Roanoke District double track

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

-----Original Message-----
From: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Sent: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 11:06 PM
Subject: Re: Roanoke District double track


"The wye was located on the west side of the track," 
 
Mason, 
 The wye was most definately on the east side of the track. 
 
"doesn't make sense to maintain a WWII structure for 6-8 trains a day." 
Robb, 
  Nothing personal but, this sounds like the same mindset that took the double track out to begin with and how wrong it was for a couple of reasons. 
  The grade is fairly steep up both sides of Lofton. Since the double track was taken out, northbound trains meeting southbounds at Pkin sometimes have to stop on this steep grade. If they had left the track in they could have continued over the mountain and met the southbound on a decending grade. 
  Also when the switchers are working south of Stuarts Draft, northbound have to be held south of Vesuvius to 1) stay off of road crossings and 2) because there are no STOP signals between Pkin and Stuarts Draft to protect the switchers. 
  So you see it was really a very STUPID move to take up the double track no matter what the traffic density happens to be. 
 
"The arrangement certainly favors southbound trains to be held at Pkin for a northbound to climb the hill." 
 
The problem with this is 1) see above and 2) stopping on private road crossings and the "Hot Box Detector". 
 
Harry, 
  I don't see your point here. 
"In addition, there's a state road that crosses just about middle way of the double track station. Imagine what could have been accomplished had N&W put in a lap siding with the overlap at the St. 666 crossing at Lofton." 
 
  Since I made mention of signals to protect movements, when the NS went and installed those sorry stick signals they took several very important signals out. 
  The STOP signals on Appo, just north of Buena Vista were taken out. This signal enabled southbound trains to come over to Appo and wait for any switching moves taking place at the north end of Buena Vista. Now trains have to wait at "Twin Falls" (SE of Midvale). 
  Also the leaving signals north and south of the station at Shenandoah were removed. Now instead of boarding the train at the yard office and being able to take off with a favorable signal, trains have to drag to the signals at the north and south ends at restricted speed. 
Jimmy Lisle 
 
________________________________________ 
NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org 
To change your subscription go to 
http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list 
Jimmy::
I'm in Tar Heelia and don't have my timetables at hand.  Last time I looked, the double
track was 11 miles in length, so if 3 miles remain, that means that 8 miles were eliminated,
not five as I previously noted.
 
As far as the lap siding mentioned, there is one of these on the Fostoria District at
North Findlay, Ohio.    There is a siding on each side of the main track, but they're located
not side by side, but end to end.  The west end of the south siding overlaps the east end
of the north siding.  It offers a great deal of flexibility:
 
1- One train can hold the main track and meet two trains in either direction in the two sidings.
2- Two extra long trains can meet by each one going thru the siding and returning to the main line.
3- With a little finess, the dispatcher can stage a running meet. 
 
It  isn't the equivalent of what was already there, but it certainly would offer more flexibility
than the hacked off part of the extreme south end of the DT.  Without the timetable, I can't
do the math.  Neither do I have the Roanoke District sidings committed to the memory bank, but
another draw back was that it extended the distance and the running time to the next siding
north of Lofton - Stuarts Draft maybe ??
                                                                            Harry Bundy
________________________________________________________________________
Check out the new AOL.  Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20060929/e63b4635/attachment.htm