Friends of BNSF Website Launched

BNSF 5353 in Wenatchee, WA looks like it needs a friend.

You can be friends with people on Facebook, and now you can be friends with BNSF on the Web, too.

The railway has launched a new website dedicated to "providing exclusive content to people and advocates interested in the Class I or freight-rail transportation."

The Friends of BNSF website provides members with access to articles, documents, photos and videos, including items from the Class I’s historical archives, such as authentic maps and documents, and classic brochures and advertisements.

You can find it, and sign up, at https://www.friendsofbnsf.com. The first 10,000 to register get a free 2012 BNSF calendar.

Canada Central Layout in Model Railroader: View It One Last Time

I just got my October isssue of Model Railroader, and was delighted to find an article about the Canada Central, the layout owned by the Montreal Railroad Modelers Association.

In reality, it's a memoriam, of sorts; as reported earlier on this blog, the layout will be dismantled in November. (After 38 years in the same location, the club lost its lease.)

In the meantime, buy the issue and enjoy this magnificent layout one last time.

Train Length: How Long Can They Go?

This CPR train is over 4 kilometres long.

Anyone who has gone railfanning lately—or been stopped at a railway crossing—knows that trains are getting longer. But how much longer?

Up here in Canada, intermodal trains on the CPR have grown from 63 cars in 2008 to 90 cars in 2010. The railway hopes to reach a goal of 105 cars per train.

Meanwhile, CPR coal trains have grown from 124 cars in 2008 to 129 cars in 2010; the target is 152. Potash trains have grown from 124 cars to 142 cars; the target is 170 cars.

Mixed freight trains have also grown, from 86 cars to 105 cars; the target is 115 cars. Grain train length has remained steady at 114 cars; the railway is aiming for 168 cars.

To help it determine maximum train lengths, the CPR uses software called Train Area Marshaling that allows it to model its trains before they are even built.

The software helps it simulate the sort of in-train forces trains would experience across its entire network, taking into consideration things like the actual curves and gradation the trains will encounter.

The software then determines the ideal weight distribution by recommending strategic placement of loaded and empty cars, and the best locations for remote locomotive sets (distributed power).

The software is so good the CPR thinks it will be able to increase the length of its coal trains to 250 cars.

Over at CN, that railway has been testing 200-car trains in the Maritimes. In northern Ontario, on its trans-continental mainline, it plans to lengthen sidings from 6,000-7,000 feet to 12,000 to 14,000 feet to accommodate the longer trains.

Up until the 1990s, the average freight train in Canada was about 5,000 feet (1.54 kilometres) long and weighed 7,000 tons. But it is now not uncommon for trains to be 12,000 feet long, and sometimes as much as 14,000 feet (more than four kilometres).

The railways love the longer trains, of course—they reduce the number of trains they need to run, the number of people they need to employ, the wear-and-tear on track and the amount of fuel they use.

The longer trains have caught the eye of Transport Canada, which has launched a six-part study with an eye on developing policies for how these longer, heavier trains are assembled and run.

With information from the Feb. 26, 2011 Financial Post. Photo credit: CPR.

Athearn Blue Box, New Power and other Labour Day Weekend Thoughts

This Labour Day weekend I've been "labouring" on the layout--doing some fine-tuning, finding and fixing bugs and cleaning the layout room. I've also enjoyed watching my new units run in their first "revenue" service, as in the photos above and below.

One thing I discovered is that my trusty old Athearn Blue Box SD40-2 units aren't quite up to it when it comes to mastering the new, steeper grade in my helix. (The result of changes to the layout; see Going, going, gone.) They can pull 12-14 cars no problem, but they really struggle with the 18-20 that is normal on the M & M Sub.

This is not the case for my Kato, Atlas, Proto or newer Athearn power. They have no trouble at all surmounting the grade.

One option is to replace my Athearn Blue Box with newer power--something I am slowly doing. But there are no easy-to-obtain replacements for CP Rail's SD40-2 units. (Atlas--are you listening?) In the meantime, I've decided to go back to the future, as it were.

Back when I started the layout, I didn't own enough powered units for all the trains I wanted to run. (Due to lack of funds.) I compensated by using non-powered units, which were much cheaper. I used two powered units to climb from one level to the other, but a powered and non-powered unit to come down.

I'm doing a variation on that theme again. This time, I'm using my Blue Box units for trains coming down from the upper level, and the newer power for going up. Locomotives are switched between levels by hand in the staging yards. (The upper and lower staging yards are located above each other.)

Once again, necessity is the mother of invention. Or maybe I found a labour saving device on this Labour Day weekend.

Unusual Non-Model Railroad Items For Your Layout

An old printer cartridge makes a unique load.

What's the most unusual or creative non-model railroad item you have used for your hobby?

For me it would be whiskers. One day--back when I still had black facial hair--I dumped out the contents of my electric razor and thought they sure looked like scale-size cinders. I collected subsequent emptyings and placed the contents trackside. They looked OK, even if the supply was a little limited. (With my gray hair today, this doesn't work as well.)

Then there was the time I tried dryer lint to make thick grass. I sprinkled on ground foam, thinking it might look half decent. Wrong! Too bad, though, since dryer lint comes in an almost limitless supply.

A less strange, but still unusual non-model railroad item is in the photo above--and old printer cartridge. In this case, it's really old; I think it comes from an old dot matrix printer. (Remember those?) I'm slowly adding bits and pieces to make it look more like a realistic load--a transformer, perhaps.

Other non-model railroad items I have tried include kitty litter for rip rap; tops off spray paint bans and other containers for roof vents and stacks; old-style artificial Christmas trees for fir trees; and straws for pipe loads.

A friend used the insider container of a Kinder Egg, the children's chocolate egg with a toy surprise inside, to make a unique large compressor-type load. Americans who want to try this will have to smuggle their Kinder Eggs in from Canada, though; they are illegal in the U.S.

When I posed this question about non-model railroad items on the Atlas HO forum, things people said they used included fake eyelashes for splash strips on trailers; Scotch tape rollers for tanks; and Grape Nuts cereal flakes spray painted black, silver and gray for a scrap metal load. (Just make sure you don't have mice!)

What are the most creative or unusual non-model railroad items you have employed?