The Whiskey River Railway

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
Hi Tyler. I do LIKE that schoolbus!! Your pick me up truck is pretty cool too.

What kind of Dismal is that? How many horses? Inquiring minds want to know.

Enjoying hearing from you again. Tom
Doc,
The truck has about 250hp (my rough guess, a stock 360 had 220hp plus the addition of an Edelbrock Performer intake, supposedly a mild RV cam and an Edelbrock 600cfm carb... but then add 42 years/51,000 miles of wear) and the Centennial behind it has 6600hp. Not sure if it had any upgrades in its lifetime to boost horsies, probably just efficiency mods. I think its amazing that today's road power is tipping into the 5000hp mark with one engine and six AC traction motors while this has two diesels and eight DC traction motors in one big housing. Not sure about MPG but I'm positive that the modern stuff is way ahead of the Centennial.
 

Doctor G

Well-Known Member
Tyler,
Thanks for the update. I'm needing to learn alot about all this new stuff particularly with the club's shift to a modern day layout.

So another question since you work in the industry. How many humans are actually on board for a lashup of three 5,000HP monsters coupled to a train 1-2 miles long?? My guess says two.....maybe three. What are the required positions for over the road big freight trains??

Thanks for all the help and I promise I will eventually settle down and talk about those little tea kettle steamers we love and required 35 people to keep in service.

Tom
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
Tyler,
Thanks for the update. I'm needing to learn alot about all this new stuff particularly with the club's shift to a modern day layout.

So another question since you work in the industry. How many humans are actually on board for a lashup of three 5,000HP monsters coupled to a train 1-2 miles long?? My guess says two.....maybe three. What are the required positions for over the road big freight trains??

Thanks for all the help and I promise I will eventually settle down and talk about those little tea kettle steamers we love and required 35 people to keep in service.

Tom
Doc,

Yes we do have two people on board road trains, a conductor and engineer. Usually if you see anything more than that, that means that either the conductor has a student or the engineer has a fireman (that's what we call engineers-in-training out here). We only have people riding in the rear units (the ones directly behind the lead locomotive) that are deadheading, meaning they're going to work another train at the away from home terminal or there are no scheduled trains at their away from home terminal.

I'll give some examples to help out. For instance, my normal run on the road is from Cheyenne to Rawlins, WY and return. Nothing more or less. Say they have a bunch of oil coming out of the refinery at Sinclair, WY (seven miles east of Rawlins) it'll be tacked onto all the eastbound trains stopping in Rawlins via the Sinclair local. Since there's a little demand going west but a heavy demand going east they may not have enough rested crews in Rawlins to take a train to Cheyenne. So they'll deadhead, sometimes by van or sometimes by train. When the weather gets bad most times it'll always be DHing by train due to going over "The Hill" east of Laramie. Basically it's just a ride to where work needs to be done. Same thing vise-versa, if there's a lot of westbound freights with few trains heading east you could catch a DH back home.

Now let's talk about yard trains. You have two different types of yard jobs, the remote and conventional. Currently I'm a FRA Class 6 license holder, meaning I can operate a remote control locomotive. Essentially it's DCC in 1:1 scale. With RCL there's a foreman and a switchman with nobody in the cab of the locomotive controlling it. Both F&S have the "beltpack" strapped on a special vest. Here's said beltpack:20151006_103800.jpg
This enables either person to transfer control to each other for protecting shoves. Say if I was on the switch lead lining up switches for our next move and the foreman was on the point protecting the shove into the yard track, after he gets done running into the track he can "pitch" it to me to protect the shove coming out of the track. Kinda like stealing a locomotive on DCC. Conventional jobs actually have an engineer as well as foreman and switchman and are usually used for jobs that leave the yard to service an industry but are not considered a local. In Cheyenne we have the YCY52 (Y-yard job, CY- station name for Cheyenne, 52-identification number) which is the conventional switch job that heads out to Dyno Nobel to service that industry as well as take on east end yard switching. Top speed with RCL is only 15, further reduced to 10 mph in the yard on most tracks (some are 5) but with a conventional yard job you can operate at track speed. Hence the difference.

