Staging Yard Update - Part III

The Twisted Journey of the PRSL staging.

The one thing I am getting better at as I age is increasing my stupidity coefficient in layout design. I originally laid out the north and south staging yards side by side (see the two October 23rd blog entries) to support the layout's major (70%) rebuild.

While lying in bed one night it suddenly dawned on me that the existing north staging yard would enter the on-line Camden Pavonia yard from the wrong end. That meant that I would have to raise the north yard’s 4 tracks 2 inches get to the yard from the other, hi-line end. 

Out came the jig-saw. I lost some extension on the coal drag track (now reduced to 90” ~ 30 units)

I then finished laying the south end staging (on cork this time). The north yard holds 102 40’ cars and the south yard 122 cars. A lot of tuning remains to get these tracks to run to something faintly resembling flawlessly.

The layout now has 63 Peco turnouts, most of which are around 40 years old. I still need to finish two complex track areas to once again resume operations. This is another case of “If I knew what I was getting into, I never would have started this project.”

The north yard holds the Deepwater (electric plant) coal drag (29 loaded cars), the Penns Grove Tank Sweeper (27 cars), the Philadelphia yard transfer (mixed freight; up to 24 cars), and the Millville Sand Hog (14 empty gons and covered hoppers).

The 5 track south staging holds a loaded Sand Hog, an empty coal drag, and a Salem local. Per the prototype, the trains are all “turns” from Camden reaching the south staging (3 seperate branches: Deepwater/Millville/Salem), doing, run-arounds, and returning to the Camden yard or north staging. Hence 2 of the 5 south staging tracks are always empty for engine run arounds.

North yard's 4 staging tracks raised 2 inches

 Both staging yards with staged trains:

The on-line Camden's Pavonia Yard is still responsible for receiving the Philly transfer and assembling the Millville, Deepwater and Camden locals. The transfer will return to the north yard staging with empties and loads designated for Philadelphia and beyond.

The Millville and Deepwater locals will leave empties/loads at a siding off the south staging yard for a waybill cycle.

Per the prototype, the Salem local will leave staging and swap cars at the small Woodbury (with icing facilities) yard before returning to the Salem staging track. Since it serves mostly farmland, it will primarily consist of reefers.