Reading & Chesapeake Keystone Division

Pennsylvania's Energy & Industry Product Mover

Pennsylvania has a rich history of contribution to the energy and industrial products needed by the nation. The theme for our Keystone Division is to highlight some of these contributions - the energy and industrial products carried or supported by our railroad. Currently these products are:

Energy Products carried or supported

Industry Products carried or supported

The Keystone division carries passengers as well as freight.

The Passenger stops on our line are:

There are currently 21 Sidings on the railroad serving industries where freight cars can be spotted or picked up.

There are several Mainline and Bypass tracks that also service industries:

Each industry served on a siding, mainline or bypass track may be a shipper or consignee of multiple ladings requiring specific rail car type (AAR code). MRRM simulates the generation and consumption of these ladings based on production and consumption capacities and orders from buying industry to selling industry. These order create waybills and ultimately manifests that train crews use when operating the railroad.

There are three yards on the railroad. Each yard services industries in its area of operation. Freight cars typically do not move directly from shipping industry to consignee industry but rather move through yards. When the shipper and consignee are not served by the same yard, these freight cars are moved from the shipper's home yard to the consignee's home yard (possibly stopping at other intermediate yards or interchanges)./p>

Philadelphia Yard

Reading Yard

Erie Yard - West Staging

Interchanges provide track sharing between two railroads. Cars moving from one railroad to another are temporarily spotted on interchange track by one railroad for pickup and delivery by another railroad. The Keystone Division has these interchanges:

Local Trains move full or empty (MT) freight cars between the yard and the industries it serves. These the locals we run are:

Manifest Freight Trains move freight cars between two or more yards or interchanges. Travel legs followed by our manifest trains are:

Unit Trains are the exception to the home yard freight car movement rule. A Unit train moves a string of freight cars from the shipper to the consignee without stopping in an intermediate yard. The Unit trains we run are:

The model railroad comprises seven by-pass or alternate track sections. These track sections allow one or more trains to move off the mainline and wait until another train passes on the mainline. Four of these by-pass track sections have room for one train. Two of the sections are long enough to hold two trains - one behind the other. One section has two by-pass track sections and each can hold two trains - one behind the other. In addition to these bypass track sections we have three rail yards which can each handle one arrival and one departure train. With this configuration we plan to support 12 trains concurrently.

The seven by-passes and their typical train holding capacities are: