Chesapeake System
North Shore Model Railroad Club
NSMRC's Chesapeake System is a prototypical freelance of three railroads under common control. The Chesapeake & Hudson runs from Fredericksburg, VA via Potomac Yard to Mechanicville, NY. At Fredericksburg it connects with Chesapeake & Lake Erie, which runs between Richmond, VA and Cleveland with connections to Pittsburgh and Chicago. C&H has trackage rights over C&LE to Nickless Yard, its classification facility at Elkton, VA , where it crosses and has an active interchange with the N&W's line to Hagerstown. The Cumberland Western goes west from Nickless through Charleston and Huntington, WV to Louisviulle, St. Louis and . The modeled portion of the railroads is between Fredericksburg and Charleston. The C&H and C&LE railroads are double track and the CW is single track through the mountains of WV.
The railroad has a three tier set of freight trains. There are two through freight trains in each direction between Richmond and Wheeling/Chicago on the C&LE and two between Mechanicville and St. Louis/Kansas on the C&H and CW. The second tier is the division locals between Nickless and other divison points. There trains run under local freight rules making setouts and pickups at intermediate yards. For each branch or indusrial area there is a way freight or switcher that handles cars for local industries. The eastbound through freight schedules are based on what the actual prototype railroad schedules were for delivery of meat and produce from western to eastern roads at Chicago and St. Louis. In the 50's. What crews can do is constrained by the work rules that were in effect in our era.
There is an active fiddle yard with connections to the modeled part of the railroad at seven locations including C&LE to Cleveland, CW to points west of Charleston, C&LE to Richmond and C&H to Washington. A branch line and the SOU and N&W interchanges also go to the fiddle yard. An extensive passenger schedule has switching of sleepers and head end cars at four stations. Locomotives and cabooses are lettered for all three of the railroads with CW being an Alco railroad and the others mainly EMD. Cabooses are changed at Nickless on all trains as the system has not yet gotten a pool caboose agreement.
Layout at a glance
Minimum radius: 30" Mainline, 24" industrial
Minimum turnout: #6 main, #4 industrial
Maximum grade: 2%
Benchwork: open grid
Height: 38" lowest, 60" highest
Roadbed: Wood.
Track: Hand laid code 85
Scenery: Plaster over various materials
Backdrop: Painted wall
Control: DCC/DC.
Operating positions:
Nickless General Yardmaster supervises the work of the two yardmasters and industrial switching in the Elkton area.
Nickless east yardmaster operates the eastbound yard.
Nickless west yardmaster operates the westbound yard.
Charleston yardmaster handles the yard and switches HurlinSteel passenger trains turning at Charleston.
Larkin Falls operator switches the yard and handle local switching including Robichaud Paper and SOU interchange.
As many as eight road crews run the trains. Two man crews are used on trains that switch industries.
A chief dispatcher controls train movement and assigns crews.
Comments:
A typical operating session last about 3 hours. We have an event sequenced operating plan. We can't work with a clock and timetable because of the impossibility of proper time scaling of both yard and road work over several hundred miles. The railroad is controlled by a chief dispatcher who assigns crews to trains. The sequence of trains may be altered to ensure a smooth operation as various problems arise in train movement and yard switching. On the single track line we have a set of decision rules for self-dispatching by the train operators. In constrast to a TT&TO operations that focuses on details of train movement, Chesapeake System operations are oriented toward movenement of cars in blocks and trains.
For each train, there is a schedule card that shows the sequence of events for that train. Passenger train consists and switching are on the schedule card. For freight movements we use the four part waybill system. Waybills are produced from an Excel system that randomizes combinations of movement so that nearly all waybills have different car itineraries. Yard operations are based on waybills as they arrive in train order. Yard operators have the option of preparing their own switch lists or working from the waybills.
This layout is not Handicapped accessible
Most recent update: 2009 March 14
To Hartford Convention Layout Page
To OpSIG Home Page