Ok, so Im not sure of the term, but I am freelancing my layout as I wanna do what I wanna do.. My layout is a coal region of a planet somewhere, but its better than the way this one is turning out! How do you create a timetable/roster to run your layout with? where? would you start? how? who? where? when?! ------------------ RR: K, C, & Bird Butt Railroad - SP, NS, and ROCK admirer. Its a coal mining region of a place far far away, that runs, SP, NS, and some CSX.. Also some Custom RARE Bird RR sd40-2's coming! Era: Time stands still round these parts, and we have everything from Steam, to Diesels of today.
The best place to start would probably be with timetables and histories of real roads that served the area you're modelling. Ebay is a good place to find this kind of stuff. Just about any time I search for "Missouri Pacific" I get around 130 items for sale, everything from pictures and models to old china and timetables. If you search under one of your favorites, you can probably find something for the region/era you want, too. ------------------ Jenks - the REAL Big Blue
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Eagle2: The best place to start would probably be with timetables and histories of real roads that served the area you're modelling. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> My region doesnt exist! Im freelancing, creating my own layout.. In a land far far away from reality of this planet. But thanks for replying. Appreciate it. ------------------ RR: K, C, & Bird Butt Railroad - SP, NS, and ROCK admirer. Its a coal mining region of a place far far away, that runs, SP, NS, and some CSX.. Also some Custom RARE Bird RR sd40-2's coming! Era: Time stands still round these parts, and we have everything from Steam, to Diesels of today.
Why don't you set down on paper, a name for "this place" and that it will haul coal. Then give some thought about where does it get the coal from? Town name, Mine name. It will have to have siding to store empty coal cars, and full cars waiting to ship out in a train. How many of each? You will have to have a switcher there. Is the switcher owned by the Mine, furnished by your Railroad? You will have to have one huge steam engine, or a lot of diesels, and somewhere there has to be engine fueling, oiling and sanding, repairs etc. What town name? How big? How many engines can it store during service, how many on the ready tracks, incoming off the road for service etc? You will have to have a destination for all that coal, a yard for incoming trains, trains of empties, how many cars total in the yard? You will have to have houses for everyone to live in, grocery stores, roads to work and home. Gas stations, on and on. There will be switchers in the yard. You may even have a passenger station and a high stepping 4-6-2 Pacific or F-7 to pull that train. Then you add up all the rolling stock you'll need. Then you move into a much bigger house to build all that layout in! That's how a free-lance rail empire gets rostered (started). Some realism, some daydreaming, lots of fun, and a goal to work toward, see? don't forget the dog in the front yard! Enjoy!! ------------------ Watash
Couldn't have said it better myself...I think watash has given you a great blue print to go from. But can change the details as you go. My Free-Lance road has gone through many changes and stages over the years. Even now, I may change things again, I may "revive" the Illinois Terminal Railroad. Can you imagine "ITS" SD60M's and CW44-9's...where's my Pine-Sol? ------------------ Brent Tidaback, Member #234 BNSF Railfan-to-the Max and a N-Scaler to boot! "Ship it on the Route of The Roadrunners!" The Aransas Odessa & Western, a division of the BNSF [This message has been edited by Maxwell Plant (edited 17 October 2000).]
Watash laid it out well. For the community that the mine and railroad serves, you can reach into your imagination and put together the town that you would like to see with the companies and businesses as prosperous or poor as you like. For the mine, you could easily make a small company town that serves the mine... It's your railroad and your world. You can make it the way you would like to see it. just remember that the world may not actually exist, but you still need to look to the real world to see how railroads work. Roger Roger Hensley - rhensley@anderson.cioe.com == http://cid.railfan.net/eci_new.html == == East Central Indiana Railroad ==
I kind of took a slightly different approach. I looked at what real railroads did and envisioned what i wanted my line to be. Then i made choices based on what i thought the real roads might have have done or did do. For example, my 'paper' WR hauls a major amount of coal. The two modernest types of units used heavily in coal service were either SD70MACs(BN/BNSF and now others) or AC4400s(UP/SP/ others). I could have chosen an equal or somewhat mixed amount similar to CSX presently or chose one of the other. I liked the SD70MAC and decided that's what it was going to be but i also included a small group of AC44s that i deemed leased to evaluate. In my WR world the SD70MAC ended up being the predominant type but i could have easily chose another type and it would have been 'realistic'. But WR doesn't only haul coal, but is more a conglomerate of all the railroads i remember growing up with, hence a very large and quite diverse roster of units for a myriad of tasks. By the way i have created roster information going way back to the beginning and before of the WR company and it's predecessors... So it's not that i've created a modern roster out of thin air. But i think sorta Watash hit it on the head, the railroad needs units to do jobs... Is it a fast or slow job? Heavy or light? Working the yard hump? Etc...
