Overview of the Keystone Division Keystone Division Description
Overview of the Keystone Division The Keystone Division of the Reading & Chesapeake Railroad serves energy and industrial product movement across Pennsylvania from Erie in the northwest, through the center of the state, to Philadelphia in the southeast.
The layout is designed for two types of users: inexperienced, occasional visitors and operations oriented users
For inexperienced, occasional visitors the layout is configured so four users can each run a train around a loop. Each user can control their train without interfering with any of the other three users.
When operations oriented users get together we configure the layout for point to point operation by setting 'Out of Service' barriers across selected track crossings. In this configuration, Erie is the westmost point on the railroad and Pottsville is the eastmost point. West-East flow is counterclockwise.
Tracks run around the walls from Erie's high elevation, and then corkscrews down to the low level on the second run around the walls. Once at the low elevation, the track flows onto a peninsula in the middle of the room and eventually snakes back out toward the walls before turning toward Pottsville along the same wall as but below the western-most Erie elevation.
Most industries and their sidings are positioned at the high or low elevations. There are also a few industries located along the transition route between the high and low elevations.
To increase the action in the limited space this railroad occupies, we plan to run several automated trains. These trains will obey the instant signal and turnout settings and the track occupancy realities. We expect to operate these automated trains in several modes: only automated trains with or without a manual dispatcher controlling track sections and traffic flows; and, combined automated and manual trains with or without dispatcher control. We are evaluating software generation alternatives to hard coding individual train running algorithms.
The Reading & Chesapeake (R&C) is a fantasy, freelance interpretation of a railroad comprising many fallen flag railroads of the 20th century. The R&C perpeuates some industries, long fallen as well. The R&C operates today, agnostic of presently obsolete track, industries, motive power or carriage. The R&C revels in perpetuating memories and prefers a timeless view of railroading. So sometimes we run steamers and sometimes we run modern diesels and electrics. Buildings and other artifacts tend to be late 20th century.
Check out this page for photos and details: Pennsylvania's Energy & Industrial Product Mover
| Erie - Staging yard and interchange with Buffalo, model |
| Cleveland Interchange, model |
| Titusville – Oil Wells, Electric Generation, model |
| Punxsutawney model |
| Driftwood model |
| Williamsport – Lumber Mill, model |
| Laporte model |
| Red Rock model |
| Tunkhannock model |
| Scranton – Meat, Textiles, Steel, Warehousing, model |
| Moosic model |
| Wilkes Barre model |
| Bloomsburg model |
| Sunbury - coal, deep mined anthracite, model |
| Harrisburg model |
| Hershey - chocolate candies , model |
| Easton - home of Crayola Crayons, future NYC interchange track, model |
| Hazleton model |
| Frackville - warehousing, distrbution electric power poles, model |
| Girardville – coal, model |
| Big Mine Run model |
| Yeagertown - timberland farming, model |
| Ashland – logging, model |
| Shamokin model |
| Indiantown Gap – military depot, tamk manufacturing, model |
| Lancaster - meat processing, candy, perishable food model |
| Philadelphia – Seaport: coal export, oil/gas import, container import/export, seafood, warehouses, clothing models |
| Reading – anthracite coal distribution, meat products distribution, |
| Allentown Bethlehem Steel Distribution model |
| Hamburg |
| Pottsville – Yuengling Beer, Warehousing, model |
| Tamaqua - track not used |
Nanticoke -
track not usedMRRM SoftwareThis section shows how we use the MRRM software to support operations on the Keystone Division
Railroad work is created by the MRRM simulator of the industries using the railroad. The specification for the simulator are created and stored in a database. This specification is under development. The following selected configuration data sets have been declared at this time for the R&C Keystone Division: - Division Partners including interchanging Railroads - Commodity ladings and AAR car type assigned to transport that commodity - Track and Sidings identified - Stops on track identified - Buildings and Industries operational alongside tracks on the layout - Layout Industry Buyers and Sellers - Industries Off the Layout that Sell to or Buy from Industries on the Layout - For each Industry on the Layout: Commodites bought or sold
JMRI Software
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Commands locomotive decoders via the Track Buss and supports various Loconet devices on the layout
Four Power Districts from the Commend Station's Booster: Left, Center, Wye, Right sections of layout. A separate Booster is planned for Eire yard
Five Circuit Boards; capacities 40 occupancy sensors, 40 turnouts, 40 SPST switches; 160 signal heads
Three Circuit Boards; capacities 48 occupancy sensors, 24 transponder readers
WYE Reversing Trackage
Philadelphia Reverse Loop Trackage
West Staging Reverse Loop Trackage
Controls several Peco/Tortoise and Kato Turnouts
Controls 8 Peco/Tortoise Turnouts per circuit board
Controls 8 Kato Turnouts per circuit board
Links Radio Throttles to Command Station
Container Siding double as the programming track via DPDT switch.
Operations Scheduling
