My interest is about the Great Northern as if the merger took place,but kept the GN name,officials,and practices with some changes in operations(i.e.:train symbols,routing,schedules,and power assignments),equipment purchases,physical makeup of the system based on what BN actually did during it’s first decade of existance.With the exceptions of membership in Amtrak and locomotives re-assigned to other maintenance bases and specific locomotive types assigned to specific trains.
To that end I am not inviting a discussion on the pros or cons of such an action,but more of how would such a system be set up.Based on the schedules and equipment of the predecessors as of March 1,1970,changes made as of March 3,1970(the date BN became a reality operationally),and subsiquent(sp?)changes of operations in November 1970,June 1971,and November 1971.I would like to design a system map and be able to include train symbols and schedules,location of trains as of 12:01am,March 1 showing power and caboose assigned to trains,locomotives in shops or ready for scheduled train departures.I would also like to be able to make maps for hourly and daily changes as time moved forward after the merger.
I have worked out a locomotive roster based on the BN renumbering scheme with changes made for some units based on model(NW2’s in the 100 series,SW7/9/1200’s in the 300 series,SW1500’s in the 500 series) and predecessor ownership(GN,NP,CBQ,SPS,and subsidiaries C&S,FW&D,etc included),a new Big Sky Blue paint scheme losely based on the BN whiteface scheme of the mid-80’s(?),new locomotive purchases(SW1500’s instead of SW1000’s,more F45’s and fewer SD45’s so that power sets of F45/SD45/SD45 are more the rule,fewer GE’s ordered after 1972,more SD40-2’s including SD40-2B’s and more GP38-2’s).
I am working on this as a computer scenario using MS Works spreadsheet with the roster and a station list,but would like to convert this to a map which would be easie
).Locomotive maintenance days I worked out by starting a spreadsheet with locomotive numbers 1 to 9999 in one column followed by former owner,number,and maintenance day,which is a randum number between 1 and 28(day of the month,limited by February’s 28 days,leap year not included).Train locations as of 12:01am for a given day figured by the times on the schedules and miles and use an average speed for each train.