Embedded Files
An operating session is a simulation of real railway operations. As in the real world, railway cars are loaded, emptied, shunted, sorted and delivered based on specific instructions that follow the car from starting point to destination. To make sure a car gets to where it is destined, the Hampton & St Martins Railway crews use two references:
The first is the car card, one for each freight car on the railway. It contains the car's type, railway name and the car number; in the photo here, we have a GONdola belonging to HSM (Hampton & St Martins Rwy) and it is car #14. The second is the waybill which provides instructions on where a car is going. It is placed in the pocket of the car card. It contains 2 destinations depending on the way is oriented in the pocket. In this photo, the waybill is shown in the plastic pocket showing instructions to deliver the car to the Porter Rd sawmill. Additional information shows that it is carrying logs. Once it is at its destination and unloaded, the waybill can be flipped to indicate the car is to be sent, in this case, back to Robertson Siding log yard (the upside down info of the first photo)
These waybills are stored in boxes on the fascia of the layout close to the location of the freight car
The other piece of reference information is a schematic mounted on the fascia in front of each yard. This serves as a guide for the crews to remind them where destinations are relative to where they are standing, in this case Patterson Siding. Gondola #14 is loaded, the waybill indicates where the car is destined. The schematic shows Porter Rd is South, or as the arrow shows, to the right. Waybills for other cars are handled accordingly; Except those heading to the three southbound destinations, everything else (all Blue, Red, Yellow , Gray and even "E" Green) goes North, or left.
The car cards and waybills are listed on the NMRA Operations Special Interest Group. They were created in Australia using a Microsoft Excel worksheet as a database. The version I have was downloaded several years ago, and works fine for me although it may have been updated since.
TRAIN ORDERS
When an engineer is assigned a train, he gets a clipboard with his work orders, in this case, the Wayfreight that runs from Saint John and works the Hampton yard. Reading from the top down, an engine and caboose are moved from Staging to Saint John. The crew takes all cars destined for Hampton (gray) and the St Martins Branchline (green). At Hampton, they complete the switching required to place freight cars on the right tracks before returning to Saint John with the westbound cars "A" and "B".
An operating session on the Hampton & St Martins Rwy is a compressed version of a day on the raiway. It can keep a crew of a half dozen operators busy for 2 1/2 to 3 hours with a mandatory break negotiated by the union :-).
On my layout, the outside world is represented an extension to the Canadian National Railways mainline, west of Saint John to Canadian Pacific on one side and the continuation of CN to Sussex, Moncton and beyond to the east. Beyond in both directions is staging under the layout.
Below is a graphic showing the scheduling and location of all operating trains at any given time. For reference, the Train Order (F144) for the Wayfreight to Hampton shown above is represented by the solid blue line on the following:
PASSENGER SERVICE
This is handled by one passenger train in each direction daily meeting at Hampton (denoted by red stars). The St Martins-to-Hampton train, P101N, departs from St Martins at 6:30 am picking up passengers and milk at stops along the way. The milk containers are loaded in an express baggage car which is uncoupled at Hampton and transferred to the morning Saint John-bound Canadian National passenger train P15W. The reverse occurs in the evening with P12E and P102S.
There is an excursion train with live music and buffet service that runs on weekends during the summer, round trip from Hampton.
FREIGHT SERVICE
There are two fast freights, one each to and from Moncton. A transfer from CP once daily in the Saint John yard moving cars in interchange with CP. The Hampton Wayfreight operates as a "turn" east out of Saint John doing switching work at Hampton before returning to Saint John.
The Barnesville Switcher at work (below)
The Yard jobs and "Turns" are the key to moving freight to and from the branchline
SAINT JOHN YARD
I represent a pared down version of Saint John. At 5am, the start of our session, a crew takes out an eastbound fast freight train CN 132 E that had been assembled the previous day. Another crew brings in a Canadian Pacific transfer from west staging and takes back cars heading west. The Saint John yard crew then gets to work delivering cars to the local yard and sorting outbounds. Toward midday, they will assemble a Hampton-bound wayfreight with cars destined for Hampton and the St Martins branchline. Later, the Saint John yard crew sorts cars from the returning Hampton wayfreight and from a westbound freight from Moncton that terminates in the Saint John yard.
ST MARTINS YARD
Activity in the St Martins yard gets underway after the departure of the "Hampton Turn" - F105, assembled the previous day. The first order of business is to deliver cars brought in on the previous
day's Turn and pick up outbounds to build tomorrow's Turn. The switcher then heads a short distance down the line to Patterson Siding hauling any cars destined to Patterson, Henry Lake and Porter Rd. The latter two are handled on the return trip because of the direction of the switch points. The switcher then holds at Patterson to handle any cars dropped by the returning Hampton Turn.
BARNESVILLE YARD
The yard job at Barnesville is the centre of activity for the northern half of the branchline. Potatoes and logs are hauled out of Robertson Siding; Upham has a sawmill receiving logs and shipping lumber while farm machinery and agricultural products are handled next door. The switcher also handles moving raw ore from the two mines to the concentrator, then concentrate to Barnesville for pickup by the Hampton turn
ST MARTINS TO HAMPTON "TURN" and the SAINT JOHN TO HAMPTON "TURN"
These two assignments are key to moving all the freight into and out of the branchline. They are not directly tied together on a clock; rather what comes from Saint John is picked up the following day to be taken to St Martins. In return, the cars coming from St Martins in the morning are picked up later in the day by the Saint John-bound turn.
On the Hampton & St Martins Railway branchline, things are far busier than the prototype ever was. There are switchers and yard jobs at St Martins, and Barnesville, both also handling switching work at nearby yards. There are quite a number of gondolas, flatcars and hoppers that move loads entirely within the branchline:
- Logs are loaded at several locations to be delivered to sawmills at Barnesville, Upham, Porter Road and St Martins to be converted to lumber. Some of the sawn lumber is then forwarded within the branchline to finishing mills creating products such as dowels, spindles, clothespins, windows and doors, and paddles.
- Henry Lake produces apples, cider vinegar, maple syrup; potatoes are shipped out from Robertson Siding. Manganese ore is loaded at the Glebe and Markhamville mines for delivery to the concentrator at Hammondvale.
- The finished or concentrated products are then shipped off the branchline to Saint John and beyond
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