Modifications at Haskell, AR

In September we started working on the operations and after we ran a few test runs several things came to light.

My original thought was to have the Haskell turn work the Riceland plant.  After the first run we saw just how long it would take.  So it was decided that Riceland needed to have its own switcher.  Even though the switcher only needs to move no more than 5 or 6 cars and get them ready for the local, the amount of time that it reduced from the Haskell turn was enough to warrant this.

Now all the Haskell turn has to do is pull into the siding, run around it's trains, swap out the empties with the loads that the plant switcher has ready, then tie back onto his train and start back to El Dorado.

Two things that came out of this change was it reduced the work load for the Haskell turn and it created a simple and easy job for a newbie to get his feet wet without having to feel overwhelmed with a large amount of switching.

Now that I had to keep a plant switcher in place, I went about re-arranging the track.  I added a switch lead and a third siding to act as a pocket track.

This is what I started with.

This what I ended up with.