Page 4 - March April 1997

Paul D. Atkinson
President’s Car...
During the Christmas holidays I was asked several times what a grown man was doing ‘playing
trains’? In reply I gave the standard answer: namely that they were scale models and that I was trying to repro- duce prototype operations as far as possible. I got the usual blank expres- sion and it was obvious I was getting nowhere.
This sort of response gave me pause for thought and the next time I was asked I did not try to justify it - I don’t think you can - I just replied that this was my hobby, just as much as somebody who plays golf or soccer or makes model airplanes or whatever. This reply seemed to satisfy the ques- tioner and was obviously much better received.
Reflecting on my last reply at a later time I considered what my hobby offered me as a leisure pursuit.
There cannot be many pastimes which require you to be a Civil Engineer, Railroad Engineer, Electrician, artist etc. in pursuing a hobby. In addition there is also research by means of reading, pho- tography and, if you are able, a visit to the real thing. In addition for those who cannot visit America there is a wealth of help and information available through Headquarters and through British Region.
In Chattanooga we have the Kalmbach Memorial Library, which I understand is the largest in the world devoted to Model Railroads and their prototypes. Director Greg Ames is only too delighted to receive your enquiries
and to give assistance. Do not forget that your $30.00 also entitles you to a certain amount of information and research for free, so please make use of this benefit.
On the back of the British Region Directory you will find our Member Aid Officer who at the present time is Bernie Flower. It is his job to try to answer your questions and, if he is unable to do so, to put you in touch with somebody who can. Also in the Directory is a list of members who are able to help with queries on specific railroads. Their particular railroad interests are listed together with their name.
Finally, we have recently acquired from America a database which lists all the articles from MR, RMC etc for, I think, the last ten years, and cross ref- erences them, so for example a request for information on GM&O will produce a list of magazines together with the year, month and page no. which has reference to GM&O. Magic!! Jym Phillips has volunteered to be the keep- er of this database and he will be only too willing to give you the low down on this new acquisition. Don’t hesitate to contact him.
With such a wealth of information facilities available I hope we shall have numerous requests from our members and in particular from our new mem- bers who may not have been aware of what is available.
Remember:
MODEL RAILROADING IS FUN!
North to Nowhere! Five Algoma Central F-Units (Ex VIA) return to Sault Ste Marie, Ontario with their 25 car excursion train. Richard Dilley sent the photo as a result of the Wisconsin Central Video review in the December Roundhouse.
4 ROUNDHOUSE
INTERFLEX
By Frank Rogers
First Printed in MODEL TRAINS INTERNA- TIONAL #5 (JULY/AUG 1996)
“Interflex” is a simple freight car operating system based on the old idea of changing a station’s name each time it is visited by the train.
Over 60 years ago my Hornby train, travel- ling around an oval of track, would visit the principle stations between Marylebone and Sheffield (Victoria), one cardboard box doing duty as the eponymous station.
I use the same idea on my small layout to provide an impression of the distances spanned by some railroads of the USA. The layout is on one level around a small room, with a classification yard along one wall connected by single track to holding tracks along the opposite wall. The holding tracks are used as interchange terminals for transcontinental bridge traffic through the classification yard. There are no lineside industries. Operation is point-to-point, like an extended terminus to fiddle yard layout.
To use that old idea I change the name assigned to a holding track each time it is occupied by a train, so that a track repre- sents, in turn, each end of the route of the train across part of the USA, whilst the classification yard is imagined as being located somewhere between those two ends [hence the name “Midway Yard”]. The road names of my rolling stock influence my choice of location names for the hold- ing tracks, and each location name is regarded as being “home” to several appro- priate road names, as will be demonstrated below. Cars are identified only by road name - no other means is necessary for Interflex. Each place name has an equal allocation of cars, which may belong to any of the home railroads at that location. Because only the road name is used for car identification, cars may be substituted at any time.
To simulate bridge traffic using this idea, two location names are chosen to represent the start and finish of a transcon- tinental train movement. At the classifica- tion yard a train is made up consisting of cars that belong to both places, cars mov- ing away from home are regarded as “load- ed”, cars moving towards home are “emp- ties.” Loads have priority over empties, and to make classification switching move- ments as interesting as possible, consists leaving the yard are assembled with more loads than empties.
When ready to depart, the train is driv- en to a holding track. On arrival there the destination name becomes the starting location name for the next movement, for which a new destination name is assigned. Then the empty cars become loads for that new destination, while the loads become empties for set-out on their return to the classification yard, where new loads and empties are picked up before the train