Idea: Train Orders on the Vasona Branch

And one last train order note:

Although most of the Vasona Branch track is in yard limits (and so trains don't need permission to move), everything uphill from Vasona Jct. is outside yard limits and does require permission. Currently, we dispatch informally; I'll tell a train what they're to do, or if I'm being obnoxious, I'll give them a cryptically-worded command formed from the likely train order.

"Can we come downhill?"

"Oh, I should do that as a train order. Engine 2174 run extra from Santa Cruz to San Jose and return, protecting against Extra 2721. Extra 2721 has rights over Extra 2174 from Los Gatos to Campbell."

That pretty much says that the little engine 2174 will be bringing the gravel train down from Santa Cruz, but he'll have to wait at Los Gatos til Engine 2721 (switching San Jose and Los Gatos) is done with his work. Those orders have a bit of the flavor of real train orders, but trying to parse that sentence in your head is tricky.

I'd thought about having pre-printed train orders ready for the crews, with faint lettering in the place of locomotive numbers for easy customization:

Locomotive (gravel train) run extra Santa Cruz to West San Jose and return.  Locomotive (San Jose Turn) run extra from San Jose to Los Gatos and return.  Extra (San Jose Turn) has rights over Extra (gravel train) between Vasona Junction and Los Gatos.

That doesn't have any of the repeating and transcribing of the operator job, but it does give the crew a piece of paper to examine as they think about what their train must do. Operations on the Vasona Branch may never be complicated enough to need serious train orders, but little orders like this could help new operators get a feel for what train order operations feels like.

I'll try this on the next operating session, and let y'all know how it goes!

Lessons Learned at La Mesa

Not surprisingly, I learned quite a bit about train orders from my trial-by-fire at the San Diego Model Railroad Museum last weekend.

Number one: OS's ("on sheet") where the operator warns the dispatcher when a train leaves a station gives the dispatcher some very important information so he knows when a track is occupied. On La Mesa, the dispatcher is "hungry" for any information like that, so it's ok to barge into the middle of an existing conversation on the phone to warn the dispatcher of a train's location. I barged in.

Number two: I'd assumed that train orders were addressed to all trains mentioned so the crew knew what other crews knew about the order. Wrong; I learned after my first set of orders that the dispatcher would warn the operator who was supposed to receive each set of orders, and I'd record only the names of the train receiving the orders at my station.

Number three: Most model railroads have a tiny amount of track between towns, but the La Mesa Club can have fifty or a hundred feet of track between stations. As a result, it's possible to reproduce one aspect of a train order operator - warning the dispatcher about a train approaching. I'd call out "Woodford coming west" on the phone when I saw a train approaching in the distance, and the dispatcher would tell me who it was, and if there were no more orders he intended for that train, warn me "No more", and I'd clear the train order signal and let the train go past. Several times, I couldn't barge into a conversation fast enough to warn the dispatcher; the layout rules said that if I couldn't reach the dispatcher, I'd have to let the train stop, then I'd have to create a clearance card indicating "no orders" and let the train through on the assumption the dispatcher had no more plans.

Number four: I almost freaked when I realized I still had an order for the second section of train 806 that was supposed to meet Extra 4230. Did I forget to give out the order? I later figured out that Extra 4230 left its siding before the second section arrived. Hopefully 2-806 was watching train numbers as it climbed out of Bakersfield and realized the train it was already waiting for had high-tailed it downhill ahead of its orders.

Optimist's Weekend

If I was the gambling sort, I'd never go to Vegas again. I just used up my lifetime supply of good luck.

Dear Wife and I were in San Diego this weekend, she for classes and me for tagging along. While she was in classes on Saturday, I ran off into the mountains to visit the San Diego Railroad Museum in Campo, about an hour and a half east of town. I'd always meant to visit the SDRM, but had never gotten around to it when we lived in San Diego. Among other things, they have two pieces of equipment I really wanted to see because they're common locomotives on my layout: a restored SP T-31 steam locomotive and an ex-San Diego and Arizona Eastern / Southern Pacific C-8 Consolidation. I've never seen a real version of either locomotive, and really wanted a sense of what these locomotives were like in real life.

I also saw they were having train rides Saturday afternoon from Campo down to the Mexican border, and that sounded fun. Better yet, for $35, they'd give a cab ride in the little diesel switcher they use on the excursions.

