How do RR interchanges work? (Specifically w PRR)

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
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Howdy,

I’m doing background research for my new HO layout. I have a fairly large basement area that I can use most of (around the walls mostly, but may negotiate one or two penninsulas)-- area approx 40’x20’ (but not exactly rectangular in shape, more like a bow-tie). My desire is for a single level layout, but I would love to have some long runs so in the end may opt for a two-level layout to permit that. The era I would like to model is 1958-1962-ish. May fudge that date a bit as I would like to run both pre and post transition era equipment of that approx vintage, especially PRR, N&W, B&O, C&O, WM, VGN and SRR along with the minor roads that would have been merged/absorbed at around that time.

My thought is that I would either model a hypothetical short-line / branch-line owned by one or more of these roads and interchanging with the others, or else a minor division-- possibly mythical-- of one of these roads. My goal is to primarily operate home-road (ie. the short-line) and PRR equipment. But I would also like, if possible, to plausibly squeeze in some of these other roads that I like.

My interests are in coal / ore hauling, general freight, and passenger service. I would like to model at least a portion of an electrified line so I can run GG1’s, E33/44’s, and other typical electrics. I want to run mostly diesels and electrics but still have the opportunity for a little steam.

For example, I have been mulling over the Columbia to Fort Deposit branch, as this satisfies some of my goals but not all of them.

What I’d like to know is this:

Does anyone know of any prototypical locations / routes (even if dates are slightly fudged) that would permit these various goals? Did the PRR ever run equipment from other railroads?
Did the PRR ever interchange with N&W, WM, B&O, C&O, NYC and others-- how, when, why, under what circumstances, etc-- did they just swap cars or whole trains? What if

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PRR interchanged with all the roads you mentioned. In the era you mention (1958-1962), unit trains had just begun to appear and few of them were interchanged between Class I railroads. Instead, each car was moving on an individual waybill. Railroads could and did build entire trains specifically to interchange to another railroad, or, the interchange might consist of terminal yards separated by a few feet or a few miles in the same city, and interchange cuts were hauled by switch engines from one railroad’s yard to another railroad’s yard. It really depends upon the size of the interchange and the nature of the traffic. Locomotives in this era were mostly captive to their home road; while there were a few pooling arrangements they were restricted to certain lanes and certain trains – the widespread power pooling of today was not seen in this era.

All that said, interchange between PRR, B&O, and NYC was fairly limited as all three were trunk line roads either serving the same territory or serving competing customers, i.e., a plumbing fixture company served solely by the B&O and selling into the west-of-Chicago market was competing with other plumbing-fixture companies served solely by other railroads and selling into the same markets. The trunk lines would not provide through rates that were impartial to customers located on another trunk line if it would harm or limit the market share of their own customer.

Trunk line railroads did not as a rule participate in reciprocal switching; the PRR was notorious for not participating in reciprocal switching. Reciprocal switching is the practice of making all customers in a given city open to all of the railroads on a through rate. For example, if a lumberyard in Denver located on the Rio Grande orders a carload of lumber that originates on UP, and is delivered to Denver by UP, the Rio Grande takes the car at interchange and switches it to the customer and bills UP a per-car fee; the cus

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to answer 1 specific part of your question…the Pennsy’s route into Detroit from Alexis OH to Charleton MI was over the C&O(PM) …after crossing the DT&I in Charleton with a tower and with 3 different signal types for each road the Pennsy’s own rails veared off to Detroit with its own yard in Lincoln Park MI …from there it ran parallel with the Wabash(N&W) into downtown to i believe Brush St. Station…this line has become fairly active since the Conrail split as its now Shared Assests Area…Charleton itself was pretty much a junction town…i dont think much interchange happened as its only about 20 miles out of Detroit for all lines…but thats not to say it couldnt be modeled in…with whatever choice of era’s you could have a Pennsy\PC\Conrail main crossing and interchanging with the DT&I\GT\CN and PM\C&O\Chessie\CSX and termitnating with the Wabash\N&W\NS…20’s thru late 60’s all these lines would have been fairly busy…granted the nature of that buisness is what killed the passenger buisness over all the lines the WW2 years would be realy busy…hard to get online coal but with some thought to off line stagging a lot of coal could be online with numerous power plants and steel mills in the Detroit area

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I am not 100% certain but I don’t think the E44’s were built in the 1958-1962 era and the E33’s were on the Virginian and didn’t operate on the PRR. “Typical” electrics would have been GG1’s and P5’s.

