JMRI Operations & Car Roster

I finally succeeded in tweaking JMRI Operation until I got what I wanted. Until now, I got LCL cars playing ping pong all over the layout and unable to go back to staging. As expected, it quickly clogged layout spots. The answer what rather simple. Since I wanted to receive LCL but also send LCL, I originally created a single commodity called "LCL". Sounds logical... Many spurs were scheduled to receive and ship such commodity. But as expected, when a car was loaded it was routed to the nearest available spot, thus on the layout instead of the far away destination in the staging area. It was a disaster in the making, the endless waltz of cars shuffling around the place forever started.

To address this issue, I simply created a LCL-IN load for inbound traffic and LCL-OUT load for outbound stuff. The car swapping ended since going to staging was the most logical (and short) way to handle the loads and empties. A human brain is able to tell LCL is going in and going out, but that must be explained flat out to the software

Another problem emerged as a result of saturating the layout with incoming cars. This was due to the inbound traffic being set using the Walthers carfloat maximum capacity which is well over sixteen 40ft cars. That's a lot of traffic for a small crowded terminal and soon enough, the place overflowed with cars. JMRI - even if it was against it's own scheduling rules - had to route cars back to staging. Since the staging spurs weren't designed to accept such loads, the cars stayed stranded forever on the carfloat (acting as a yard) searching forever for a spot that didn't even exist and slowly but surely reducing the carfloat capacity to bring new cars in and get others out. Just like a Tetris game going wrong, the layout was destined to be game over in a matter of time.

However, the solution was once again very simple. I found out Harlem Station was served - most of the time - by platform carfloats. These special carfloats have a platform in place of the central track. This implement is generally used to unload cars directly on the platform which is linked by a sliding ramp to a pier or a warehouse (look at "Pier Platform" in the glossary). This is particularly useful when cars are bound to a non rail-served marine terminal. Why Erie did use the platform carfloats to serve Harlem Station is a mystery, but I guess they had them and it was handy at that time.

But that type of carfloat plays to my advantage: the number of incoming car is reduced to 12 cars maximum. Given most pictures and statistics show an average of 6 to 8 car was typical, I changed JMRI so the longest train is made out of 12 cars. Also, I made sure to set a random value in such a way the number of incoming cars varies and is generally around 8 cars.

Finally, I better assigned customers' and storage spurs following what I could understand from old pictures and historic sources. It certainly isn't 100% accurate, but it is a fair enough approximation of the real thing. Moreover, with less but better routed cars, I got rid of the loaded cars stranded on the carfloat. Now, every car is routed correctly to its scheduled destination and goes back to staging as it should be.

Given this is my first serious effort using JMRI, I'm quite happy to have reached a decent level of proficiency in less than 4 days. Certainly, this is enough for a small switching layout, but I'm well aware I could go further with it, taking in account the days of the week and cargo-specific conditions. This will be done in due time though I already made some adjustments that brings life and unexpected events.

On another hand, JMRI made me understand how much a small car fleet (about 60 cars) can get repetitive with a 55 cars layout capacity. As I said in my previous post, this is getting quite boring fast and it disrupts completely the suspension of disbelief. For this reason, I tracked down parts and decals to complete or kitbash cars in my collection that had no purpose. I'll probably be able to add about 11 new reefers and I still have decals to build more Erie boxcars. In itself it doesn't bother me since bashing and improving rolling stock is always a nice way to spend time in a creative way.

Until then, the next step is to clean out the rails and wheels for flawless operation and experiment first hand with the new switchlist. Jérôme is already working out the mechanical aspect of the fleet including trucks, wheels and coupler height. It seems I did a poor job protecting the wheelsets from over spray and it quickly gunked the rail leading to poor electrical pickup. Lesson learned!

In Search of... Erie Railroad Magazine February 1952 Issue

The title being quite obvious, I'm looking for Erie Railroad Magazine's February 1952 issue which had a detailed article about Harlem Station property and operation. Many websites and later articles about the Erie 149th Street Terminal refer to this article, but while trying to figure out the tenants, it has become quite obvious each author has its own interpretation of the facts. To be blunt, there are a lot of discrepancies and available historical photographs paint a slightly different pictures.

So, I need some help to locate a printed or scanned version of that precious article since it is directly related to the layout era.

One of the main reason I need the article is to locate precisely Harlem Station tenants so I can devise a somewhat accurate way to operate the layout.

My target era would be 1952 or 1955 though I prefer 1952 since the thawing shed was still standing and the Erie Railroad Magazine gives a lot of information about that specific year.

Tentative location of tenants

If you have any information about the tenants, let me know. As far as I can tell, I've been able to locate the following tenants precisely:

-Bay Transportation trucks were generally found near the freight house, particular on the north side near 150th Street.

-Eastern Carloading trucks can be seen on the south side of the freighthouse.

-Victory Coal trucks are located near Eastern Carloading. More on Victory Coal later.

