Railworks America

This keeps coming up in discussions so I figured I better reveal my intentions.....





This will be completely different from my Alleghany route. This one is allll about TRAFFIC! Plenty of room here to display and run ALL of your rolling stock collection! Should be a scenario writer's dream! There will be very little scenery other than track attached facilities. I am using Google Earth as my "map" so this will have to be considered "Proto-fictional" (I like that term). It is a spare-time project with a limit of 200 hours; am attempting to see HOW much can be built in RW with experience and very little time. I have no idea if or when it might get finished. I started this the other day when I was SICK of yellow gradient pins and forever-unending curves and have about 26 hours in it so far! It was nice for a change to lay 115 miles of mainline in 3 hours!! LOL Wow, this route is straight! LOL It will probably be a month before I touch it again, though.



If you are an expert on this, I might like to bother you with a few questions. If you have maps/charts, especially so.

Something seems... Union Pacific about that.

Oh... my... goodness...

Heheh trainguy76... unspecific Union Pacific perhaps? Heheh.

Awesome! Can't wait for it.

Bailey Yard in Railworks... I don't think if you had every piece of rolling-stock or locomotives for Railworks you would be able to fill half that yard. I'll do some online research and if I find anything I'll send you a PM.

I might actually visit this line sometime later this year.

EDIT: If you are a subscriber to TRAINS Magazine, they have a PDF of Bailey Yard's trackage. It's also in the July 2010 issue where they did a whole article on it.
http://trn.trains.com/en/Railroad%20Ref ... raska.aspx

so many things possible now!

Bailey Yard contains 350 miles of track! This will have a little bit less because I've trimmed out a track here and there to make it fit Railworks. Also, any reduction at all in the number of tracks and switches will help it run smoother in RW. I think I have humps of 32 and 48 tracks (can't remember for sure). I'm guessing it is a 3-4 mile trip around the loop to go from one hump to the other. I wish had the Trains subscription; saw that map; hope someone out there who loves this place will show up with a map. One question I have is does one of the humps (EB I think) have TWO lead tracks or one? It looks like there are two tracks over the hump in Google Earth (GE). If so, is there a x-over after the hump/bridge? I also need to know the exact purpose of each of those smaller yards (wow, yards within yards!) so I'll be sure I get those tracks right.
I know that everything is "controlled" from the Tower (towers??), but does that mean there are still men out there driving the locomotives around? If not, which ones are remote controlled? The reason I ask is signaling; would there be signaling where the locomotives are remote controlled (such as the humps????). This will probably be a signaling/AI nightmare but we should be able to make most of it work. Hmmmm.... 2 hour scenarios and never leave the yard! I am not going to try to duplicate the real yard's traffic control; RW wouldn't allow it anyhow. We'll have to come up with a design that works in this place. Pike's site has some good info on just this topic that I took a few moments to glance at last night. I don't won't to signal every single track; just groups of tracks. Most of these yard areas have multiple leads so that design seems very possible.

We have lots of time to think about it because I am back to working on the COA full time now. I have some sizable yards to build there, too!

Tori
P.S. Running total: 29 hours

"IT'S, Monty Python's Flying Circus!" Sorry I couldn't resist.

I really like what I'm seeing here. So many tracks. So many possibilities. I can't wait to see the scenarios for this.

Looking at my TRAINS issue the Eastbound Hump has in fact two leads. There is a crossover (X) just past the hump on the downhill part into the bowl tracks. The Westbound Hump has only one lead.
Looking at Google Earth, I'll try my best to point out each yard: (Going from North to South or Top to Bottom)

The top most yard with the balloon track is called the "Spare Yard" (tracks 700-718), this is where UP holds unit coal cars for the Powder River Basin that aren't needed or used. The next yard down is the "Westbound Run-Through" (tracks 276-293) followed by the "Westbound Departure Yard" (tracks 304-313). Note we are moving a bit East for the next few yards. Then you have the "Westbound Classification Yard (Westbound Hump)" (tracks 011-060). Below that is the "Westbound Receiving Yard" (tracks 221-229). Below that is the "Car Repair Shop and Yard" (tracks 501-505) and the "Company Storage Material" (tracks 414-421) just to the West of the Car Shop. Immediately to the East of the Car Shop is the "Van Yard" (tracks 202-212). Cutting the yard in the middle are the 3 "Run Though" Tracks. Below the run though tracks are the "Eastbound Classification Yard (Eastbound Hump)" (tracks 101-164), and to the East is the "Eastbound Departure Yard" (tracks 301-306). To the West of the Eastbound Hump is the "Eastbound Receiving Yard" (tracks 201-209). And at the very bottom is the "Diesel Repair Shop, Wash House, Supply Department, Locomotive Support and Storage Tracks." The building near the bottom and to the right of the Engine Shops are "Main Office, Bailey Command Center."

There at least 6 towers in Bailey:
East Hump Tower.
West Hump Tower.
Route Selection Tower.
East Trim Tower.
West Trim Tower.
"Area 51" Control Plant.
All operate under the Bailey Command Center.

