025 The Utah Night Shift - Test Switching

I've got the flu.  Again.  Don't seem to be able to get a weekend without being sick.  Its the price you pay for having children.  Today we are going to test the track plan!

 I made some changes in the track plan so let's take a look at those, first.  For the Achievement Program I need a turntable, so I'm drawing one in here.  I'm going to temporarily bolt a turntable on to the layout, probably an Atlas one.  Once the evaluation is done, I'll remove it.

 I re-arranged the turnouts near the water tank to make this a proper passing siding.  I had them backwards.  Now we have Civil requirements for a mainline passing siding and a yard lead separate from the main.

 Ah!  Just in time for the local!  It's 11:30 pm and the local has just arrived on the main.  Today its our job to deliver the cars to the industries on the blue line.

 First thing we'll do is break the train down so that we can deliver the cars in order.

 Its 12:30 am, and our train is assembled.  After a cup of coffee at the service shed, we'll be on our way.  You need LOTS of coffee working the Utah Night Shift!

 Our first drop is for an empty gondola going to Wasatch Metals.  There is nobody there at this time of night so we'll open the gate with our own key and leave the gondola in the middle of the yard.  One thing I've noticed is that I don't have enough room on some sidings for derails and fences.

 The next drop is for a tanker loaded with tallow for Skretting.  They don't have any empties for us so we'll do this one quickly.  The tanker goes on track #2 spot 1.

 A pellet hopper (sorry, had to use a red boxcar) is dropped off on track #1 at the transloading facility.

 The cement hopper was in the wrong place on our train for easy placement, so we'll take it with us when we  do a run-around maneuver.  Next we place a boxcar full of furniture at R. C. Willey at their door #2.

 At Intermountain Lumber we find the Foreman waiting on us for his load of mahogany.  He instructs us to place it in the middle of the yard and not at the storage area where we normally place it.

 Now for that pesky cement hopper.  We have to get around behind it for the facing siding, and shove it in near the silos.

Once we are done, we head to breakfast and park the engine at the terminal.  All done!

All the track issues were fixed as I did these switching exercises.  Sometimes the tracks are not connected properly, so this debugging gets them out of the way.  I like the track plan so far, so no more changes need to be made at this time.


Wizdom:
1.  On industrial layouts, make sidings long enough to put in derails, fences and other security devices.
2.  Careful planning is needed when building trains for the facing siding as you have to run-around to set these cars out.
3.  This switching layout not only has a customer destination, but each destination has specific spotting locations as well.  So a company like Skretting can have 4-5 placement positions for a car.