You see, Free-Lancing is an art. We all "see an image in our mind's eye" just as an artist "sees" the image he paints. Remember when you were a little kid, you had your first engine, three cars, and a circle of track. Hey that was great! Life was beautiful! "Today I am an Engineer"! You would sit there watching that one little engine running round and round, but in your mind you were imagining you could see five Mac 70's at the head end of a hundred car freight with three helpers on the tailend. The roar of all those engines was deafening! Wheels squalling around that horseshoe curve straining to stay in line to go through the tunnel. You are the engineer controlling all this, it is your responsibility to get to the early morning markets on time, because you are racing against time hauling the "Salad Bowl Express" all the way to New York so people can have fresh lettus on their hamburger! You make it on time! You are the Hero of the railroad! The boss comes over and says, "Hey Bird Butt", we have an extra heavy coal drag that has just got to get through the storm tonight without fail. This coal is for the orphanage out in the wastelands. It is the only way to save them from freezing, You got to make it happen! You say "No sweat, Chet", I'm outa here. You give a long warning blast, and give her number 3 to roll, then shove the throttle all the way to 8 and tear out of the yard bound for glory! I'll save the little children! You become an artist, and make it happen the way you want it to be. See? Its all in your head, now put it on the table. Enjoy your world ------------------ Watash
Another thing todo is get a map and check out were the coal is hauled from and go a dircection that no other railroad goes.This way you can go to diffrent towns and add a few towns that are not really there.Make connections with other roads in diffrent places you can be the road that hauls to the main line of other roads and hands them off to other lines like a short line does.Your roster could then consist of diesels that other roads have let go to the leaser in example EMD,GE,Oakway and leased or buy the road units that you want extra 2200 south is a great way to get this info and use there old numbers or start your own number series. Just ask your self will I just haul coal or do I haul other things will I just need SD's or will I need Jeeps?What will I use for switching if I do any switching? simple questions just use simple answers.
I used this chart as a start: http://www.nyandw.com/lirrfreight.htm and reference the following as a guide Car type 1950 1978 ======================================= box 35% 25% stock 2% reefer 6% 5% flat 3% 6% gons & hoppers 43% 47% tank cars 7% 11% TOTAL US 98% 94% Both sets of data obtained from rail sources. Your mileage may vary. Good for rough estimates. The car types are from B&O. SL
Since the O&NE started up in the early 1970s, its initial power is Alcos, mostly second-hand power retired from Class 1s. Not nearly enough GP7s and GP9s to use at this point... The operating time is set in the mid-to-late 1970s, which will mean that sometime around 1979 or 1980 rebuilt Geeps will be seen on O&NE property. They'll most likely be along the lines of ex-ICG units rebuilt at their Paducah shops. But until then, we're running Alcos, high-mileage though they may be. ------------------ Southeast....Southwest.. Ship IT on the Frisco! Bob T. http://hometown.aol.com/slsf1630/myhomepage/profile.html
I think you should also decide on how "big" your railroad is suppose to be: short line, regional, or a Class 1? That way the am't of motive power you own can be a little more realistic, you don't usually see a little short line with a fleet of SD 50's, etc. Also, it was very common for a railroad to kind of stick with 1 mfgr such as Alco, EMD, Baldwin, etc. Decide what kind of power you personally like and then go from there.
