Thursday, June 30, 2011 Lethbridge

6:10 am

The temperature is +14 C, with a high predicted of +21 C.

From the Environment Canada website: Today Cloudy. Becoming a mix of sun and cloud near noon. Wind southwest 20 km/h becoming west 40 gusting to 60 this morning. High 21. UV index 6 or high. Tonight Clearing late this evening. Wind west 40 km/h gusting to 60 diminishing to 20 this evening then becoming light overnight. Low 8. Normals Max: 24°C Min: 10°C.

12:30 PM Model Trains

I began this morning by running Train #200, the Black Zephyr, eastward from Black Diamond to Coaldale. This is a unit coal train and thus involves no switching along the route. However there is still work to be done at each end as the consist requires a caboose at the rear of the train. The locomotive for this run is my steam locomotive, CN 8414, which has incredible sound effects.

The route itself consists of 6 loops around the outer mainline track. The locomotive then arrives head-in at Coaldale where the locomotive uncouples from the coal car. The SW-4 diesel switcher locomotive than moves to the rear of the train and picks up the caboose. This is placed on Track 8, which is kept empty for this train. The switcher then picks up the 6 loaded coal cars and places them on Track 8. Then there is some imaginary action as at some later time another locomotive will be added to the front of this consist and the coal continues on its way. Soon after this a return train arrives with 6 empty coal cars and these are now placed on Track 8. Thus the track now is ready to be called Train #201, the Black Zephyr, which will take the 6 empty hopper cars to Black Diamond where the process is repeated. Locomotive CN 8414 returns to the turntable and is parked back in stall #2.

I then ran Train #700, the Distillery Row Local, which involves diesel locomotive CN 1706, a GP-9. The locomotive picked up an empty boxcar and an empty gondola from the Jasper Yard and travelled to Distillery Row where it picked up 3 loaded tank cars, all destined for the Coaldale Yard. Then at Pine Ridge it picked up a gondola car loaded with lumber which is also destined for Coaldale. All 6 cars are then placed in the Coaldale Yard.

Since this train is eastbound, the loops are traversed in a clockwise direction which means that the train approaches the various towns engine first. This makes for some tricky switching moves. I finally realized that the general principle is to first uncouple the caboose from the train before entering the town. Then the remaining cars are temporarily placed in a siding. The locomotives then goes into the appropriate spur tracks head first, pulls the cars out that it is picking up, and pushes them onto the rear of the cars in the siding. When this is completed the locomotive then goes to the head of the siding, backs into it and pushes the entire load of cars out onto the mainline where it recouples with the caboose. The train is now complete and continues on to the next town.

Needless to say, it is the logic of all these moves that makes this so interesting. I had no idea that there was so much involved before I began this hobby.