An operating scheme for my PRR Northeast Division
Part II: Selecting operating software/Dave Messer
PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR O
nce I completed the develop- ment of an overall train sched- ule for the PRR Northeast Divi-
sion layout (see RMC, October, 2011), I began the process of selecting software to improve the operation of the trains and the movement of cars in a proto- typical manner. To review, my layout represents a “what if” takeover of the Lehigh & Hudson River by its histori- cal one-time owner, the PRR. Through its western connections (DL&W and Reading), the L&HR, along with the Erie, LNE and the O&W (the latter abandoned by 1957, my model year), moved freight into the New Haven’s sprawling Maybrook Yard, which served as a major gateway for traffic bound for New England over the Poughkeepsie bridge route. The layout models the northern portion of the line, from Jefferson (Franklin) New Jersey to Brookview (Maybrook) New York. The prototype names have been changed because I am not modeling lit- eral representations of these towns, al- though several structures are recogniz- able as prototypically correct or compressed versions thereof. The layout features a Pennsylvania
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PRR train No. 30 (above) heads out of the staging yard behind an A-B set of Fairbanks- Morse 1,600-h.p. freight C-Liners on B-B trucks, class FF-16 in PRR terms. Through train and local crews do their work using computer generated switch lists and card orders.
Railroad (ex-L&HR) main from Jeffer- son to Brookview, with visible yards at Wickham (Warwick), Greystone (Grey- court) and of course Brookview, as well as the Erie and LNE traffic into Brookview. Two staging yards allow for the makeup of New Haven and PRR
trains at one end of the layout and Erie and LNE trains at the other.
Operating system selection There are actually three types of op- erating systems: thumb tacks or anoth- er type of marker on the cars them-
JANUARY 2013
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