From what I understand, most other railroads use the same lingo as UP, and UP has set the standard for a lot of rules and operating practices. Also working for them I know how modern freight moves now.
 

Doctor G

Well-Known Member
Doc,

Yes we do have two people on board road trains, a conductor and engineer. Usually if you see anything more than that, that means that either the conductor has a student or the engineer has a fireman (that's what we call engineers-in-training out here). We only have people riding in the rear units (the ones directly behind the lead locomotive) that are deadheading, meaning they're going to work another train at the away from home terminal or there are no scheduled trains at their away from home terminal.

I'll give some examples to help out. For instance, my normal run on the road is from Cheyenne to Rawlins, WY and return. Nothing more or less. Say they have a bunch of oil coming out of the refinery at Sinclair, WY (seven miles east of Rawlins) it'll be tacked onto all the eastbound trains stopping in Rawlins via the Sinclair local. Since there's a little demand going west but a heavy demand going east they may not have enough rested crews in Rawlins to take a train to Cheyenne. So they'll deadhead, sometimes by van or sometimes by train. When the weather gets bad most times it'll always be DHing by train due to going over "The Hill" east of Laramie. Basically it's just a ride to where work needs to be done. Same thing vise-versa, if there's a lot of westbound freights with few trains heading east you could catch a DH back home.

Now let's talk about yard trains. You have two different types of yard jobs, the remote and conventional. Currently I'm a FRA Class 6 license holder, meaning I can operate a remote control locomotive. Essentially it's DCC in 1:1 scale. With RCL there's a foreman and a switchman with nobody in the cab of the locomotive controlling it. Both F&S have the "beltpack" strapped on a special vest. Here's said beltpack:View attachment 146400
This enables either person to transfer control to each other for protecting shoves. Say if I was on the switch lead lining up switches for our next move and the foreman was on the point protecting the shove into the yard track, after he gets done running into the track he can "pitch" it to me to protect the shove coming out of the track. Kinda like stealing a locomotive on DCC. Conventional jobs actually have an engineer as well as foreman and switchman and are usually used for jobs that leave the yard to service an industry but are not considered a local. In Cheyenne we have the YCY52 (Y-yard job, CY- station name for Cheyenne, 52-identification number) which is the conventional switch job that heads out to Dyno Nobel to service that industry as well as take on east end yard switching. Top speed with RCL is only 15, further reduced to 10 mph in the yard on most tracks (some are 5) but with a conventional yard job you can operate at track speed. Hence the difference.

From what I understand, most other railroads use the same lingo as UP, and UP has set the standard for a lot of rules and operating practices. Also working for them I know how modern freight moves now.
Thank you Tyler,
This is all very very interesting! Thank you so much for sending it my way.

Radio control looks like a lot of fun. It is like giant garden railroading.

As we go further with the new plug layout of the model railroad club we will most likely have more questions for you. Your expertise is much appreciated.

Dr. Tom
 

Doctor G

Well-Known Member
Doc,

Yes we do have two people on board road trains, a conductor and engineer. Usually if you see anything more than that, that means that either the conductor has a student or the engineer has a fireman (that's what we call engineers-in-training out here). We only have people riding in the rear units (the ones directly behind the lead locomotive) that are deadheading, meaning they're going to work another train at the away from home terminal or there are no scheduled trains at their away from home terminal.

I'll give some examples to help out. For instance, my normal run on the road is from Cheyenne to Rawlins, WY and return. Nothing more or less. Say they have a bunch of oil coming out of the refinery at Sinclair, WY (seven miles east of Rawlins) it'll be tacked onto all the eastbound trains stopping in Rawlins via the Sinclair local. Since there's a little demand going west but a heavy demand going east they may not have enough rested crews in Rawlins to take a train to Cheyenne. So they'll deadhead, sometimes by van or sometimes by train. When the weather gets bad most times it'll always be DHing by train due to going over "The Hill" east of Laramie. Basically it's just a ride to where work needs to be done. Same thing vise-versa, if there's a lot of westbound freights with few trains heading east you could catch a DH back home.