Unfortunately, when I got to Campo, I found out the little switcher wasn't working, and they'd had to delay the morning ride. They did have another working locomotive - their big GP-9 diesel locomotive - but it was buried behind a couple of other non-running locomotives, so they'd have to do a bit of shuffling to get the locomotive free, then transfer diesel fuel to the new locomotive.

And they did, though it took a lot of work on the part of the volunteer crew. So, around 2:30, I got up on the Geep, sat in the fireman's seat, and watched the world go by from the engine. It was a lot smoother than I thought, and I got to hear the radio chatter between the conductor and engineer as they confirmed speed restrictions, worked the air brakes and dynamic brakes on the downhill ride, and pushed the engine up the hill on the uphill ride. The two memorable parts were looking down from the locomotive as we crossed the high bridge just in front of the tunnel to Mexico (what keeps the locomotive on that narrow bridge?!), and seeing real railroading as the company officer doing a check ride questioned the engineer on the rule book.

That's how I got to spend Saturday afternoon cruising through the desert.

But that's only half the lucky break.

Now, there's the joke that once you've gone through college, you'll continue to have nightmares where you show up to a random class and find out to your surprise that a final's being given... and you're not prepared. Whoops!

Christine and I went over to Balboa Park on Sunday to check out the art museums. I also wanted to see the model railroad museum and the La Mesa Model Railroad Club's famous Tehachapi Loop layout. The La Mesa club's fame comes from a layout that accurately models a major bit of mainline railroad, with wide curves, long trains, and realistic scenery. Since I was last there in the 1990's, they'd built a second level on the layout and built a model of the Tehachapi Loop itself.

So we go to the museum, and I point out the Bakersfield yard area to Christine, show the realistic scene at Ilmon, and the sidings and horseshoe curve at Caliente. While we're there, we see a fair number of operators around on the layout; they're from another model railroad club, and visiting today as part of one of La Mesa's operating sessions where they use 1950's railroad practices to control the layout and run a realistic set of trains. The operators probably spent the last couple days reading the rule books to make sure they could run the train in a prototypical manner. The crew I'm talking to are stuck up on the hill waiting for a meet so they can finish their trip down to Bakersfield.

As we're talking, someone comes out of the staff area - a friend from the National Convention in Sacramento in July. "Robert! Great to see you, we could use some more crew. Can you stay til 8 p.m.?" Turns out they're a couple crew short for this operating session, and it's keeping them from getting realistic traffic levels. I can't do 8 p.m. thanks to a flight out, but I can make it til 6:30, and when he suggests running a train, I suggest, "well, I could even take one of the operator positions", knowing that most folks like to run trains and the operator positions usually aren't sought-after.

He likes that, and leads me upstairs to Woodford to relieve the current train order operator who'd love a chance to run trains today.

Now, on the real railroad, the train order operator at Woodford sits in the depot at a siding about two-thirds of the way up the mountain, transcribes phone messages from the dispatcher exactly, and hands them as expected to the train crews as they go by. The operator also controls the train order signals to stop oncoming trains for which orders exist.

On the model, the operator sits at a desk in front of one of the few remaining unscenicked areas of the layout, hidden from the public by an air duct. He has a pad of train order sheets, a pile of carbon paper for making copies, and a headset and microphone for communicating with the dispatcher.

And then comes that "today's the final" image. The previous operator sits me down, gives me the headset, and shows me the paperwork and starts to lead me through the job. But the buzzer buzzes, and I step on the talk button and respond "Woodford!"

"Woodford, prepare to copy one train order, Mojave prepare to copy one train order... Mojave: To extra 4280, Woodford to First 806..." Ooops. I figure out that they direct the order to each train separately, but I figure that out only as the dispatcher starts rattling along.

"Engine E-N-G forty-two-thirty FOUR-TWO-THREE-NOUGHT run extra E-X-T-R-A Mojave M-O-J-A-V-E to Kern Junction K-E-R-N-J-C-T..."

And I get half the words, and catch the rest as the Mojave operator reads back his copy as a test of accuracy. I mess up mine, the dispatcher re-reads, I correct my copy, and my instructor explains what I'd missed, and how I'd better set up another pair of train orders with the carbon paper so I'm ready for next call from the dispatcher.

And that's how the next six hours ran, with some moments of terror as I made sure I set the train order signal (masonite flags on a 2x2 with string to set - works well, even if they're not pretty) and learned how to write up a clearance card and check with the dispatcher for correctness, and wrote another ten train orders. I also had a bunch of idle time in between to look at the nearby layout, because the story of the railroad is "hurry up and wait."

