The C.V.S.Ry. is a point-to-point railroad. It is unusual in that there are no run-around facilities anywhere on the railroad. There are facilities to turn an entire train at both the Eastern and Western terminus. This configuration makes for interesting operations since the train must be turned to access facing point industries.
There are two “divisions” – Indoor and Outdoor. Indoor Division operations can be run independently, however, Outdoor Division operations always include the Indoor Division as both the Origination and Termination points.
Here is a current schematic of the Indoor Division. Built in and around a balloon track, Railroad East is to the left. Railroad West follows the top of the balloon track past HONY, NOOK, WILO and MEAD in that order. Because it is a circular track, RR WEST becomes RR East at TYRE.
The center tack at WILO is Arrivals and Departures for the Willow Hill Freight Station which is serviced one car at a time through and R1 switch by a dedicated switch engine; CVSRy Porter #3. All switches within the Kistler and Tyrone yards are also R1 which limits the equipment that can be placed on any track other than the lead. Mainline switches on the Indoor Division are “Wide” radius.
The Outdoor Division schematic features a prominent Wye track with one industry at the end of one tail and two others of off Indian Hill Junction. Car capacity was recently increased with the addition of the House Lead and House Tracks One and Two.
To accommodate switching at Northville, the C.V.S.Ry. Rules allow up to two cars behind the caboose while shoving to Northville from Deep Cut.
Train Orders are created using the Operations module of JMRI Panel Pro software. Since cars are never left outdoors, the first order of business for an operating session is to run the Set-Out job. This train is purely a utilitarian operation so, in the interest of speed, cars are shoved up the hill into all three facing point spurs. In order to determine what cars need to go where, a Car Roster sorted by Location is printed from JMRI:
The locations of Interest are Indian Hill Junction and Northville. Cars that belong in these locations are gathered from indoor staging and blocked by industry. The set-out job then shoves these cars up the grade to their correct locations. The grade limits the number of cars that can be handled to about 6, so today’s set out job will require two trains.
Set-Out job 1 will take the cars for the Engine House lead and house tracks. Shay #5 proved to be a good engine choice as it has the power to shove 6 cars up the 6% grade without breaking a sweat!
Here is Set-Out Job 1 shoving across Meadow Gap Bridge just after pulling a cut of cars from Willow Hill on the right…
Sven keeps a watchful eye out as the cut moves past Tyrone Yard and across East Es-cap’e Bridge to the Outdoor Division…
Honey Grove is in the background as #5 shoves the cut past Tyrone Yard…
The cut arrives on the Engine House lead. #5 will spot the cars as dictated by the JMRI Car Roster report…
Meanwhile, M-11 pulls another cut of cars from staging at Willow Hill…
Sven is a busy employee, having hiked back to Wall station to watch the front as M-11 shoves through Coal Dump Curve…
M-11 spotting cars at Walk Landing Trans Load as #5 waits for the main in the background…
Sven calls the spot at the Trans-Load docks. The rest of the cut will be spotted on the lead clear of the diamond…
Shay #5 drops it’s last car then takes the main to return home as M-11 shoves the Last Car to Northville…
Having spotted Boxcar 38830 at Northville foods, M-11 heads for home…
That completes the Set-Out jobs. We now go back to JMRI and build the train EBX – Eastbound Extra that runs from Tyrone to Kistler via Deep Cut and services all locations on the railroad.
Here is a sneak peek at the manifest. I’ll continue with a step-by-step description of how I work the manifest in the next installment.
Stay tuned. There is lots more action and pictures to come!