Now let's talk about yard trains. You have two different types of yard jobs, the remote and conventional. Currently I'm a FRA Class 6 license holder, meaning I can operate a remote control locomotive. Essentially it's DCC in 1:1 scale. With RCL there's a foreman and a switchman with nobody in the cab of the locomotive controlling it. Both F&S have the "beltpack" strapped on a special vest. Here's said beltpack:View attachment 146400
This enables either person to transfer control to each other for protecting shoves. Say if I was on the switch lead lining up switches for our next move and the foreman was on the point protecting the shove into the yard track, after he gets done running into the track he can "pitch" it to me to protect the shove coming out of the track. Kinda like stealing a locomotive on DCC. Conventional jobs actually have an engineer as well as foreman and switchman and are usually used for jobs that leave the yard to service an industry but are not considered a local. In Cheyenne we have the YCY52 (Y-yard job, CY- station name for Cheyenne, 52-identification number) which is the conventional switch job that heads out to Dyno Nobel to service that industry as well as take on east end yard switching. Top speed with RCL is only 15, further reduced to 10 mph in the yard on most tracks (some are 5) but with a conventional yard job you can operate at track speed. Hence the difference.

From what I understand, most other railroads use the same lingo as UP, and UP has set the standard for a lot of rules and operating practices. Also working for them I know how modern freight moves now.
Thank you Tyler,
This is all very very interesting! Thank you so much for sending it my way.

Radio control looks like a lot of fun. It is like giant garden railroading.

As we go further with the new plug layout of the model railroad club we will most likely have more questions for you. Your expertise is much appreciated.

Dr. Tom
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
Now back to the regular programmed steam-powered thread.

As of now I have a few projects on my workbench, and I'm trying this weird fad of completing these projects within a timely manner. I even gave myself an outline of what I'd like to accomplish by the end of the year:20150602_210050.pngI typed that up shortly after being furloughed for a little bit until I took the RCL class as mentioned in myself and Dr. Tom's previous conversations. The locomotives are all requiring sound decoders and speakers with potential can motor conversions and since those are both pricier rebuilds they'll be recycled into next year. I still don't have a passenger car number thought of for my steel sided coach, therefore no progress has been made (the steel sided coach will be the only kind on the road, as we like our wood sided cars on the W.R.Ry.).

Freight cars, however, have been slowly coming along as my 950 series of boxcars (AHM and Roco wood sided double-door 40 footers) have all had some sort of attention brought to them. Two cars sit in primer with fully rebuilt underframes and Kadee's installed, two have just the frames done and two (the Roco ones) are essentially untouched due to having a slightly different underframe compared to the AHM ones. My original theory on these was to substitute the original frames for Accurail 40' fishbelly frames which I bought while stationed this last tour to Korea.20151010_155130.jpg
For ease of rebuilding, the first four AHM cars are keeping their original underframes. The only body modifications these cars will receive is door latch hardware and stirrups as needed (except one car which had its molded on fishbelly broken, it'll receive a U channel sideframe). All cars will also receive new running boards up top instead of the extremely thick metal-grated ones that originally came with the cars.

Currently in front of me is C8, the road's most obscure caboose. It's normal assignment will be protecting the shove down to the quarry and behind the train of gravel or ballast or bigger rock. This caboose will remain mechanically the same as received from Dr. Tom, keeping its odd Shay truck underneath (which by the way, I had to pull a lot of fuzz and scenic material out from between the wheelsets and frame as one wheelset didn't even turn). I opened up one end of the car to put a bigger window in so the crew can see as they head down into the quarry. Why not just ride the end car down, you say? I wouldn't want my crew freezing in the winter for about two miniature miles in the wild Wisconsin winter.20151010_151832.jpgI literally just threw the putty in to get the right spacing for the window and since the putty needs time to cure that's why there's a big, ugly blob on it. After I shave off said blob then it'll be paint shop time.
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
Almost forgot to mention heavy duty flatcar #109. This is a Bachmann HD flat that I've added more weight to by taking repurposed stick on tire weights and squishing them in my bench vise to get them thin enough to fit between the frame and the deck piece. 1444516575693-1934149819.jpg
I've also filled in the snap in truck hole and rebuilt the Buckeye trucks to accept a screw for ease of maintenance. The car just needs Kadee coupler pockets added at the proper height and a paintjob with decals.
 

