BN/Frisco Interchange Yard Track Plan

The track plan for the BN (former Frisco) interchange yard has been added to the Track Plans page.  This module will connect to the Tarragona to Port Entrance Module at the track that curves into Main St. on that module.

This small yard was located on the south edge (literally) of Main St. about two blocks east of Palafox St. in downtown Pensacola.  CSX reached it on its east end from a track that curved off of the Tarragona St. track and ran down the middle of Main St. for about four blocks until it curved off the south edge of the pavement.  The yard ladder started just off the pavement.  In the late eighties there were 4 tracks in the yard (North, North Middle, South Middle, and South) about 1200-1400 feet in length.  The Frisco/BN  main yard in Pensacola was about a mile to the west of this location.

This module will use three tracks to represent the CSX connection and will allow replication of the interchange operation.  Typical operation would be something similar to the following. CSX yard job Y202 (typically handled by an EMD switcher ...MP15, etc.) would come "down the hill" from its main yard (Goulding - pronounced "Golding") in Pensacola to switch the port and interchange.  Y202 would ready cars in the port yard for a shove to the interchange .  Then it would run light down Main St. to the interchange yard and pull a track or two of cars back to the port yard.  Those cars were set out of the way in the port yard and cars headed offline were shoved back to the interchange yard.  (Most of the port traffic was loads out over the Frisco.)  This activity usually occurred in the late evening so I suppose the transfer could be considered a "Midnight Shove" to get outbound cars off line to avoid another day's per diem.  Y202 would then pull any cars from the remaining 2 interchange tracks back to the port.

A former L&N/CSX employee has shared that more than once Frisco would watch the interchange yard and reload the first two tracks once Y202 made its initial pull.  This would frustrate the CSX/L&N crew because when they made their shove back to the interchange there were no free tracks ...so they would then have to pull the empties plus the new interchange cars back to the port then shove the empties back.   Finally any needed spots at the port and along Tarragona St. were made before heading back to Goulding Yard.

In addition to traffic for the port, CSX received hoppers of coal through the interchange for a Gulf Power Plant at Boykin on the PA Subdivision in northwest Florida.  There was a lumber company, a chemical plant, and a distributor served by the Frisco that received loads from CSX as well as chemicals routed to the paper mill in Cantonment over the Frisco.

The model yard will hold a dozen or so 50' cars.  That should be a sufficient number to keep a crew busy working the port yard and the Tarragona St. spurs, especially when you add in the cars brought "down the hill" from staging that will represent CSX's Goulding Yard and points beyond.

Influence

I have long been a fan of the L&N since it was one of the principle railroads that served my hometown of Pensacola, FL. I remember the L&N of the 70’s and early 80’s in northwest Florida and south Alabama. This is a portion of the line seldom thought of, much less modeled, as the L&N typically conjures visions of Appalachian coal hauling. The L&N I grew up knowing served the paper and chemical industries along with agriculture and seaport traffic. During this timeframe it became a part of the Family Lines System and then the short lived Seaboard System before becoming part of CSX. This period of transition hosted a lively mix of locomotive paint schemes from L&N’s classic grey and yellow to the smart FLS ribbons as well as a mix of predecessor paint including SCL, C&O, and even some colorful Chessie System livery. Run through trains across the subdivision regularly included foreign paint from SP, SSW, UP and a variety of other roads from time to time. Long an HO modeler, the opportunity to run locomotives in a variety of corporate colors coupled with the increased fidelity and operating quality of N scale models has influenced me to try my hand at putting together a modern era layout that would otherwise not be possible in a larger scale. Memories of watching the Y202 yard job come “down the hill” from Goulding Yard to pick up and shove interchange traffic to the small Frisco (later BN) interchange yard and then switch the port yard fostered the notion that it would be fun to model that operation. Modules are chosen as the format for construction since space for a “permanent” layout is currently being utilized for other family purposes. Also, a modular setup will allow me to transport the layout for operating sessions at shows and potential connection with other modules based on the Free-moN standards I’m following.

Since operation is to be a main objective the modules will be designed with that in mind and module subjects will be chosen for their value in adding operational interest. While I appreciate fine modeling and intend to lean toward higher fidelity modeling I will leave my super-detailing efforts to the larger scales and exploit N scale’s size by modeling only what can realistically be seen from a few feet away and paying attention to texture as I believe it can be easily overdone in such a small scale. I plan to utilize a bit of the “good enough” philosophy as well as a minimalist approach as I believe the mind fills in a lot of the details based on what it perceives. This is especially true when operation is the focus at hand. I can comfortably say this based on personal experience operating on friend’s layouts where, in some cases, the only scenery was simple kit built plastic structures (maybe even a few were cardboard boxes) and not much else. We still had a blast running the layout and didn’t miss the scenery one bit.

That said I don’t intend to model the “Plywood (or Styrofoam) Pacific” either. I plan to strike what I feel to be a reasonable balance of scenery to attain a nice looking operation oriented modular set up …think Lance Mindheim’s Downtown Spur layout. He has used a lot of “photo detailing” to quickly model structures that appear to have a lot of detail but really only contain those three dimensional details deemed necessary to provide the most impact. The look is great for his HO layout …so I’m sure N scale could exploit that capability just as well if not better.