I REMEMBER THE DAYS when you would see long coal drags being pulled by the largest steam engines. Pounding up the hills with a 2-8-8-4 chuffing black smoke, the earth shook as the heavy drag rattled by, hauling coal hoppers in a long string. That’s the idea behind Catskill Coal.

Catskill Coal is a medium sized route that specializes in the movement of coal from the coal mine on Gallop Hill, located in the Catskill Mountains, to Scranton, PA. It is a fictional route from Walton, NY to the Gallop Hill mine where the empty operating coal hoppers are filled; the locomotive is turned around, and sent back south to Scranton (portal) with its load of filled hoppers. Tracking cameras have been set up along the route to give dramatic views of your locomotive as it travels in the hills. This route is a natural for those large articulated and 4-8-4 steam locomotives or multi-unit GP diesels, and will show them at their best. The mainline is two-tracked, allowing trains to move north and south and pass each other.

The route has been created using only standard issue items from Trainz Railroad Simlator 2006 with service pack SP1 so that no additional downloads are needed. You can download the route and basic session free of charge at the VR Downloads page. The route runs north and south, but in order to fit the map better on the page, I rotated the map so it lies east to west.


Catskill Coal Route.


Gallop Hill Mine Yard.


Walton Yard.

At the start of the basic session there are two empty coal drags at Walton yard waiting to be sent north. There is a short passenger train loaded with workers at Walton station which will head to Gallop Hill one minute after the session starts, and there is a GP diesel at Gallop Hill which will run the empty coal hoppers through the mine for filling while the road engine is turned around using the wye. I call the uncoupling of the road engine, turning it, and the GP taking the hoppers and loading them, then recoupling them to the road engine “The Dance”. The dance is a manual operation and is the key to the fun. For the included session I used CN locomotives and operating coal hoppers, which are built into TRS2006.

There are two interlocking towers on the route, one at Walton and the other at Gallop Hill. The towers are assumed to be in communication with each other and they coordinate activity. The Gallop Hill tower will advise the Walton tower to send the northbound traffic once the southbound traffic is clear of the yard and headed south. This is so that the northbound traffic does not arrive while the “dance” is taking place. Of course, you will be the tower operator and you will be the one to release the trains, but that’s the premise.

South of Walton there are two portals, to and from Scranton. The portals are programmed so that when a loaded southbound coal drag enters the portal to Scranton, it will reappear five minutes later from the portal coming from Scranton, but the loaded cars will have been unloaded. With this system, coal drags can be created for as long as you wish.

The complete session, from the passenger train to Gallop Hill leaving at 8 am, sending the empty coal drag, loading it and turning it, sending it south, sending the next coal drag north, and having the southbound coal drag enter the portal to Scranton will take about 50 minutes in real time. The following screenshots show the operation in action:

Passenger train leaving Walton.	Passenger train at Sidney.
Passenger train at Gallop Hill.	Coal drag heading for Gallop Hill.
Drag & passenger meet at Sidney.	Drag reaches Gallop Hill.

The Dance

Road engine uncouples.	Loco heads to the wye for turning.
GP backs out as road engine passes.	GP couples as road engine returns.
GP fills hoppers.	GP backs filled hoppers to Out track.
GP leaves filled hoppers.	Road engine couples up.
2nd coal drag is sent north.	Goal drags pass each other.
Coal drag enters Walton.	Coal drag enters portal to Scranton.

The Wye Operation

I personally like to give my engineer instructions and let the AI system operate for me. In order to do the “dance” I created track positions that I direct the engineers to. The positions are:

Gallop Hill Arrival Track (Flagman) trackmark

Gallop Hill Road Engine Stop (End of the Wye) trackmark

Gallop Hill Station

Industry Bypass Trackmark

Gallop Hill Departure Track (Flagman) trackmark

The drag from Walton is directed to go to the Gallop Hill Arrival Track. Once it arrives, the road engine is uncoupled and the engineer is directed to drive to the Gallop Hill Road Engine Stop, which is at the point of the Wye, effectively reversing the engine. The engineer is then directed to back up to Gallop Hill station. From Gallop Hill Station the engineer is told to go via the Industry Bypass Trackmark to the Gallop Hill Departure Track.

Using the Industry Bypass keeps the switches at the mine clear for the GP to use. I labeled the mine track switches 1A and 1B for Bin1, 2A and 2B for bin2, 3A and 3B for bin3, and finally 4A and 4B for bin4.

When loading the hopper cars I run the GP at 4 mph under the bin and this activates the coal dump process for the entire string of cars as they pass under the bin.

I have programmed the passenger train in advance to make the run to Gallop Hill, stop at Gallop Hill Station, use the Wye and return to Walton. You can follow the passenger train to get a feel of the operation of the Wye. There could be a final passenger run to bring those workers home at the end of the day. You will need to uncouple the FA unit and turn it on the turntable in Walton, then hook back up to the cars for the return trip. This is not pre programmed, but you should be able to do this yourself.

Catskill Coal is a lot of fun to run and the “dance” is very enjoyable to work with. Don’t forget to use those tracking cameras!

John

Article and screen shots �2008 John D'Angelo. All rights reserved.