A few years ago we started running with Ops Plans. I’ve noticed since that time that our purchases of new cars has slowed. I also recall that we took cars off the track to make room for better ops. Maybe we had too many cars, maybe we were just bad at ops to get started. But we now think a lot more about cars we put on the line–they need to have a purpose that fits with the ops plans for example.
How about you guys that run with ops? When you started running with ops did your car qty on track change or the increase slow?
I started running ops pretty early on in my hobby career. I can’t imagine placing a car on the layout that has no purpose. I wouldn’t even buy one to begin with.
ON the other hand, I’ve seen layouts with full yards where the yards and the cars were just for show–a place to put cars they built or bought.
LION can always use more subway cars. Him has lots of left over passenger cars from other eras and layouts. I will, when I get a round tuit, build New York Penn Station as a static display on my layout.
Speaking of static stations in NYC: Only in New York can a thousand people be stranded because of a stopped escalator!
One of the best things I ever did was to just grab a bunch of cars sitting for no good reason and cleared them off the layout. It actually wasn’t that these cars wouldn’t go somewhere eventually; they all were. It’s just that we model a short section of line that isn’t physically connected to the rest of the rail network, like in real life. Weeding out 20% of the cars freed up ops remarkably.
Some will cry heresy in bringing out the 0-5-0 in this fashion. Well, I’m keeping notes on this and some other heretical ideas and will expand on it further soon. For now, I’ll only say that lots, if not most ops schemes take as an assumption that everything “balances” in the course of an op session. Like some finely oiled machine, everything is accounted for and the balance at the bottom of the ops spreadsheet comes to exactly zero, just like an accounting statement.
Maybe so, but if that happens on your layout it’s just not realistic – and I say that in good humor, not as a condemnation[:o)]
However, in trying to achieve this somewhat fictional goal, people drive themselves nuts, with every car needing to be slotted into a rigid system that produces a nice neat “0” balance at the end of the day. Me, I like to run trains, so I have a different system. What happens in between ops sessions is pretty much “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
Think in terms of your yards accommodating trains, rather than single cars. Sure, save some switching for where it’ll be enjoyed, but I’ve given up on switching everything during the ops session. I presume that locals and yard crews have been at work overnight getting trains ready to run, leaving just enough switching to make those that want it happy. So grab some cars and stash them away off the layout if things are choked up. I promise not to tell the Ops Police.
I started OPs on my current layout when I only had 2 towns and we used hand written Switch Lists to move cars.
So at that time I only had a few cars and they probably filled up most of the yard I had at the time!
Then every 2 weeks after that first OPs Session back in 2003 I have been trying to hold another OPs Session.
In between Sessions i have been working on the layout adding Track Towns and Sidings. So each OPs time I would add another bunch of cars to fill up the thru trains as well as going ot the new Industries.
Not all cars would go to the online Industries as they were the wrong type - BUT with my Thru trains just about any type of car could be seen on those trains.
Some would argue with this but my Mainline ran between Pittsburgh and Buffalo in the 75-85 time period.
Eventually I got most all of the track and Industries in! The car count is around 1150. I also use the LIVE INTERCHANGE as cars come from other Layouts and get placed on the layout at an active INTERCHANGE in relation to where those Layout Owners Railroad connects with mine!
So at times I can have another 25 to 50 cars coming and going as there are about 20 operators that will cycle cars on and off the layout.
NOT using the typical CC/WB or Switch List system makes it easy to get these new cars into rotation to online Industries as well as getting them back to the Interchanges without spending a lot of time doing paperwork or laying on the computer!.
It sure makes the Seeing the same old cars making endless returns to the same old Industries that Car Cards Do with too much regularity a lot less noticable!
I had to receiently make a large car count correction to the layout and removed about 50 Other Owners cars and begin limiting the number of new cars being added to the layout as the Yards - Staging were full and we had a hard time moving the trains.
So I have finally found the proper car count for my layout which is 1150 cars.<
How to Determine the Optimum number of Cars on a Layout for Good Operation
I went looking for a way to determine how many cars should be on a
layout for good operations. What I found to determine car capacity
for a layout was the following three examples: (There were more, but
I chose these three to test.)
ONE:
50% of industry spots full
67% of yard and interchange tracks full
90% of staging tracks full.
