Do you physically handle/move freight cars

My apologies if this has been around before but I couldn’t find anything in searches.

How on often do you physically pick up your freight and move them? I really try not to, is it just me?

is it when your changing out cars on a interchange yard? Or even a classification yard? Or staging?

i really try not to “handle” my cars except for some under table staging. Mostly I try to “operate“ my trains and to me that means minimal to no touching or moving other than coupling/uncoupling.

Curious, thanks. BTW, Im on a 9x9 dual line around the walls.

AAR

Only for derailments or when workin’ on the railroad. And placing them on and off the layout or fixing a coupler now and then. Dan

Only when I am moving on/off layout, or when I do something silly like run through an closed (backwards) turnout and dump them on the ground.

Just the other day, I was planting some trees on the far side of the layout. There were two boxcars in my way. Instead of just pushing them down aways, I fired up the RS3, deadheaded all the way from town,to hook up and pull them to clear my work space.

that answer your question

Every day… I detest switching the same cars on my ISL so,I rotate them once or twice daily.

I do to put them on and off the layout. I don’t have a staging area, I build my trains right in front of me, as what I want to see, and what cars I need to drop off for switching.

Speaking of switching, I’ve been busy with projects, so it’s about time I do some!

The same cars, sitting too long in one spot. [(-D]

Mike

I try not to pick up any cars or engines. Sometimes if I want to add one or two cars to a train, I will pick them up by hand from the storage tracks.

It’s an unavoidable fact of life for a modular layout that is set up at train shows. However, once on the layout, we avoid handling rolling stock as much as possible. Each member is responsible for his/her own rolling stock.

Fred W

…modeling foggy costal Oregon, where it’s always 1900…

We all have the rules we choose to play by. For me, other than avoiding damage, I see no reason to avoid picking up cars. If you’re careful, you’ll still avoid damage.

Mostly I move cars to reset after the tyical partially completed ops session. They might otherwise never get moved if they’re in that train that’s at the tail end of the lineup, don’t you know?

Shouldn’t I just waybill and forward such cars? To each his own. I’d rather concentrate on a satisfying operating session than on getting cars to a certain place first in order to keep my RR Karma straight.

I also don’t build yards to be giant parking lots where every car needs to get back to REST UP before the next run. Real RRs don’t host all available car online, all the time, yet that seems to be the approach taken very often. Remember it’s a big, big rail network out there.

At the club yesterday I ran a loads train to a power plant and then returned with empties, I was running my T-1 and there’s no turning facilities on that section of road, you know what I did? I ran the T-1 backwards with a caboose in front of the tender. I felt that was more prototypical than picking it up and rotating the locomotive “manually” [(-D]

That sounds like me too.

Ah haaaa! Been there.

Yep, thanks. Depending on what I’m working on I’ve been known to do that.

Thanks everyone for your inputs. My curiosity is satisfied. :slight_smile:

Just a suggestion, all of your last replys don’t mention who your replying to, or at least a quote as to what post your replying to.

Mike.

Only when I have to - the rare derailment or pick up for maintenance or the like.

One reason to physically touch the freight cars is to avoid the feeling “Haven’t I run this same train before?” And after all most of us have enough cars to stock several layouts in addition to our own!

On some layouts that is the task of the person running the hidden staging yard(s): arriving trains have cars destined for foreign roads taken off the layout and put into storage. Various car forwarding methods and systems allow for this. On one guys layout it might be a year (not a fast clock year, a real year) or more before that car is seen again, which is kind of neat.

This was no big deal in an era of durable but not highly fragile cars, but the new generation of highly detailed cars is much more risky to touch in any way. Indeed there is a highly detailed and expensive center beam flatcar which can be easily almost destroyed if it is picked up in the most visually obvious manner. Makes me nervous as heck.

A fairly recent layout video tour on MR Video Plus shows the car cassettes that Ken Thompson created for his BN Peoria Subdivision layout, and using those cassettes as the storage method means he no longer has to touch the cars themselves. That gives you the realism of a constantly fresh supply of cars appearing on the layout without the risks of damage.

Dave Nelson

Wait! WHAT!!!

Doesn’t seem normal use for a T-1, what with the 80’ drivers and all. (must be a shortage of Pennsy fans for them not to have jumped all over this…)

I have more cars and locomotives than my layout can hold so I have a fiddle track that doubles as a rip track and test track (to test coupler height). Other than fixing derailments it is the only place I touch cars. I shuffle them on and off as I see fit. I have plastic storage drawers which hold them while not in use.
I never use the 0-5-0 hand switcher because my yard works almost like a hump yard and is very efficient. I believe that the less you handle a car the better. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve broken the window shades off of my locomotives.

The T-1s were pressed into freight service on the PRR when they were relegated from the premier passenger service, my T-1 is the original version #5501 with the streamlined pilot, later units had an unstreamlined pilot. Oh also it was pulling an NS loads train with an NS caboose, so theoretically it could actually be #5550 in special revenue service, oh and my club is based on the Midsouth RR in Louisiana circa 1970-1980.