But I survived, and even got some compliments for a not-horrible first day as an operator. And I'd even go back and do it again.

And those nightmares about the unexpected final don't seem so scary any more.

So You Think You Can Design A Switch List?

One of the more photogenic features of my
SwitchList
car assignment program is that the switch lists it displays are attractive and realistic. Many of the commercial programs out there just do computerized lists that could have been printed on a 1980's dot matrix printer. I'm pleased SwitchList doesn't do that (or doesn't just do that) - it can fool people into thinking I've been up all night writing my switchlists by hand, can imitate the standard SP switchlist form, the San Francisco Belt Line's form B-7, or (thanks to James McNab) the PICL-style computerized car list form.

Doing attractive and realistic switchlists is nice, but one of the common requests I hear is to allow others to design their own switchlists, even if they're not Macintosh programmers.

Y'all have got your wish.

The newest version of SwitchList, version 0.8.0, now allows you to design your own switchlist style, then use it both for printed switchlists and for the web-based switchlists you can view on your iPad or iPhone during an operating session. Creating a switchlist requires a bit of knowledge of HTML and making web pages, but you can get pretty far without any sophisticated knowledge of how to make web pages, and there's lots of people out there who can give you advice.

Why would you want your own custom forms?
* Change font sizes or arrangements of the standard switchlists to meet your special needs.
* Duplicate your prototype railroad's switch list form.
* Experiment with better ways to help your operators see what work is to be done.
* Make switchlists that *really look* like they've been printed on a dot-matrix printer.

Or maybe you'll just want to do something crazy, and design a switchlist for the Thomas the Tank Engine crowd. I have had a lot of four year old operators, now that I think of it.

Documentation on creating your own switch list is available on the SwitchList open source page. More documentation's probably needed, so make sure to ask questions over on the SwitchList mailing list so I know what needs improving.

And don't forget to share your final results! I'm looking forward to seeing what y'all can do!

Packing Houses in Hayward

Let's go far north of San Jose almost thirty miles for our next story…

I'd heard family stories that my grandmother worked for a while for Earl Warren. It turns out I'd gotten the story wrong, but the story reminded my mom to pull out a couple old letters describing where Grandma did work.

My grandmother actually worked for a fresh vegetable packer called "Farm Products Sales Company" in Hayward as a bookkeeper from the mid-twenties through 1937, leaving to help my grandfather with the family cleaning business. Farm Product Sales was run by Frank J. Cunha, and started out on C Street and Castro St. in Hayward, but moved to a new 300x50 foot warehouse (8 cars long!) at B Street and Soto (now Montgomery) Street next to the old Western Pacific Depot and the current Hayward BART station. Frank Cunha must have done quite well; he was a town trustee and mayor from 1928 to 1936, and was cited as a large local landowner in an article on the Portuguese landowners in the April 21, 1974 issue of the Hayward Daily Review. Cunha must have been a good employer; my grandmother's best friend and sister also worked in the office at times.

Farm Products Sales used the "King Tut Farms" brand, as seen in this fruit label from one of the collector label sales sites.

In 1935, FPS was packing fresh peas and tomatoes from packing houses in Hayward, Milpitas, and Oceano. They'd also opened a branch back in 1929 in the Imperial Valley to market produce "for eight large Imperial Valley growers on a 2000 acre tract", irrigated with the new Boulder Dam's water. That was going to lead to mixed fruit and vegetables, grapefruit, and early lettuce. A comment from Mr. Cunha in the Hayward Review in the 1920's highlighted how Southern California often made more on produce because they could ship the first crops of the year to eager shoppers back east, and in a bad year Northern California would get the extra business; I'd guess the Imperial Valley deal was an attempt to get more of those lucrative early season sales.

Farm Product Sales and Frank Cunha other bit of immortality comes in an article on Migratory Labor in the California Market Pea Crop, an article from 1938. That article highlights how peas were a huge business in California in the 1930's, but a troublesome one because of the huge amount of fieldhands needed to harvest the crop during the very short window in the spring. That created all sorts of problems. Some years there wouldn't be enough farmworkers; other years, the neighbors would complain when the farmworkers showed up and hung around town waiting for the crop. Then there were the times when the farmworkers didn't like the pay being offered. Pea field strikes in April 1933 were referred to as the "War of 1933" in the article, and cite anger from local officials like Cunha, and how a local judge was denying county aid to any able-bodied relief workers who wasn't willing to work on the pea harvest.