Steam would have been gone on the PRR, especially any territory near an electrified route. About the only place they were running steam was in Northern PA and on the PRSL (in both cases using PRR and RDG engines).

If you move the era ahead to catch the E44’s (you would have to go all the way to PC/CR to get the E33’s) you will definitely remove any steam. If you move it back you will definitely loose the E44’s and some diesels. So either pick your poison and go one way or the other, or accept you will be running an anachronism someplace.

[quote]
Does anyone know of any prototypical locations / routes (even if dates are slightly fudged) that would permit the

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Welcome to the problems of modeling the PRR. Since you want to run motors (PRR talk for GG1s and others) you are limited to three potential routes: New York to Philadelphia, Philly to DC or philly to Harrisburg. Personally I would rule out the trip across New Jersey. There are three major interchanges that can be considered further south. IN Philly the PRR interchanged with the Reading Belmont branch at Zoo junction. Don;t even think of modeling Zoo junction as a word of advice. Five miles east of there the PRR interchanged with the Pennsylvania Reading seashore lines. I think there was an interchange with the Reading/CNJ around Trenton New Jersey. The big advantage of modeling east of Zoo Tower is that both the trains to DC and the trains to the west (chicago, St. Louis) can be modeled. I settled on the three miles of the main line from North Philadelphia station to Fairhill Yard to the east. 87 industries on the main line, two branchs one of which had the Sears regional distribution center and the Naval Supply depot and the other with Philco and several publishers shipping a ton of books and magazines. All my interchanges will be off the railroad as will most of the shipping destinations. the last area you could consider would be the PRR intrechange with the RF&P at Potomic yrad south of Washington. Major yard allowing some additional RF&P engies also. Suggest you go toKeystone Crossings web site and download some of the paper there. One item lists every industry on the railroad. Also join Prr-talk while there. There are people who know just about everything about the PRR that could help you zero in on two or three areas quickly for consideration.

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As far as iron ore traffic in the east, during that time “all rail” trains would be rarely if ever seen. Iron ore came by ore boat from Minnesota, Wisconsin or upper Michigan to eastern Great Lakes ports on Lake Erie. The ore was then taken by train to the steel mills of Ohio and Pennsylvania. I’m not aware of any operation where loaded ore cars would be interchanged per se, generally it was a large operation done by a railroad like the Pennsy or B&LE, taking the ore directly from the ore boat to the steel mills. (Of course the mills would usually have their own switchers to more the ore around within the plant.)

You could have a doubletrack mainline of the Pennsy as part of your layout, say an around the walls design. An occassional ore train could run on the mainline. There could be an interchange yard with your shortline railroad, and then you could have a single track line for your shortline branching off to serve one or two smaller towns and their businesses.

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This question would be better asked over in the Layouts forum. Only you can define “fun” for yourself. Generally I would say if you enjoy watching trains run, the point to point passing through a scene isn’t going to hack it. Even with a large layout that happens all too quickly. I would think that multiple isolated scenes on a large loop might be better. That way you could set the train to running and really watch if for a while before taking into a yard for storage or break up.

Actually that isn’t very many freight cars for a 20x40 layout. Our club layout is only 28x24 and our main yard takes 200 cars all by itself. Add a zero on the ends of those numbers and you’ll have something amassed!

Not necessarily. I think the idea of “the” layout might be an issue. I don’t see any comments about what layout you have now or what prior attempts you have made. If you are planning on jumping straight to a really well designed 40x20 layout from nothing I think you are decieving yourself. Have you gone on tours to see what other people have done, have to visited and operated many other

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That is very useful information about the reciprocal-switching and per-diem charges. I didn’t know that and will definitely keep that in mind-- particularly that item about working hard to get cars to the exchange by midnight.