-The crane company used the concrete ramp and the west siding under the gantry crane (booms were transported on gondolas). Some people identified the crane company as Gerosa, but I wasn't able to positively find evidence of that name on pictures.

-Consumer's Coal used to be located on the siding located near the apron and carfloat. It isn't clear if they also were the company that used the siding near the thawing shed but that could be possible.

-Jerome Fuel was located on Consumer's Coal siding but near the turnout according to a mid-1950s photo showing their office shed under construction. However, according to Erie Railroad Magazine, they were already a tenant.Unfortunately, I don't know where they were located back in 1952 and 1951 statistics state it was the largest customer served at Harlem Station!

-Gassman Coal was located exactly where Consumer's Coal was. The change visibly happened at the same time Jerome Fuel became a tenant. It should also be noted that some New York City documents online indicate Gassman Coal used to sell Victory Coal. Thus, could it be Gassman was already a tenant and relocated at Consumer's Coal spot later?

-Mirandi (or Miranda) Coal was a tenant in 1952 but I can't locate it on photographs. However, I know the short siding on the pier handled coal hoppers and a small office and scale house stood there. Unfortunately, no sign is visible on pictures, but that would be a likely spot.


-Adolf Gobel is also indicated as a future tenant but it's hard to know where it was located. However, almost every reefer cars are spotted in front of the freight house.

-National Carloading was also another tenant, but I don't know their exact spot. They could have used another siding located east of the freighthouse. As a matter of fact, it seems boxcars used to be spotted on the eastern side of Harlem station while hoppers, flatcars and gondolas were handled on the western side.

-Finally, Harlem Station also dealt with wine. Some pictures of Harlem River show carfloat with Chateau Martin reefers, thus I guess it was the same kind of traffic that was handled at Harlem Station. However, I have absolutely no idea if the cars were spot sensitive or not.

Thawing Coal Shed and Customers

A lingering mystery about Harlem Station is the coal shed that used to stand near the loading ramp. This narrow and long structure would be quite easy to model, but photographic and graphical evidences clashes.

The thawing coal shed can be seen on the right side.

1951, Track Planning for Realistic Operation, 2nd edition, John Armstrong
Kalmbach Publishing

According to some maps (in fact, most of them), the coal shed – often identified by railfans as a thawing coal shed – was built on top of a track. It would mean coal hoppers we pushed under the structure. Photographs also show there was indeed two tracks leading to the ramps thought only one is visible on the Harlem River side of the shed.

My biggest concern is about the shed itself. If a track was under it, how the building structure was made. The pictures let me believe there was some kind of raised floor on each sides of the track, but it would make little sense to have one.... How would such a building be put in use?

Feel free to comment with your favorite theory, or to clarify my understanding of that neat structure in Harlem. I’m pretty sure someone got some knowledge of similar coal shed covering a track. Edit: While information abound about modern thawing sheds, older ones are less documented. According to several sources, the heating process was done by torching or with steam pipes. We can already exclude the later since Harlem Station didn't had any sizeable boiler room that could have supplied enough steam (except if something comes up).

By the way, as I’m planning to develop the operation concept for the layout, I’m searching for customers that used to be served by Erie’s Harlem Station back in the 1950s, more exactly in 1952. I already have on hand a list of names, but except for a few obvious ones in pictures (Gassman Coal, Jerome Fuel), but others are harder to locate since they didn’t have billboard on the property. Among them are, tentatively, Mirandi Coal (?), Victory Coal, Consumer’s Coal, Bay Transportation, National Carloading, Eastern Trucking and a company dealing with construction equipment (cranes in particular). Any glimpse of information would be appreciated. I have no knowledge about Erie’s archives, but under normal circumstances, papers and scale drawings of the property should survive with indications about tenants and their location.

Quick Update and Future Developments

Well, probably many readers wonder what happened to Harlem Station since last year. In fact, very little and it was never operated in a decent manner since last summer. However, as this blog can testify, this is often a summer project and I'm actually in the process of makinG some room in my basement to start working again on this great little layout.

Among the many tasks to accomplish in the future are some rolling stock upgrade (weight, wheels and couplers) and improving the boxcab performance (LokSound Full Throttle if possible, maybe try the Proto Throttle). Also, a few structures still need to be scratchbuilt and a scenery can be improved a lot. But all that is hardware and cake icing, it doesn't account that much to operation.

As we found out during our few operation sessions, this layout as a lot of potential, but can become a real nightmare to stage. There is something alway weird in deciding yourself which cars to pick up or set out. For this reason, I've studied last winter how to create switchlist with JMRI. Creating automated switchlist would boost greatly the impression you are handling freight at a busy terminal and make my life much easier.

Until then, we will have to figure out a way to split the layout in two halves again as originally designed. It will require cutting the tracks near the split joint and loosening some scenic material.

Meanwhile, I added a new link to Ralph Heiss' Lehigh Valley Harbor Terminal Railway blog in the recommended website list. Ralph has been a long time reader of my blog and our interest in railways somewhat overlap.