My grandmother saved a couple of interesting documents from her time at Farm Products Sales. This first page shows the routing instructions for cars being delivered around the U.S., and includes notes citing the different produce brokers and stores FPS sold to. (Note that all the routing starts at WP because the warehouse was at WP.)

The second document is the balance sheet for Farm Products Sales in 1935. Immediately obvious is that the company was doing good at sales - $380,000 for the year in just peas and tomatoes. It's also interesting to see where the costs were - pea picking costs were much larger than tomatoes (but without sales ratios, we don't know if they sold twice as many peas as tomatoes, or if peas were just more expensive to pick.) Brokerage fees were surprisingly low, but car icing ($11,777) sticks out as a huge expense. There's also no line item for transportation costs, making me wonder if the buyers were expected to pay for shipping. It seems odd that car icing would appear as a cost for the business, but not freight for their product.

I'm also curious about the ranch - whether Cunha was primarily selling produce from his own ranch, or if the ranch was just a small part of the Farm Products Sales business.

Now, these numbers can help us guess at the size of the rail traffic leaving the Farm Products Sales packing house. The 1935 production was $381,000, and let's guess (for argument's sake) that's half tomatoes and half peas. That's $190,000 of pea sales and tomato sales. Newspapers from 1933 show that peas were selling for 2c a pound, and tomatoes for $1 a crate. At those figures, Farm Products Sales would have sold around 9 million pounds of peas - enough for 190 cars, and (at 25 pounds per crate), about 4.5 million pounds of potatoes. That would be about 3-6 cars a day during the a two month season, perhaps divided between Hayward, Milpitas, and Oceano. I'd go check the Sanborn maps to see if there were any interesting tidbits on Cunha in any of those places, but I'll need to get my library card renewed first.

Those numbers suggest that having a few cars a day leaving Farm Product Sales's warehouse wouldn't be out of line (and in fact they were shipping 3 cars a day of corn at the end of the season in the 1920's.) The sorts of traffic density I have on my layout don't seem too unprototypical...

If anyone's got observations on the balance sheet, I'd be interested in hearing them.

Campbell: Current Progress

The new track in Campbell is in. I'm not feeling very definite about it, though - the new Shinohara switches I got for the new trackwork seem to stick a bit and hold their position til the Tortoise switch machine's almost at its end position. That's going to be a likely source of shorts when I finally power the frogs.

I also had a bunch of problems because both locations of new track are on top of scenery (sculptamold over styrafoam), not over real benchwork. The existing ground wasn't level, so I scraped, carved, and eventually yanked out bits of the scenery to make sure I had a smooth base for the track. Both sidings (like all of Campbell) are on a bit of a slope and the freight cars want to roll away. While some brightly-colored block erasers can stand in for brakes on the freight cars, I suspect I need to play around with the height of the layout to cut the slope on the Campbell side.

But the track's in, and it looks like it'll make Campbell a more interesting place to switch. The team track will allow more regular freight cars to be dropped in Campbell, and the extra two or three spots at the Hyde Cannery and Sunsweet packing plant ought to make the Campbell cannery job a lot busier, especially when some cars need to be left behind. The water tank is now getting squeezed out of the scene; I'd intended for the team track to be a little further away from the cannery, but ran out of flex track and positioned the team track switch so I'd waste less track. I'll also need a railroad tool shed between the team track and the station.

Still to be done on this scene: beyond just finishing the canneries, there's lots of interesting detail on the station side. The Campbell station, like San Jose's Market Street station, had a small garden with palm trees and grass between the station and Campbell Ave. Railroad Ave. should be between the station and edge of the layout; the SP valuation map shows the SP's property only extended fifty feet from the tracks. The team track should be set in pavement. If I'm really clever, I'll embed the rails from the Peninsular Railway, the Santa Clara Valley interurban, into the pavement. The interurban stopped running in the early 1930's, but signs of its existence ought to be visible.

Next bit of work: the Sunsweet dried fruit packing house, which is the largest (3 story) building next to the tracks in the photo.

Movie Night!

Because I'm starting to build the Sunsweet packing house in Campbell, it seems very appropriate to show the movie "A Fortune in Two Trunks", Sunsweet's documentary from 1951 about the origin of prunes in California as well as a detailed explanation of how prunes are processed.



If you, like I, always wondered about the oil tank and boiler near each packing house, you'll learn here how hot water and steam are used several times on the dried prunes for cleaning, re-hydrating, and easing packaging. If you're at all interested in the packing industries, watch the whole thing!