TWO:
Since then, the Ops Sig group on yahoo has been discussing it as
well. A couple of the replies have been for 50% full for yard and
industry spots and almost full to all full for staging.
THREE:
One reply gave a link to Joe Fugate’s web site where he has a formula of sorts. http://siskiyou-railfan.net/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.32.2
This method is rather involved as you have to measure all tracks
etc. Once you have done this, you convert their lengths into the
number of cars they will hold, then perform a not so simple
calculation to determine the total number of cars for the layout.
So to find out how these systems stacked up against each other, I did
the calculations for my home layout. The number of cars on my layout
should be: (based on a 40 foot car length)
System 1- 139 cars
System 2- 116 cars
System 3- 156 cars
Of the three systems, number 3 seemed to be the most accurate due to
the many measurements and calculations required. However, system 1
or 2 would be the simplest, and the percentage numbers for No.1 could
be adjusted so the results were closer to system 3. My layout
currently has 102 freight cars on it and seems to be operating well,
but at certain times there seems to be a car shortage. I have
How to Determine the Optimum number of Cars on a Layout for Good Operation
I went looking for a way to determine how many cars should be on a
layout for good operations. What I found to determine car capacity
for a layout was the following three examples: (There were more, but
I chose these three to test.)
ONE:
50% of industry spots full
67% of yard and interchange tracks full
90% of staging tracks full.
TWO:
Since then, the Ops Sig group on yahoo has been discussing it as
well. A couple of the replies have been for 50% full for yard and
industry spots and almost full to all full for staging.
THREE:
One reply gave a link to Joe Fugate’s web site where he has a formula of sorts. http://siskiyou-railfan.net/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.32.2
This method is rather involved as you have to measure all tracks
etc. Once you have done this, you convert their lengths into the
number of cars they will hold, then perform a not so simple
calculation to determine the total number of cars for the layout.
So to find out how these systems stacked up against each other, I did
the calculations for my home layout. The number of cars on my layout
should be: (based on a 40 foot car length)
System 1- 139 cars
System 2- 116 cars
System 3- 156 cars
Of the three systems, number 3 seemed to be the most accurate due to
the many measurements and calculations required. However, system 1
or 2 would be the simplest, and the percentage numbers for No.1 could
be adjusted so the results were closer to system 3. My layout
currently has 102 freight cars on it and seems to be operating well,
but at certain times
I sorta had the opposite problem. I model 1900-1905 so there are virtually no RTR models accurate for my era. The vast majority of my cars have to be kitbashed, scratchbuilt or built from wood or resin kits. They have to be built, painted and lettered. It can take a couple months to generate a half dozen cars.
So I’ve had problems generating enough cars to support operations. I have about a dozen or so “stand in cars” I use until proper cars can be built.
I cycle my car fleet between the layout and storage. Also road engines for that matter. My end point terminals are nothing more than fiddle style staging yards. Just guessing, I probably only have between 25 to 30% of my freight cars on the layout at any time.
Except for an interchange track at one station, all cars come on/off through the end points, either destined for on layout points or has “bridge” traffic going to the other end point in through trains.
I also tend to cycle the cars between being “shorts” or “overhead” traffic. It helps get more use out of each car and makes the routineness of cars going to a limited number of on layout destinations less noticeable.
I have had a similar experience to what you describe.
I have a couple of hundred cars that I built and then I was given a large number of very nice cars. Way too many to keep on the layout. My operating scheme calls for around 120 cars (not including through freights) I do rotate some and I had to classify the cars according to use in the operations scheme, degree of coolness (always want to run the cool cars) and of course, reliability.
This led to a wholesale purge and to the odd situation of needing to build around 50 more cars to meet the operations plan…Since I like building cars, not a problem, but certainly an eye opener
A few things to consider:
Yards function better when they aren’t over crowded. This means pulling the cars from the yard to get it down to a 50-60% capacity.
Car requirements and capacities at various points vary widely depending on the operations scheme and trains to be run. At times, a yard or junction may be overcrowded and then it might be empty, depending on traffic flow and how dynamic your operating scheme is.
A lot of interesting observation here. I suspect that all of the ‘formulas’ really are not all that accurate(Sorry Joe and others). What have have found is:
Yards - that 50% full factor really is a good starting point - You need room to switch cars. If you pull all of the ‘non-operation’ cars out of the yard, many times you will be in pretty good shape. My yard has 4 tracks and a capacity of 35-40 cars. One track is reserved for local industries, and there is always extra Swift empties there for spotting at my large industry in town. Another track is used for set outs/pick ups by the road freights(This is not a division point terminal, just a small yard that locals operate out of).
