Two books that I consider to be indispensable (and they’re both written in plain English; not a lot of gratuitous jargon to slow you down):
“Track Planning for Realistic Operation,” by John Armstrong
“How to Operate Your Model Railroad,” by Bruce Chubb
They’re probably both out of print, but I imagine you could find them available somewhere online.
Don’t leave home without 'em!
Well, you guys sure have loaded me up with ideas and literature and I thank you all for taking the time to do so. It was not a waste as I will be looking at it all. Actually as I type I have already printed out about 50 or so pages. I’m not really stressed out about anything if I gave that impression. I imagine no one would be doing this if it was stressful to them.[:D]. I did mention Armstrong’s book for Realistic operation and there is good stuff in there. I really like the illustrations of different facilities so you can kind of understand why the track is laid out in the way it is. That is helpful to me, so if I want a passenger depot with an engine service facility and coach yard I can use his drawings as a template/guide. The ideas that seem more remote to me are things like (just as an example, not asking for answers right now):
When/where to put a siding?
what do crossovers do? when to use them?
How do you manage that peddler freight from fouling the main?
Carcards? Waybills? Fast Clock? I sort of know what these things are but not sure how to implement all these things to run the railroad.
I’m hoping the more I read the clearer the picture becomes but I sort of know in the back of my head that I’m not really going to be able to sort everything out until I start actually planning the design. Fortunately I know there are people on this forum that I can bounce ideas off of and they’ll tell me if I’m out in left field somewhere.
Chris
Yes, that is exactly right. A railroad never does anything simply for looks. A track is built and maintained because it needs to be, nothing more. The route of a track is selected by the shortest way and the least cost to build. A railroad will not make and maintain a tunnel if they can go around the obstruction cheaper. Purpose dictates the track existance, terrain dictates the track route.
Ghris wrote:
Carcards? Waybills? Fast Clock? I sort of know what these things are but not sure how to implement all these things to run the railroad.
This is exactly why I posted a warning…You need none of that to operate your layout.
In my 9 1/2 years as a brakeman all I ever work with was a simple switch list.
The OP seemingly wants to learn about model railroad operations(*). You are simulating some (a few) aspects of real railroading. You are not actually doing real railroading.
Car card/waybill combos is a model railroading mechanism (and a pretty robust and self correcting mechanism) for simulating things you are not modeling directly - like the people who received orders for cars from customers, entered things into computers, and handled the waybills, so a train crew would only have to deal with switch lists while switching a yard or taking a local train out to pull and spot cars at industries.
Let’s not get so carried away with how real railroads operate and lay tracks etc that we totally forget that some compromizes are necessary to model railroading on a layout that may have a mainline shorter than one scale mile (ie about 60 feet in H0 scale) long.
(*) Or at least - that’s how I read him - he says he wants to learn about how real railroads operate, but his actual goal seemingly is to design and build a model railroad layout suitable for operations.
Smile,
Stein
[quote user=“steinjr”]
BRAKIE:
Ghris wrote:
Carcards? Waybills? Fast Clock? I sort of know what these things are but not sure how to implement all these things to run the railroad.
This is exactly why I posted a warning…You need none of that to operate your layout.
In my 9 1/2 years as a brakeman all I ever work with was a simple switch list.
The OP seemingly wants to learn about model railroad operations(*). You are simulating some (a few) aspects of real railroading. You are not actually doing real railroading.
Car card/waybill combos is a model railroading mechanism (and a pretty robust and self correcting mechanism) for simulating things you are not modeling directly - like the people who received orders for cars from customers, entered things into computers, and handled the waybills, so a train crew would only have to deal with switch lists while switching a yard or taking a local train out to pull and spot cars at industries.
Let’s not get so carried away with how real railroads operate and lay tracks etc that we totally forget that some compromizes are necessary to model railroading on a layout that may have a mainline shorter than one scale mile (ie about 60 feet in H0 scale) long.
(*) Or at least - that’s how I read him - he says he wants to learn about how real railroads operate, but his actual goal seemingly is to design and build a model railroad layout
Hmmmm…Interesting, I never learned much about “prototypical operations” as I don’t operate my railroad “prototyically”.
I leave the “prototyical operating” to the guys at the clubs or the fellows who are into that aspect of the hobby.
Myself, I just like to see trains run through my miniature world. I knew a fellow years ago whose standard response to almost everything was “tain’t prototype”!! He also never got beyond that railroad he was going to build “someday”…he’s been dead for several years now so he doesn’t have to worry about it anymore but his railroad would have followed the “prototype”, had he ever built it that is.
From “my” perspective all of the waybills, fast clocks and such is a bit on the “anal” side, but as I said, that’s just from my perspective, I just like to run trains. If I was really into it that much I would have gotten a job on the railroad.
Mark
NMRC
The OP seemingly wants to learn about model railroad operations(*). You are simulating some (a few) aspects of real railroading. You are not actually doing real railroading.
Right. Some of the things real railroads do is just boring to me. My goal is to design a railroad that has some operational ability. How much of that, is yet to be determined. In the meantime, I’d like to learn about all the methods people chose to run their railroads and then chose my level of detail that makes the running of the railroad fun for me. I think both Stein and Brake have valid points. Brake, if switch lists end up being the simplest way to get some sort of operations, then I’ll probably gravitate to it naturally. I still want to learn enough about the other ways so I can arrive at an informed decision.