The Remote Control areas are:

West Hump North Pullback (Zone 1), West Hump South Pullback (Zone 2), Coal Spare Yard (Zone 3) West Trim North Pullback (Zone 4), West Trim South Pullback (Zone 5), Van Yard (Zone 6).

As for signals and whatnot I'm lost when it comes to that. I'll try to dig some stuff up though.
Just for fun, some facts and figures:

2,850 Acres: The size of Bailey Yard (8 miles long, 2 miles wide).
2,600: Number of Employees (1,200 in Train Service).
120-140: Number of daily trains in 2009 (60-66 coal, 40-50 manifest, 18-22 Intermodal, 1-5 Bulk).
20 Million: Gallons of Diesel Fuel used per month.
345: Miles of Track.
749: Number of turnouts (switches).
20.1 feet: Height of West Hump.
32 feet: Height of East Hump.
26.1 Hours: Bailey East Dwell Time.
28.9 Hours: Bailey West Dwell Time.
350 a Day: Number of locomotives serviced.
75-90 a Day: Number of locomotives repaired.
1968: Year the East Hump was built (1971 for Diesel Shop, 1973 for Car Repair, 1979 Command Center built, 1980 West Hump built, 1991 Run Though Fuel Pads built).
Named For Edd H. Bailey: Union Pacific president from 1965-1971.
Worlds Largest: Confirmed by Guinness Worlds Records in 1995.

Quote from a new UP employee going to Bailey: "I flew out here at night. I looked out the window and said, 'That must be the city of North Platte.' They said, 'No, that's the rail yard.'"
Building Bailey even in a smaller version is still a undertaken, good luck.

Oh my, this is good news indeed Tori! Looks like from the map that you have started around Kearney, correct?

Trevor

Toripony wrote:Should be a scenario writer's dream!

Ahhh, no! I think this is a nightmare.

Tori, I am considering purchasing a set of UP track charts from 1994 that should have the Bailey yard and the line from Kearney west to North Platte. If I get it I will get you what you need for maps.

Trevor

Chessie, what a terrific overview you gave! Thanks mucho for transposing all of that info! Putting names to these areas will help me keep my bearings. Really... I get lost out there!! Guess my eyesight is still ok to see those two hump leads and x-over! Adjusting my track numbering to a reduced number of tracks will be tricky and ensuring I have the right tracks for those run-thru tracks is a small task in itself. Also, it looks like I'll need to raise the height of my humps, but I wonder if it is worth it. Has anyone ever been able to hump/roll rail cars in RW?? Until we can, these humps are just eye-candy. Am tempted to not even weld the switches (for improved performance and cuts build time).

One question to help me understand the purpose of everything.... what does "trim" mean in a rail yard?

Trevor, that would be even more than I hoped for. Do you guys have scanners? I've had great results scanning track charts. Done at 300 dpi in B&W (or grayscalel? I forget at the moment), saved as jpg's, I can zoom far in on those charts and see all that detail MUCH clearer than reading it on paper.

The signaling will mostly have to follow RW guidelines instead of real life, but a map would still be very helpful. There are big questions concerning RW here. Like, if we want to make the Spare Yard "automated". This would first require that AI be able to pick up cars as well as drop them. Then, if we have one AI locomotive in a yard protected by signals on the main leads, is there any reason to add signals within that yard? Seeing cars on the other side of a signal would be interpreted as an occupied block so it wouldn't enter, but too many unsignaled choices for the AI dispatcher may create chaos. How do you control it without some traffic control devices? I can see situations where the "fallacies" of RW AI would actually need to be calculated into the design and maybe even used proactively in the control. That's the kind of stuff I sleep on for a month before a "picture" begins to form.

Tori

mabye someone should do a UP repaint of the low polly yard fillers for this one!

No problem Tori.
Directly off the Union Pacific Railroad Terms Glossary:

Trims are sorted tracks of cars in a hump yard pulled out of the sorting tracks and coupled to make up outbound trains. A yard "behind on trims" is behind on its outbound train building.

- Trim Lead: Track used to move cars from the bowl (sorting tracks) to the departure yard, where sorted cars are coupled into an outbound train.

- Trimmed: Count of sorted cars built into outbound trains.



Source: http://www.uprr.com/aboutup/reference/g ... kgls.shtml

Toripony wrote:Trevor, that would be even more than I hoped for. Do you guys have scanners? I've had great results scanning track charts. Done at 300 dpi in B&W (or grayscalel? I forget at the moment), saved as jpg's, I can zoom far in on those charts and see all that detail MUCH clearer than reading it on paper.

Tori

Yes I do have a scanner. I have a copy of the BN Nebraska Division from 1988 arriving today and have my eye on the UP charts I mentioned earlier. I near (right next to for 4 years) the BN Creston Sub growing up as a kid. I would love to do that someday, I miss seeing all that green power.

Trevor