Doctor G

Well-Known Member
Nice projects. I like your organization letter as well. It is amazing that old Kadee products caboose is still standing!!! Sorry about all the scenery materials in the mechanism of the old Shay truck. That does bring back some memories.

Looking forward to more tales from the W.R.Ry.

Doc Tom
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
Every time my locomotives went to the old C&S, I had to work to clean scenic materials out of the mechanisms. Glad to see your projects. We miss you around here. Love those double door boxcars, will be interesting to see how they progress. I had one of those KD disconnect cabooses, and three pairs of disconnects. I lost track of them when We moved to Atlanta in 1972. that's one of my most missed disappearances. At some point I lost a box that had a Fleishman (SP?) baldwin switcher that belonged to my sisters and was geared awesomely with an astounding set of spur gear, and a Mantua 0-6-0 that I wish I had to see if I could re gauge it's frame to On3, and put it under a static brass O gauge model of one of the first locomotives used in Japan. a 42 inch gauge Porter Mogul. I'm missing the tender, but that is no problem. a Porter mogul would be a great addition to my 2 Americans, the CN 62 Shay, and the Bachman On30 Climax I'm going to spread to ON3.
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
Bill and Doc,

I'm glad you welcomed me back here after quite an absence of organizing my life and flirting with another forum to which most of the old-timers of here have migrated to. That and I've been updating most of my model railroad work on the W.R.Ry.'s Facebook page, however as of late the same updates can be found on here as well.

Today C8 got a coat of primer to see how my bodywork faired. Let's just say I need to correct some imperfections on her before I lay down some red paint. I'll be leaving the roof and truck alone as Dr. Tom did a acceptable job in the weathering department. 20151013_174022-1.jpg
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
Like that disconnect caboose, had one in the late 60's and two or three pair of disconnect log cars. the disappeared in the move from Ohio to Atlanta in the early 70's. also omoung the missing is a Rocco or flieshman Baldwin switcher and a Mantua 0-6-0 that belonged to my sisters. the baldwin had spur gears out of the wazoo, had a big heavy metal body and frame, would love to play with it.
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
One of the perks of working for the 1:1 scale operations is finding old relics along the way. On the road I'm on the lookout for old glass insulators from once common telegraph poles, date nails found in the ends of ties (not common on the road since ties get replaced quite often but more so in the yards or really old industries), brass journals from old derailments and other goodies. One day back in March I discovered a pile of junk near CP W639 (East Hanna, WY) that had this spike can that was in great shape. Being the thrifty guy I am I told my engineer, who gave me quite the look dragging this onto the unit, that this'll be my new garage garbage can. However once it came home to me it received a minor amount of attention, mostly brushing off the dirt and excess rust and then receiving my biggest sized stencil I have. 11078155_10153261284423064_1188027042363732632_o.jpg
To give my rattle can job a little weathering, I simply took some of the excess rust found from the can and rubbed it into the paint to give it the finish you see here.

I haven't worked on model rr stuff the last few days as my wife laid down an ultimatum, I have to scan all of my pictures to put them on a hard drive because I've had them sitting next to the scanner in our bedroom for as long as we lived here and she's sick of looking at them. So I decided to finally do something about it and scan them. I had to dig my spike can picture off of Facebook, I felt like I had to post something lately.
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
This must be a site to behold! :)
The stack of photos or the spike can? I figured I've scanned out about 5-700 pictures of family... well mostly train related stuff. I'd say I've knocked out a good 3/4 of my collection already. My spike can just sits in my garage, holding detritus as intended right under my miter saw.
 

Doctor G

Well-Known Member
Like that spike scan. What is the other site you referred to?? I would like to see some of your posts on the other site and facebook.

Still REAL ENVIOUS of your new job with the real deal. Doc Tom
 

zathros

*****SENIOR ADMINISTRATOR*****
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
This level of rail road modeling is so far over my head, I feel unqualified to even post anything but admiration. :)
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
Like that spike scan. What is the other site you referred to?? I would like to see some of your posts on the other site and facebook.

