As I was reading through my last post after publishing it, I realized that some may get the impression that I was going to run the railroad with about 70 railcars and a whole lot of engines. And cabooses.
The home road lettered cars that I talked about, the coal hoppers and boxcars, would be in addition to the other cars that I have lettered for other railroads. These would be the other railroads that operate in the upper Midwest and northwest that would interchange with the Continental Northern. Examples would be the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, the Union Pacific, Soo line … you get the idea.
The number of home road cars that will eventually be on the layout has yet to be determined. Right now I have 30 hoppers lettered for the CN, but I know that I will need another 15 for basic operation. The 20 boxcars that I had mentioned is just a start. I have to get every thing out on the layout to see what I have. From there I will make sure the percentage of home road cars to “foreign” cars is right.
For those who don’t know, when a shipper sends something in a boxcar, for example, and the car is interchanged onto another railroad, the receiving railroad has to pay the home road for the time that the boxcar is on their line. The receiving railroad would then make sure that the car got to its destination as quickly as possible, was unloaded and sent on its merry way. Either back to its home road or loaded with something new and shipped of to a destination on some other railroad. That is why the greatest percentage of a type of car will always belong to the home road on a layout. And that is why I have to see what I have and then adjust so that I have the appearance of a reasonable percentage of cars.
There are those out there with enough experience that probably understood this from the beginning, but it was bugging me and I felt that a clarification was in order. OK, clarified. I hope.
Below are a couple of pictures: the first is of a 2-8-2 Mikado with a string of hoppers.( sorry about the fuzziness, still working on depth of field) The second is of a pair of SD-7’s, one lettered for the CN and the other for the old road.
