Of all the “jobs” on this model railroad, none has proven quite as polarizing as the N&W Yard Crew.  Some who operate the N&W love it, it’s made others cuss.  The prototype N&W yard at Norton, VA was a good size, double-ended affair shared with the L&N.  It was home to several mine runs, served as the interchange point for a fair bit of non-coal traffic, and was flanked by a handful of local industries.  I wanted the N&W to be operational on the layout instead of just a pair of interchange tracks, but I didn’t have room for the whole yard.  Instead, I cut the yard in half (using a mirror to represent the other half) and “fudged” a few of the tracks to move more industry to the modeled west end of the yard.  While it interacts with the Southern/Interstate, the N&W basically forms a stand-alone switching layout within the larger layout.

The N&W yard consists of 4 yard tracks, a run-around, 2 interchange tracks, and 4 industry tracks with 6 industries.  Several factors contribute to making this area tricky to work.  First, most of the tracks are short, and you’re always looking to squeeze just one more car into the yard tracks.  Second, there’s only one short run-around, and every car being interchanged in either direction needs to be run-around.  The Hill Track helps, since N&W locomotives can use the track to get at the interchange tracks from the other side, but the N&W yard crew can only use it when Interstate crews are not working the Interstate’s Norton Yard, and it isn’t supposed to be used for interchange.  Two of the industries are across the Interstate’s mainline and can only be worked when the Interstate is out of town (and at least one of the interchange tracks is clear).  But the biggest challenge is yard track 6 which forms one tail of the run-around and enables access to the interchange tracks.  It’s capacity is only three cars, that’s only one car with a locomotive!  Using the far track of the run-around extends this to a locomotive plus three cars, but then extra moves must be done to access the yard tracks.

Above is a typical starting status for the N&W Yard Crew.  You walk out of the yard office toward your workhorse for the day, burly SD40 1591, and contemplate the chores ahead.  The yard is 2/3 full, most of the industries need to be switched, and there is a full load of cars from the Southern that need to be pulled before the N&W’s interchange traffic for the Southern can be placed.  Anything bound for the NW or the LN stays in the yard, while anything for the SOU or CRR is interchanged (the N&W connected with the CRR nearby at St. Paul, VA, but tight tunnels meant anything dangerous or Plate C was interchanged via the Interstate).  Before tying up, you’ll need to block the yard:  LNs, NW-bound non-coal, NW coal and NW empties.

This switching layout may look simple, but experience says this will take around 90-120 real minutes.   To see for yourself, take a minute to pick a few cars in the diagram above and go through all the switching moves necessary to clear tracks and get it where it belongs.  In a full operating session, the interchange is dynamic with new cars arriving a few times per session (though having the cars pulled a few times per session is very helpful as well).  You can probably see now why this job is polarizing, but I am satisfied that my goal of turning the N&W into a self-contained switching layout has been realized.  It’s a puzzle, it’s challenging, and it’s the first job I pick when its just me in the basement.

Stu Thayer, good friend and original crew member of the Dorchester & Dixiana Branch, has been “reassigned” to a different division further East.  Consequently, the construction gang and operations crew of the railroad is feeling the pain of missing one of its founding members.  Stu has found plenty of work out East bringing his coal-railroading and operations know-how to many other railroads.  As a salute to Stu, the last crew of L&N train 865 on the Dorchester & Dixiana Branch ran at 5 mph from Dorchester Jct. to Appalachia, VA in his honor (never mind that U30C 1488 blew a turbo and was dead weight behind C628 1401).

Stu Thayer on Tom Patterson's CWE layout - Tom Patterson photo

You will be sorely missed, Stu, but you will always have an employee’s pass to ride any train on the Interstate.  God bless you and Yvonne in your new adventure!

A while ago, I posted a photo showing how I was attempting to attach a Digitrax Zephyr to my benchwork, and I wanted to show you the final result.

Digitrax Zephyr mounted conveniently into the fascia

As stated in the earlier post, the Zephyr is my command station and also the stationary throttle for the N&W Norton Yard, and it was important for me to have it accessible because it’s easy for my kids to operate.  The container in which it is mounted is a 1/2″ plywood base with 1/4″ plywood sides.  Small pieces of pine cut at a 45-degree angle and mounted to the bottom of the base help secure it to the benchwork.  The fascia was installed after the Zephyr, and I left just enough room to get the Zephyr out if needed.  The result is pleasing to the eye, accessible, comfortable to operate and protects the wires and cables on the back of the “Z.”  Even better, the Zephyr protrudes only 2 1/4″ from the fascia saving valuable aisle space.

This arrangement may have been a little trickier than mounting the Zephyr to a flat board under the layout, but the results are well worth it to me.  By the way, I replaced my Zephyr recently with the newer Zephyr Xtra to expand the number of locomotive slots available.  I was very happy to find out the case is exactly the same size as the original Z, so swapping them out took less than 5 minutes.

We had our third operating session on December 20th with a crew of three. While it’s only plywood and track, it was still fun. I had a couple of locomotives that got removed from consists for acting up and two switches in Norton Yard that were giving me fits, but other than that, things ran pretty smoothly. Here is what Darrall, one of the operators, had to say:

“I had the opportunity to operate on Dan Bourque’s layout again Tuesday evening. Stuart Thayer did the Interstate mine run to Dorchester, Dan had the Interstate road job that originated in Andover, VA and ran through to Miller yard (staging on a lower level), while I drew the N&W yard job at Norton, Va. What a blast!!!

The night started by revving up N&W 1591 (a straight SD40) for the yard job. The first task was to pick up 7 cars from the Interstate interchange tracks and classify them in the yard for forwarding on the N&W or for delivery to the local industries at Norton. Once the cars were classified, the next step was to exchange cars at the N&W freight house, Ashland Oil, Armor Meat, a Mining Supply Manufacturer, and the N&W team track with cars that were picked up at the Interstate Interchange. The 9 cars that were picked up at the local industries, or sitting in the N&W yard were then blocked in the yard and moved over to the Interstate interchange tracks for pickup by Dan’s road job. Well…didn’t quite happen this way, but I did manage to get most of the work done. It was a great experience as it gave me ideas as how to approach interchanging cars between the BN and MILW in Great Falls, BN and CP at Sweet Grass, MT/Coutts, AB, and the BN and UP at Butte, MT on a future layout.”

The goal before the next ops session is to start on the basic scenery forms soon and complete the Interstate track between Norton and Miller Yard. I guess that’s my New Year’s Resolution.  Happy New Year! -Dan

While we’re on the subject of Digitrax, another thing I’ve found helpful is to have a functional diagram of your Loconet setup for troubleshooting or rewiring. When I was stringing UP5s and other components around the layout, I thought, “surely I’ll remember where this cable goes to later.”  Well, when it came time to add in components later, I found my memory wasn’t quite that good, and I kept having to trace all my cables to see where they went.  The solution was to create a simple diagram of my Digitrax setup on my favorite graphics tool, Microsoft PowerPoint.

The diagram includes a basic outline of the layout so I can easily match panels in the diagram to the real thing.  The color scheme for components is boosters/command station in blue, radio accessories in orange, computer accessories in purple, loconet panels in green.  The color scheme for wiring is Loconet cables in thick black and power cables in thin lines of various color to show where they plug in and what’s connected to what.   I update this diagram anytime I add or move a component and place the most recent copy in the back of my Digitrax notebook with all of my operating instructions.

In case you’re wondering, I’m not OCD (one look at my workbench will tell you that), but I do like to be organized when it comes to how things are constructed.  A well-built foundation and framework are good investments for future enjoyment of your layout.

Happy Thanksgiving!