I knew that railroads were fiercely territorial with respect to their own business but I didn’t know they were that powerful and instrumental in assisting other businesses protect their markets as well. That’s an interesting point to consider. I love learning about the history of the railroads-- so much of what we see and take for granted in this country, even today, can often be directly traced back to the early formation and practices of the railroads. Their power and influence spread out in all directions and in areas far beyond the obvious.

I know that the B&O had their own line to Port Deposit. It ran along beside the PRR for much of the way. The NYC does not appear to have its own lines to Port Deposit. Does anybody know if NYC ran over some other tracks to get there-- or if indeed they ever did go there?

From what you were saying about interchange though-- if I understand you correctly, you’re saying that the NYC would never get the opportunity to bid since both the PRR and B&O had their own routes and any suppliers serving that market would inevitably enjoy better rates along one of those two incumbants…?

This morning I’ve been back at the books, so to speak, renewing my search for the “perfect location”-- it looks like Columbus OH to Pittsburgh PA was served by all of the railroads I’m interested in. Does anybody know about that route?

While I might model a coal mining operation just for the operational variety, I don’t really plan to have model a complete end-to-end operation in the sense that all my originators will ship to somewhere specific within the confines of the “basement”.

Pittsburgh looks like a good logical answer to my question also-- plus

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In the end I’m willing to accept anachronisms and do some freelancing-- but before I do I’d like to research as much as possible the historical locations and situations to see if there’s already a ready-made solution.

I know the Virginian ran E33’s which the N&W inherited when they merged, and PRR ran E44’s, which according to the photo captions, date back to at least 1962-- but of course that information could just be wrong. Here’s an example: http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_prr4436.jpg (from this site: http://www.northeast.railfan.net/electric9.html) They also have examples in 1965 and later. Wikipedia says they were originally built by GE for the PRR between 1960 through 1963 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRR_E44). From the photos I’ve seen the E33 and E44 look pretty similar-- minor difference-- diamond pantograph vs single-arm pantograph, etc. This photograph claims to be an E44 along the Columbia to Port Deposit line, though I note that the loco is liveried for Conrail: http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=164496&nseq=14. My supposition was that CR likely ran the same locos that its predecessors did and in pretty much the same locations, and its predecessors likely did the same as well…

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Wow-- that’s a lot of great info! Thanks. I do like the RF&P but don’t know a lot about the road (even though I was born in Richmond and have lived in the Northern VA area for a large part of my adult life :slight_smile: Unfortunately though for me, most of those roads were gone by the time I was old enough to understand what I was looking at and be interested-- before then, I just liked “looking at the trains” with my uncle and granddad, who used to give me a quarter every time I spotted a “State of Maine” boxcar. :slight_smile: My uncle was a big PRR fan-- so I grew up heavily influenced by the PRR even though I never really saw very much of it. I did get to ride the Metroliner to NYC once though-- but that was after it was PC and no longer PRR. But it was still fun. And I remember having fun as a teenager photographing the GG1’s as they rolled past the school where my grandmother was a librarian in Wilmington. I probably saw E44’s too in Newark DE but don’t have much of a memory of those-- I know and remember the catenary lines, but don’t recall much of what ran underneath it there.

Just for my own edification, what’s wrong with “Zoo Junction” ?

I really like the sound of the area you’re describing though-- I will definitely have to look into that as a possible route / location. And thanks for the Keystone-Crossings tip too.

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That’s good info about the ore-- didn’t know that.

Your suggestion of having the PRR in the background and short-line as main focus is a good one, and one I’ve been considering-- probably the way to go in fact. And if I choose the location right, I can probably squeeze in sightings of B&O, NYC and/or N&W traffic as well (though not on the same lines-- tangential or interconnects maybe). I started looking at Columbus and Pittsburgh this morning and was pleasantly pleased to discover that all the roads I’m interested in had a presence in those locations. So they’re now in the running as possible locations / scenarios. My thought is that in such a scenario the PRR would run through-trains through the layout (from outside the basement in one direction, through the basement, and out the other end to “somewhere else”) while the short-line would own some motive power and lease the rest from its parent (PRR). So that it would be very common to see PRR power and equipment throughout all areas of the layout.

