I will add details as I go forward a little bit at time.

Just to left, or west, of the roundhouse is the "new" diesel servicing and shop facility. The two structures were kit bashed while I was recovering from my first knee replacement. Three kits from Pikestuff make up the complex. The pad is styrene concrete and the stalls have pits modified for use with code 70 rail. The complex, built at my desk, sits on its own base. The toggle switches along the fascia are on/off switches various sections of track within the complex (The noise from 7-10 sound equipped locomotives can be a bit much).

The three Southern units are sitting on the inspection track. The stores department is located behind, to the left, of the covered pit. Two tracks run into the shop building with one track extending all the way through the building and out the far side. The inspections/stores building and shop are separated by a office/admin building. The fuel and sand tracks will be in the left foreground where the narrow pad of concrete extends off to the left. Two tracks run into the shop; one extends all the way through the building. The Preston Miller Yard lead runs behind the shop building.

Ballast for the engine facility and yard is a mix of 2 parts Highball cinders, 1 part Arizona Rock GN/SP Gray and 1 part Arizona Yard Mix Still some work to be done including servicing details, figures, etc. ground cover and some static grass but the scene is approaching the 80% point that will allow to me to move on.

Operations - Developing a Freight Car Fleet

Alert... Before going any further, I want to warn you that I can't believe I went through all of this to come up with the information for some software data files or to fill out a couple of hundred 4 destination Micro Mark two sided waybills. If you are not interested, to the degree that I am in operations, you may want to skip down to the section on mixed train service.

Backdating the railroad has meant changes to the freight car fleet and operating scheme.

As some of you already know, I use Caroute Version 6 for windows from Decapod Systems for generating switch list on the Madisonville Sub. The Caroute system is basically an automated version of the 4 destination waybill and car card system offered by Micro Mark. But, instead of carrying around and sorting a bundle of car cards, Caroute generates a switch list. I went over the Caroute program in some detail in the August 27, 2020 Post. A link to it can be found in the Blog Archives on the right.

Regardless of the system you use, I think there are a number of logical steps one should take before creating the 1975 era data files for Caroute or creating a stack of Micro Mark car cards and waybills.

I started by preparing a 1975 era schematic illustrating my route structure. The sections highlighted in gray are represented by staging.

Another chart was then prepared illustrating extended connections.

Towns & Industries

Next, I did a internet search and came up with a list of the largest industries located in or near each of my towns. While I know that some of the industries listed weren't around in 1975, including the GM assembly plant in Bowling Green (1981), they were included anyway.

Here is the list for Bowling Green. I made a list for each of my towns. After reviewing the lists, I choose the industries I had space for and highlighted them in yellow. Existing space on the layout (spurs) and car type were the major criteria for picking the industries.

Rolling Stock

After I decided to back date, it was pretty obvious that some changes had to be made in the freight car mix. The first thing I did, was remove about 40 cars. These included cars that were two modern or didn't logically fit in. Unfortunately, those included my fleet of orange Red Caboose and Intermountain Railway Tropicana 57' reefers I had accumulated over time and significant expense. The Tropicana reefers went into a storage box along with a few of my other favorite cars. Since I have no interest in "collecting" locomotive or rolling stock, the rest are being sold off.

So, how many freight cars do I need? To answer that question, keeping in mind that I don't want the layout crowded to capacity or looking like a museum, I developed the following chart. The quantities are just estimates and due to the limitations of the Caroute software, most but not all cars will take 4 "operating sessions" to complete a routing cycle. Additional cars can be added to represent overhead traffic (Car not originating or terminating on the Madisonville Sub.).

Now... All of this seems like a lot of work to this point, but I kind of enjoyed the process. And, there is bit more. I inventoried my rolling stock and assigned it to an industry. Every box should be filled so I am short a few cars.

And finally, since all of my cars are routed or received from off line points, a rolling stock interchange chart was created along with all the information needed to create the Caroute data files or the Micro Mark 4 destination waybill.

All of these charts were created with Excel so it is easy to go back into the spread sheet to add new cars or make changes.

Mixed Train Service

A post or two ago I mentioned the addition of mixed train service to the Madisonville Sub. To that end, I added a old AMM combine to the roster (still on my work desk undergoing modification) and a new Bachmann combine that I found left over from my store inventory. While I plan to add some grabs and weathering to the Bachmann combine in the near future, I decided to press it into service now on the Sparta mixed. The daily Sparta Mixed originates in Madisonville (staging) and runs through Bowling Green to Sparta (staging) and returns to Madisonville.

Led by Central of Georgia GP-7 #130, the short mixed is about to cross the Cumberland River near State Line.