Industry sidings - Some of my industries barely get a car once a week, others like my Swift Plant get switched every day, and the 3 spots for the ‘meat dock’ are always full. Setting the same percentage for all of you industry tracks really is not prototypical. My Badger Oil Company spur has 2 spots - There is a car order waybill for fuel delivery™, and a car order/waybill for a box car(XM) of lubrication oils/greases that arrive at that industry over a 6 day cycle. That Swift plant sees 3 Swift meat reefers every day for meat loading(18 car orders for RSM type car in 6 days).
Staging - You can never have enough) That said, I have 6 tracks capable of holding a 15 car road train. Some place around 150 cars on the layout(including staging) starts to clog things up. My car order/waybills are printed on a ‘buff’ stock for the most part. My reefer waybills are printed on a ‘pink’ stock(just like the ARR recommendation). I have ‘special’ waybills printed on a light ‘green’ stock - These are for things like a ‘grain rush’ where I overload the system on purpose. Being a special color, I can pull these fast aft
After getting into operating, the first thing I realized was I had far too many cars on the layout. Over time I gradually worked out how many cars were needed to operate the layout in a more prototypical fashion. If I acquire a new car it is purchased with a specific need in mind and will replace or be cycled onto the layout. My layout isn’t all that large, about 85 feet of mainline and a little over 20 industries, a double ended yard of 4 tracks. There are only so many cars you can get on a layout before hitting gridlock. If I remember correctly I did try some math formula to arrive at the proper number of cars but in the end did it mostly through trial and error.
Here’s my method of operating my past switching layouts.
I simply rotate the number of cars that “arrives” on the interchange-some days there may be 3- 7 other days 1 or 2…Of course some days there isn’t any inbound cars so,my crews will switch out the industries that has empties or loads and take them to the interchange.If I felt like working on the scenery there isn’t any “work” to so my crew cleans and washes the locomotive,makes light engine or track repairs.
From the answers, I see a lot of folks are saying to clear out your yards, and get cars off the layout! I think we all tend to build/buy too many cars and they get ‘stored’ on the layout. For cars that do not fit into my layout operations(but were just ‘neat’ and I had to have) - They are displayed on a wall display cabinet that has a sliding plexiglass front. The ‘excess’ get stored in their boxes or in the off-line staging drawers I described earlier. I have about 300 freight cars and that is after I sold off another 300(duplicate/don’t remember why I bought them/do not fit into my layout operational scheme/era).
Very similar here. My Dad(worked in RRing) told me I was wasting my money buying all I did for about 2 decades. After I was over my “freelance phase” we and several others started building a more prototypical layout with ops. I ended up going to shops/shows selling much inventory. I still have display cases and boxes with many cars that I justify keeping by cycling them through on thru freights. It just doesn’t make sense to run a wooden reefer coupled to a well car carrying 53’ containers pulled by a GP35 running on a class 1 mainline. Each model may look great on their own, but not together–LOL.
Running with ops has changed way more than just the session, changes include what we buy, how much we buy, building more from scratch/kitbashing as well as added more interest when trains are ran.
I don’t think the mrr manufacturers are benefiting from our new buying habits over the last several years. Except for DCC and sound related.
You know what they say about being a prototype somewhere.
I was watching the NS track at Johnstown and a mixed freight came through with cares of every road name you could of every type and some of these suckers were old. I wondered if the extra’s job was to round up every derelict in the Eastern Region.
Right now I have about 125 cars. Of this 125 , I’ve removed around 30 and they are stored in a staging storage area. 10-15 are being stored on the layout without Way Bills. The rest are at various business; or, in the yard, staging and being used per the CC & WB scheme. At this point, with my limited knowledge about operations, this seems to be about all the cars I want to handle. I plan to swap cars on and off the layout, when the mood strikes. I’m a single person operator. I am trying to convince myself that I enjoy operations; but, the reality is, I’m finding it somewhat boring. It is possible, as I get more comfortable with it, I will find it more enjoyable. Still, I think operation would be more fun, if other people where involved.
I am short a few cabooses. That’s a good thing as I love to build cabooses.