The layout will definitely be an around the wall design. I had originally thought it would only be a single level, but after a lot of thought about it today and talking to people, it seems increasingly desirable to go two-level instead. Impedes the view a bit but probably improves the operation considerably.

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The NYC never ran within 250 miles of Port Deposit. That was a secondary line on the PRR and wasn’t on a B&O main route.

If you go to Pittsburgh there was no electrification.

A short line is a small independent railroad.

A branch is a secondary route of a railroad.

A subsidiary is a railroad that is owned by another railroad.

Short lines and subsidiaries were considered separate railroads. If they remained susidiaries then there was a reason to keep an arms length away from the parent company and so they were operated as separate companies. Generally the parent company didn’t have operating rights over the entire subsidiary, they would have to negoiate the rights just like any other railroad. But why would you? The subsidiary would have to lease or otherwise pay for any engines of the parent company they use just like any other railroad. How much they shared power varied wildly. Generally the earlier you go the less sharing of power there is.

Also the railroads don’t “bid” on business. Not pre 1980’s. Its all tariff. An industry deals with a coal company to buy coal (NOT from a railroad). The rates are published rates, so there is no bidding and no negotiation. The consignee selects a source and then the shipper, the consignee (or the origin road) selects the route. Part of that selection decision is the rate. But there is no bididng.

Dave H.

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I don’t have a lot of experience in designing / building layouts, that’s very true. However I do have some-- and some knowing of what I don’t want, which is probably equally important.

When I was a kid, my uncle gave me one of his old layouts-- originally it had been a layout designed for having fun with “switching problems” and modelling passenger operations. Thats what my uncle enjoys. When he gave it to me, he and my dad modified it so it became an “out-and-back” style layout instead of an arrival/departure yard with passenger terminal/storage yard (originally it had been a U-shape with the two yards one on each side).

While I had a load of fun playing with it-- at the time I didn’t really understand the concept of switching and operations-- it was just fun to put cars in the yard and pick them up and run them around the track. Now, looking back at it in my memory, I have a much better understanding of what it was, and what it originally was, and the point of it. As a kid I couldn’t understand why anybody would want to waste their time coupling and uncoupling cars instead of watching them go round the track :slight_smile:

A few years ago I found myself in a nice spot and started building “my layout”-- you know, “the one”-- my (own) company had leased the building which had lots of spare room and so I appropriated one to build in. I did a fabulous job (if I do say so myself :slight_smile: in building the framework. All L-girder, risers and spline construction. You could jump up and down on the thing and it wouldn’t budge an inch-- and no problems over the next year of railroad construction either. I got some track laid-- the beginnings of a yard and some main line-- but as my company grew it needed the room so in the end I had to reluctantly give the space back up and put the ideas on the shelf again. (sigh) Since then I haven’t had the space to do what I want until recently. My wife and I bought a new house with lots of

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So what you’re essentially saying-- along with everyone else-- is that unless I pick some very very specific places (ie. Pittsburgh for example) that I’m otherwise just going to have to pretty much pick a road and go with it, or else accept some serious anachronisms…

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As far as iron ore traffic in the east, during that time “all rail” trains would be rarely if ever seen.

That is just not true. The US Steel Fairless works near Trenton new Jersey received Venezuelen iorn ore through about 1960 and shipped it to the Pittesburgh area mills in B&LE ore cars. Now the chances of it being on the corridor and not the Trenton cut off may be slim but surely there were days when maintenace or wrecks caused it to run the mainline. In addition ore was later recived at Greenwich in South Philly and shipped west primarily in empty hoppers that had offloaded coal for export. Often Baldwin centipedes were the helpers out to Paoli.

