I admit it. Every once in a while, I just have to run trains around the layout at full speed.
How is speed dealt with at operating sessions.
What standard or protocol is used to control and limit the speed of locomotives to simulate the prototype?
And, while we are on the subject of being true to prototype, what do you do during operating sessions regarding the use of horns and bells on sound equipped locomotives?
Rich
In most cases speeding is discouraged. Most layout owners will caution against speeding in the pre-session briefing, unless they have a regular crew.
In DCC you can set the top speed of an engine. With TT&TO I have a schedule, you can run at 90 mph to the next station, but you’ll have to wait there for the departure time.
I don’t have sound yet so it not a problem. First the sound should be turned down so you can’t hear the engines more than about 6 feet away. If you are using sound you have to slow down, if you speed you don’t have time to operate the controls, look for signals and switches and turn the sounds off and on. Bells and whistles should be used in moderation.
I had one sound equipped engine, with an MRC sound decoder. It ran horribly, I couldn’t turn the volume down low enough, so I literally cut the decoder out of the engine and replaced it with TCS “fleet” decoder. Its now one of my best engines. At some point I’ll buy a good sound decoder and hook the sound back up.
Dave put it in a nutshell:
" First the sound should be turned down so you can’t hear the engines more than about 6 feet away. If you are using sound you have to slow down, if you speed you don’t have time to operate the controls, look for signals and switches and turn the sounds off and on. Bells and whistles should be used in moderation."
At my last operating session I tried getting the engineers to be more prototypical with their use of the bell and horn/whistle, such as sounding the horn at grade crossing, turn on the bell for about 5 seconds or so when leaving/entering the yard. Why such a short time? Bells tend to get irritating very fast when left on for an extended period of time.
The guys started out great but soon the engineer was forgetting to give a blast at the appropriate time, turn the bell off etc. etc. And to be fair it’s like Dave said… and I paraphrase here, distances between things on our layout, things like turnouts for instance, or towns or industries, usually aren’t that far apart so if you’re zipping around the track at breakneck speeds, not only does it look out of place but you’re probably going to zoom right past the industry that has to be worked.
So the one thing we try to get right, for sure… is to operate at near-prototype speed. It’s nice though to see an engineer operating his train and trying to use sound correctly. I tell the operators on my layout that they don’t have to give two shorts one long and a short blast on the whistle at grade crossings, one good 3 second one will do.
All that said, other crews on other layouts may go right by the book.
For that the engineers must fully understand the “use of horn” rules.In normal switching it is not require you sound the horn with every change of direction.
By observation 3 long blast with bell will suffice for grade crossings as long as the horn and bell is sounding as the lead unit hits the crossing.
Speed should be within reason-not to fast and not to slow.
My rule of thumb is 30-35 smph.I judge the speed by the train passing a object.If the cars is whizzing by too fast-if you car read car numbers without moving your head as the train passes that’s about the right speed.
When one is on a schedule, it certainly doesn’t do any good to get somewhere fast, because that just means sitting in the siding longer waiting for a meet. Likewise when one is on ABS or CTC it doesn’t do any good to go fast because the train will just be sitting at the next signal that much longer.
I operate on one layout, Wind River, who’s owner has speed curved all the loco’s for a max speed of 20smph.
Each “railroad” should have a rule book for the use of horns, whistles, and bells. If the road is a USA based, the rule book should have at least the rule for grade crossing - whistle of two longs a short and a long .
My railroad has have bell required if passing a stopped passenger train or on a track next to a station platform.
Our authorizations have speed limits for specific areas on them. Each loco is set up to run whatever the prototype speed was. Except the P42 just can’t get fast enough. If engineers speed, then derails can occur and/or schedules get out of whack, so not many look kindly on an engineer who’s clogging up the works.
Richard
I program the max speed in all my decoders to about 50 scale mph. Then the engineers can run as fast or as slow as they want. On my NCE throttles, the smph works out to be two times the throttle setting. Thus if your throttle indicates speed step 10, the loco is running about 20 smph.
I encourage the use of bell and horn signals when operating but don’t push it. However, for an operator to do that, they must be very familiar with the layout and throttle. If they are still learning, it can be one more thing that irritates them or makes them edgy and unsure if they are doing everything OK.