Ed:

SHABBONA RR is a "proto-lanced" rendition of the the old Rock Island "K&D" 
secondary main line (RIP 1980) between Keokuk and Des Moines, IA. The modeled 
portion is between Eldon, where the K&D crossed the RI's Golden State route, 
and Keokuk

I use a "switch by sight" system based on the industrial scene at Keokuk, 
dominated by The Hubinger (now Roquette) grain processing facility there. Like 
the trombone salesman said in "The Music Man", "Ya' Gotta Know the Territory!" 
As such that determines the routing of cars out of the "Keokuk" Mooar Yard. 
Eastern road cars generally enter and exit via the KUD interchange. As a rule, 
these are usually interchange bridge route traffic, unless they are conscripted 
for "home road" loading at Humongous (Hubinger on SHABBONA).

Cars for Humongous loading are spotted on a first in, first out basis. The 
exception to this is grain from the CB&Q (KUD), which gets priority on the 
Humongous Elevator Track, and coal from CB&Q, which gets priority at the 
Powerhouse.

When I make up an outbound train at Mooar Yard, I line up the cars so it is 
generally made up for the return trip from Terminal District to cut down on 
switching activity there - as a single operator, I can use all the help I can 
get. Open cars either have removable loads (hopper cars, gondolas) so they can 
prototypically run as loads in one direction and empty in the opposite.

"On the drawing board" is a load/empty system for the flat car fleet I recently 
finished. One flat car will have a load of Caterpillar bulldozers (from Peoria 
via TP&W), and one will have a load of John Deere tractors. The other two flat 
cars will be empty to serve as empties returning for loads. The Caterpillars 
will be Westbound loads, while the John Deere's will be Eastbound.

I haven't tried to time the reappearance of cars that exit via KUD, since the 
time between operating sessions renders that irrelevant at this time. However, 
when possible, the Terminal District yard engine pulls the KUD interchange cars 
from the opposite end and shoves a new cut back in for the Mooar yard engine to 
pull.

This long-winded dissertation is just a brief overview. I hope it helps. I 
would like to open SHABBONA for visitors during the up-coming S Fest, but as 
with a lot of things in my life right now, I can't make a final decision until 
closer to that time. If I do, visitors may have to put up with a less than 
perfect basement and sparse layout scenery. Like they say in those greasy 
hamburger ads on TV, "That's just the way it is!"

Bob Nicholson  __________________________________________


--- In [email protected], Edward Davis <edandhdavis@...> wrote:
>
> Hey String Bob,
>  
> Read your last post describing operation on your Shabonna (sp) railroad. Do 
> you use a card system or do you just place cars at different places on the 
> layout and start your operation from that point? Are you strictly freelancing 
> or are you following the operation of a particular prototype? I get the 
> feeling that you're following some type of operation plan. Just wondering.
>  
> Ed Davis
> Stockton
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>




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