The reason you don’t model Zoo is the complexity. It was the most complex tower on the PRR with over four hundred interlockings. It was so complex in some cases the operators never saw the train they were routing with the duckunders and flyovers. It was so complex that it was the very last tower Amtrak controlled remotely and they had to wait for many of the routes to be abandoned before they could do it. Picture six tracks from the north, south and west as well as the freight highline and commuter tracks out of 30th Street Station in all directions as well as light moves and you have constant trains in all directions 24/7. It would take a school gymnasium to even approximate the complexity and if the PRR trained towermen for two years before letting them on their own (with up to ten others) there is no way one person can do it on a model railroad.

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That sounds exciting. I’ll have to look up pictures of that.

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http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=18&X=2414&Y=22122&W=3&qs=|philadelphia|pa|

Note the Philadelphia Zoo is on the right/east side of the interlocking, hence the tower name.

Dave H.

Who used to ride the Paoli Local through Zoo

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If you don’t mind employing a bit of modeler’s license, you could say that in your world, PRR electrified all the way over the mountains to Pittsburgh. Then you could have all the interchanges you want plus some running under wire.

Before you plan to fill your basement, you need to narrow down and focus in on what you like / don’t like. Why not build some temporary 4x8 tabletops to check how you like running round and round, industrial switching, division point operations, scenery, &c. This will show you what to avoid putting too much of into your final plans, and what to emphasize.

If you want to have an end-to-end interchange (as Nickle Plate and Lackawanna RRs did outside of Buffalo), one road brings the train onto the interchange track, then removes its engine and caboose. The other road attaches its locomotive and caboose (maybe not in that order), checks that all the parts are in working order, and takes off. This is for a train full of stuff that is going Chicago - New York City. You could do something similar with PRR at Chicago, St Louis, or Cincinnati. Or Norfolk VA if you want to put in a ferry.

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Designing a layout.

So far, you have decided what you want to model, to a point. You still need to nail a few specific things down, but you have a concept. That is a start. The next thing that I do is nail down the space and what parts of it I can use, beg, borrow, or steal. You mentioned a 35 by 45 foot space. If you are restricted to the walls, so be it. However, if you can get the whole space except for the areas of furnace, hot water heater, and other utilities, that is a different matter.

You start with a drawing made to some scale of your choice, say 3/4 inches to the foot, which is a fairly common drawing scale for the model mags. Detail out the room with all of the utilities and places that you can not use. What you have left should be what you can use. Also, locate any points of access that will be needed to service the utilities. Use this as your master space plan and don’t draw on it. Make as many copies that you need for drawing and doodling.

The next step is to layout your bench work plan, or top view on your room plan. I usually make bench work no wider than 24 inches so I can have easy access without stretching, except in the corners. Since you are modeling a fairly large RR and you probably want the most mainline run you can get, several peninsulas projecting out into the room would both provide more running room, but would also hide other areas of the layout. If you have the height, you could also think about a second level. In any case, you should have a backdrop. Make the top of the backdrop as high as you are tall, if going with only one level. That way you can’t see over it. The peninsula sections may be 48 inches wide with a backdrop divider running in the center of it to divide it into two 24 inch wide sections. Make whatever allowances you have to for entering into the room, and access to all required utility areas. Your backdrop will hide them. You will have to get creative with how the access opening work. Do you have to get to them every day, once a month,

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I chose to model the Western Maryland through Hagerstown for many of the same reasons you state. During my era, 1968-72, Hagerstown was served by 5 different railroads. The WM, PRR, B&O and N&W all handed traffic to each other, and the Reading came in from the east by way of the WM interchange at Shippensburg.

Now, since your focus is the PRR, you might be a little disappointed, because the Hagerstown line (The Cumberland Valley) was probably the lightest density line of the 5, save for the B&O’s branch. But the WM and Reading participated in the “Alphabet Route” which competed with the trunk lines by coordinating through service between New York and Chicago via several smaller regional carriers, so run-throughs of equipment was happening there as early as the 1930’s.

Also, the B&O used its WM connection at Cherry Run to run through trains to the Reading via the Central States Dispatch for traffic to New England and New York via Allentown. This bypassed the congested routes through Baltimore and Philadelphia to speed things along.

So on any given day in Hagerstown, you could see equipment from all five railroads running transfers to each other, or just laying over for the next train to take back to their home rails.

Lee