Advice please about US passenger depots.

chrispearce

New member
Dear Members,

I am a little baffled about passenger depots on some US lines. These tend to be the more rural ones. Where a railroad is double tracked there often seems to be a platform on one line only. White Suplhur Springs WV is a good example which would work well for westbound trains (ie. for Cinncinati) but not so great for eastbound trains. Looking at Google Maps shows that eastbound trains could easily crossover to use the platform then cross back onto the correct line. Is this what happened? Surely this would block the mainlne for a while? Or do you get to alight onto the trackside? Surely not.

As to Clifton Forge I can't imagine what happens there as the mainlines through the station end up in some sort of industry filled with coal hoppers.

If you are able to shed any light on this I would be most grateful.

Incidently,I am building Hinton WV to Clifton Forge VA to as near-scale as I can. I want to let Auran's H8 2-6-6-6s let rip on the correct bit of line. Got just beyond White Sulphur Springs today and so I am a stone's-throw from the summit. Funny thing is the distance from Hinton to the summit is pretty long and starts from 420m elevation and the Alleghany summit is 633m so 0.5-0.6% gradients are fine. However, the descent to Clifton Forge is a drop to 340m in a very short distance. I guess that's where those 1.43% grades I read about will come in handy!:eek:
 
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These rural stations (depots) as you described them were mostly to move workers up to the industries such as the coal mines. This is why the mainline terminates at a siding that's loaded with coal hoppers. Yes, the platforms are usually on one side, but these are all low-level platforms anyway in these locations, and the lines are bidirectional. On the much busier commuter lines, such as MTA in Connecticut and New York, Boston's "T" commuter lines, etc., the lines are much more of what you are accustomed to. What you will see here are high platforms, platforms on both sides of the ROW, and even a fence in between the tracks to prevent passengers from crossing over.

These are on my own commuter line.
Haverhill:

https://binged.it/2ogTiq5

Bradford (across the bridge)

https://binged.it/2ogXgid

Note the old ca. 1850s station on the right with the newer platforms along the mainline where the boxcars are parked.

The bridge with no tracks once had a line that ran to Newburyport, and has been gone in parts since the mid-1940s with the remaining Bradford end coming up in 1990.

Before the switch to high platforms to comply with ADA (American Disabilities Act) requirements, the old station on the north side of the tracks was used, or at least the platforms were since the building became a laundromat. Since our lines are mostly bidirectional, the commuter trains would crossover and stop in front of the station at that point regardless of what direction the train was traveling. On the busier Lowell mainline farther south, east by timetable, the line runs in a typical unidirectional CTC-dispatched fashion with trains running on their proper track but with crossovers in various locations. When we approach Boston's suburbs of Winchester, Medford, and Somerville, they are all high platforms with fencing between the tracks, and always were right from the beginning as far as I can remember.

https://binged.it/2nzkDXk

So in the end, tucking a little station with low level platforms next to a double-track mainline is not unusual over here.

Your route sounds interesting. The grades are steep in the Appalachian Mountain range. Outside of the mainlines, the branches served the purpose of pulling coal out of the mountains. The grades were steep but the trains were empty going up and full going down.

If you are interested in Appalachian Mountain Railroading, take a look at the Saluda Grade.

https://youtu.be/9IABM8UPplY

Here's an old training video by the Norfolk Southern
 
Thank you gentlemen! Those were very helpful. Just wanted to make sure I was getting my tracks and operations right. I hope to put some screenshots on here for critique and suggestions. I find that the internet offers some good info but not as many pics as would be needed to make a convincing model so some intelligent estimates are called for and, sometimes, downright invention! I do appreciate your advice and will press on to Clifton Forge. I have already started to seccumb to mission creep along the Greenbrier Branch!
 
Thank you gentlemen! Those were very helpful. Just wanted to make sure I was getting my tracks and operations right. I hope to put some screenshots on here for critique and suggestions. I find that the internet offers some good info but not as many pics as would be needed to make a convincing model so some intelligent estimates are called for and, sometimes, downright invention! I do appreciate your advice and will press on to Clifton Forge. I have already started to seccumb to mission creep along the Greenbrier Branch!

Good luck with your project and I look forward to seeing the pictures when post them. Remember to enjoy the project and take your time. There's nothing like rushing in with all that enthusiasm and end up quitting because you end up burned out. I've done that on many projects not only in Trainz.

One of the more useful websites I have found is http://maps.google.com and the application Google Earth. These have nice crisp overhead shots which really show the details where things are.

For historic maps and aerial photos, I recommend www.historicaerials.com Historic Aerials has photos as well as topographic maps, which you can switch between on the fly.

And for more modern maps, check out this here:

https://geonames.usgs.gov/index.html

Click on Domestic Names.

Click on Search

Put in the place in the Feature, click on the state, then Query.

This will get you to where you want to be...

Click on the linked name.

Stuff will come up...

On the right in the box, click on the Acme Viewer. :)

Here you'll have topographic maps, satellite, and a regular street map. :D
 
Presumably... where a station only had one passenger platform, the schedule would not normally have two passenger trains crossing at that location. It would also be up to the dispatcher to ensure "on the day" that trains are regulated accordingly to prevent a "meet" at the station.

I recall finding this in the SIAM Traffic Dispatcher MoPac game featuring the lines from St Louis to Kansas City. At Jefferson City only one track can be used by Amtrak so you need to watch how far you clear the respective Eastbound and westbound if both look to be arriving Jeff at the same time.
 
Presumably... where a station only had one passenger platform, the schedule would not normally have two passenger trains crossing at that location. It would also be up to the dispatcher to ensure "on the day" that trains are regulated accordingly to prevent a "meet" at the station.

I recall finding this in the SIAM Traffic Dispatcher MoPac game featuring the lines from St Louis to Kansas City. At Jefferson City only one track can be used by Amtrak so you need to watch how far you clear the respective Eastbound and westbound if both look to be arriving Jeff at the same time.

The crossing over on mainlines is something that can and will impede the passenger train speed. According to a video I saw on railroad operations, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) recommends that passenger railroads use two platforms instead of crossing over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFkHHzbsPBw&index=4&list=PLPNfsTi6qKt82XB8AcxrSnz4v81oydWL9

I would think that if the service is very infrequent then it probably doesn't matter, but on a busy rail line, the act of crossing over especially across multiple tracks costs time. That too is explained in the video as well.
 
By "crossing" John, I actually meant "meets" as in two opposing trains passing each other at a crossing loop, aka siding on a single track route. If the station (depot) only has one physical platform then the dispatcher needs to ensure the meets take place elsewhere.
 
By "crossing" John, I actually meant "meets" as in two opposing trains passing each other at a crossing loop, aka siding on a single track route. If the station (depot) only has one physical platform then the dispatcher needs to ensure the meets take place elsewhere.

Okay... Same terminology, but different meaning. :)

The information on number of tracks and spacing of passing sidings, what you call loops is pretty interesting too, and ties in to this as well.
 
I guess on some more remote lines there was only one passenger train every other day, so fairly simple to ensure the infrastructure at stations wasn't overwhelmed!
 
I guess on some more remote lines there was only one passenger train every other day, so fairly simple to ensure the infrastructure at stations wasn't overwhelmed!

Yup like my commuter line until the 1980s when they increased the service again. At one point we had two trains a day - one in each direction. This was a double-track line from Portland Maine to Boston with commuter service cut back to my hometown of Haverhill in the early 1970s. The old Budd Liners (Budd RDC DMUs) would run up, crossover to the station, then head back. Then the track was single-tracked for a good amount of its length, but is being put back in again now to support the Down Easter and increased traffic.
 
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