Got to thinking just how great those steam switchers are (were?) cute without those leading and trailing trucks, now comes the big question, does anyone out there in choo-choo- land actually have a layout of a yard that only has switchers as locomotives and nothing else on or around the layout? This would make a very interesting scene, anyone out there doing this?
I’m modeling a PRR branch line and the only motive power will be an SW7 and a DS-4-4-1000.
KL
Not exactly a yard - more like an entire railroad.
The Tomikawa Tani Tetsudo steamed into the ‘60’s with a motley collection of 0-4-0T and 0-6-0T locos (and one 0-8-0T,) then cobbled up a 2-6-6-2T out of other folks’ used parts. The other self-propelled equipment on the property - one 4-wheel rail bus (acquired used from the JNR) and a four wheel diesel-mechanical that mostly just stands there looking stupid (it can barely move itself on level track.)
The TTT is a coal-originating short line (2 collieries account for 95+% of the freight car movements on the line) that climbs up a steep mountain gorge to reach the coal seams close to the top of the drainage. Trains are short (a ten car coal train requires doubleheading unless the mallet handles it) and the grades are steep - 4%. If the coal company didn’t own the railroad it would dry up and blow away. Needless to say, the latest and greatest in locomotives were just about at the bottom of the priority list, even if they could have handled the streetcorner curves.
At the downhill end, the TTT interchanges with the real world (ie. the Japan National Railways) at a station that sees mainline steam, diesel and heavy electric action, intense passenger activity (mostly DMU and EMU trains, plus some locomotive hauled) and a small amount of freight switching aside from the coal interchange. Not a small number of freight trains, just not much switching. Most of the through freights stop just long enough to change engines (steam to catenary motors or vice versa.)
All of this operates to schedule - all 24 hours of all 30 days of September, 1964. The TTT is semi-freelance (having been moved several hundred kilometers from the area that inspired it) but the JNR is as close as my available rolling stock will allow me to come to the prototype in the Kiso Valley of Central Japan. Only the station names have been changed to prootect the guilty.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan
Well, this may not count, but, on my branchline which exclusively serves a coal mine, they use an 0-6-0 switcher, or an SW1. They can run an F7, but it would require the use of an idler car when hauling the loaded train over the ancient wooden covered bridge, which has a strict limit of 250 tons on it at any one time. Three 34’, 55 ton, twin bay hoppers fit the bridge almost perfectly, so as one comes off, the next one is going on, thus keeping the load at about 210 tons as they go across (assuming 55 tons of cargo weight, plus an empty weight ot 25 tons, totaling 70 tons each). They can also use (lease) either a 44 tonner or a 70 tonner when their yard mule is in the shop, or can run one of the “Russian” 2-10-0 Decapods from an adjoining RR (tipping the scales at 105+/- tons for the loco, and some 65+/- tons for the tender (with 9 tons of coal and 8,000 gallons of water)). Actually, it probably would require an idler, too. They have also been known to use some of Southern Railway’s RS3’s from time to time.
Brad
Well, I’ve got 46 switchers in my fleet, including one steamer (a Bachmann Spectrum 0-6-0 tank engine). I’m a switcher fanatic, especially for first generation diesel end cab switchers. I have no yard on my layout, so each locomotive or set of locomotives has to take turns running around the idiot loop.