After getting one of the spherical tanks and the two loading platforms assembled then making the mockups of the hopper unloading facility, I could see that it might be better to reverse the purpose of the two sidings.
The hopper unloading buildings actually fits better at the end of the track. With only the tank car unloading platforms on the other siding, this leaves me more room for the spherical tanks and a small pump house.
While the big tanks probably would NOT have been built this close to the tracks, one has to deal with compression.
After getting things rearranged, I had to try it out. I found out that with the hoppers at the end of track, and following FRA rules of not having the locos coupled directly to a tank car, I will have to have the cars blocked at El Dorado so that there will be hoppers (or a buffer car) on the head of the train that I can use to work the tank car siding if there are no hoppers called to be set out that day. Otherwise if there are hoppers to be picked up, they can be worked first.
Let's take a look at how the local handels this new job? I used the max amount of cars (2 hoppers and 2 tanks) to see how things fit.
After the Haskell Turn pulls into the siding at Haskell it uncouples the new cars and pulls forward then reverses onto the new Shoofly.
First thing is to switch out the tanks cars.
Next comes the hoppers. First they set out the tank cars on the old main and swap the hoppers, then recouple..........Glad they left the old main intact.
With this done, they head back to Haskell siding and place the cars on what will be the rear of the train when they leave for El Dorado.
This looks like it could a fun and simple operation!
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