Still REAL ENVIOUS of your new job with the real deal. Doc Tom

Doc,
The other site is the W.R.Ry. Facebook page and can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Whiskey-River-Railway/183968593063

Unfortunately I'm not playing 1:1 scale railroad anymore, the railroad bases everything off of seniority and with traffic levels so low they furloughed me. Rumors from the union say next spring I should be back to work but we'll have to see what happens in the meantime. For now I've applied with McKinstry to work their maintenance needs, I've got a phone interview knocked out with them and now waiting for further contact.

In model rail news, assuming I get aforementioned job I plan on joining the Sherman Hill Model RR Club here in town. One of the oddities about this club is they require 100% NMRA membership to have the layout insured. Digging into the benefits of being a member more I found out that they cover layout damage. Since I'm still without a layout but have an extensive roster of equipment I decided to inventory all of my stuff, starting with cars. Talk about a undertaking! It's amazing how being sent overseas so many times that you forget what you have.
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
Got to take a break from scanning pictures today so I continued work on C8. I have the body in primer and now have found all of the defects that need to be addressed. I started sanding down the high spots and gouging out the grooves in the wood and removing built up paint and who knows what from the window and door corners. 20151022_110036.jpg20151022_110012.jpg
The last thing I need to do is fill the area around the big window with more putty to hide the gap. I'm not too worried about the blobs on the bottom of the car body, those should be covered by the end sills.
 

gbwdude

General Manager, W.R.Ry.
I accomplished quite a bit today although I really don't feel it. I cleaned and reorganized part of my basement to condense my wife's lack of organizing down in my other man cave to give myself a combination video game area/Lego work station. As of now my main collection is at my mom's place in Wisconsin yet, two totes are here with me and some kits are set up on the table ready to go. All of the Lego that I have with me is stuff that I've bought from either a rummage sale or my wife found for me online. Some of the sets aren't my thing, once I assemble the sets I'll take pictures of them and then disassemble them for sale on either eBay or another site. Naturally, those funds will be recycled into the model railroad or the Dodge truck air conditioning fund as that's the last thing my truck needs to be fully operational as it rolled out from the factory.

So to relax I went to my other corner with my model railroad workbench. Wanting to eliminate some of the clutter from the area, I reassembled the newer Varney "Casey" sans motor. After it's ultrasonic bath from a few weeks ago the motor looks better than ever and rolled free. At the time I couldn't find my conductive grease to put on the commutator of the old DC71 so I improvised with graphite powder, gave it a few spins back and forth and blew out the excess. A couple of days ago I worked on just the motor, making sure that my tuning was correct, and then applied power. It ran good both directions, so I took a small break to fetch my water bottle from upstairs. In that short amount of time the motor had froze, somehow welding a brush to the commutator. I figured something was wrong as soon as I smelled that familiar smell of the magic smoke escaping so I unplugged my power pack immediately and went to unhook the DC71. Well that motor was hotter than hell, like grabbing a frying pan. Needless to say now I have two Varney "Casey"s in need of a motor. I need to keep the motor for now as this model appears to be the factory built model and the worm is soldered onto the motor shaft.20151024_201829.jpg
In today's mail I've received my micro connectors from eBay. These will be used between my locomotives and their tenders so hard connections won't have to be made and then you have the struggle of keeping both items together. They are six pin connectors, my theory is to use two pins for motor controls, two pins for pickups and two pins for the forward headlight. Most DCC decoders use a common for the lights and then divide between the fore and aft lighting, only in certain cases will I have a tender light.20151024_202941.jpg
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
tyler I have used the original shaft from old locomotive motors , I use JB quick to strengthen the joint between the front plate and the bottom plate, then remove the top plate , and the back plate. I usually retain the back plate, re shape it and add it to the front plate for more bearing surface (not needed in this example). then I can cut and pry the armature pieces and commutator off the shaft. trim the shaft and install a smaller, more efficient can motor, using the remainder of the original motor as a base; and using a shaft connector, retaining the business end of the original shaft, and the original worm.



a1a motor convesion a1.JPG
 
Top