Mark, I think my railroad will probably end up being a mostly scenic mailine run because that’s what I enjoy the most about the hobby. I, too, love nicely detailed trains rolling through realistic scenery. I have to admit that my tastes may change, that’s why I need to make sure I understand enough about operations to build some of that into the railroad. BTW, already stated reading some of the Gateway NMRA literature Stein posted yesterday. Good stuff, very informative.
Chris
I think the first thing that escapes most modelers when they start thinking about switching moves and operations is that railroads are a transportation system. I know this sounds basic and it is. But without saying it, or actually thinking of it this way, model railroad operations is just switching cars without a purpose.
So the very basic concepts are to move goods between towns, yards, and industries. Once you understand that, then the theory behind operations becomes more clear.
Model railroad operations move cars between our modeled towns, yards, and industries. This requires some type of system that will do that. It can be Car Cards, TAB on Car, or Switch Lists. The choice of which system to use is up to the person or club that is going to operate the layout.
Part of the basic set up is to define what industries on your layout takes what kinds of cars. You don’t want to send reefers to your coal mine, and coal hoppers to your icing plant, etc. At the same time, the coal mine will occasionally required a boxcar to deliver a piece of much needed equipment that has worn out, and possibly a gondola to haul old machinery parts away.
From here, it is just a matter of being logical as to what cars should go where and when. Then you have to have designated trains that will take the cars from Point A to Point B, also in a logical flow.
It will all get tied together as you read, research, and study it out.
I understood that a RR competes with trucks, buses, airplanes, cars, etc in moving freight/passengers as a first step. Got that just from living, newspapers, discussions with others, traveling, etc.
Went down and watched the RR work at a yard, pick up/set out cars at an industrial siding. Watched them move tanks, equipment, etc on flat cars. Found it interesting to see John Deere and Cat eqpt from IA / IL on their way to the ports. Watched the action at ports. Watched the RR switch out the automotive factories when I was there for business. In short, just lived and observed with the background of 1 above.
After I casually got interested through observation and discussion, I started to find books, read and do research–kind of like what you’re doing now.
During 1 and 2 above I got interested in modeling what I saw which led to the requirement for 3 to do it “right”.
Renting videos of how trains operate could be informative and educational. Lots of train videos out there, half the fun is figuring out which ones you want to watch. Greenfrog and Pentrex are too good places to start.
Richard
I learned growing up the son of a Santa Fe engineer. Ran my first geep down the main at age 12 (on a Santa Fe branch line), worked for them summers while going to college, worked for them again in Topeka GOB. Santa Fe in turn sent me to IBM school and eventually I moved away from railroading.
Bob
BRAKIE & ELMER are correct! Meself: i Look at MRR OP as a chess game on rails. That’s the best way to describei it, in my case.
I got into (model railroad) operations by watching the real thing during my heavy railfanning years (the late 1980s/early 1990s), then falling in with a group of other model railroaders which featured a pretty high number of active railroad employees.
One layout I operate on rather frequently is owned and was designed by a now-retired engineer who emphasizes emulating the jobs of transition-era railroading to a bit higher degree than most people. It was experience on this man’s model railroad that several other model railroaders whose layouts I’ve operated on set up their operating schemes.
I’ve found Classic Trains magazine to be a good source of first-hand stories of railroaders doing their jobs “back in the day.”
[quote user=“BRAKIE”]
steinjr:
BRAKIE:
Ghris wrote:
Carcards? Waybills? Fast Clock? I sort of know what these things are but not sure how to implement all these things to run the railroad.
This is exactly why I posted a warning…You need none of that to operate your layout.
In my 9 1/2 years as a brakeman all I ever work with was a simple switch list.
The OP seemingly wants to learn about model railroad operations(*). You are simulating some (a few) aspects of real railroading. You are not actually doing real railroading.
Car card/waybill combos is a model railroading mechanism (and a pretty robust and self correcting mechanism) for simulating things you are not modeling directly - like the people who received orders for cars from customers, entered things into computers, and handled the waybills, so a train crew would only have to deal with switch lists while switching a yard or taking a local train out to pull and spot cars at industries.
Let’s not get so carried away with how real railroads operate and lay tracks etc that we totally forget that some compromizes are necessary to model railroading on a layout that may have a mainline shorter than one scale mile (ie about 60 feet in H0 scale) long.
(*) Or at least - that’s how I read him - he says he wan
Actually I value all the opinions here. Each of us approach the hobby from different perspectives so each of us brings something a little different to the discussion.
Chris
I could never decide what industries I should have, and was stuck in the planning stage forever seemingly…then it hit me…I am constructing an industrial complex called “OmniCorp Industries” - they make everything - therefore any type of car is appropriate.
I could never decide what industries I should have, and was stuck in the planning stage forever seemingly…then it hit me…I am constructing an industrial complex called “OmniCorp Industries” - they make everything - therefore any type of car is appropriate.
Another subsidiary of Viacom [:P]
Silly you, all that real world experience you’ve got; no good at all in the model world. Nothing anybody can learn from you- no relevance at all.
Oh,just the opposite…I bring meat to the table while others bring potatoes and it all comes together in the end.
There shouldn’t be any compromises in operation since we are supposedly emulating the prototype…Real railroading is all about moving freight in a timely manner.Once modelers learn that then they will understand basic railroading and that basic understanding will open the door to simple prototypical operation…[:O]
Here’s a fun filled idea I use…
I (ahem) base my industries on the type of freight cars I like…[:P]
That works out good. I’ll bring the mushrooms and onions with some mixed vegies for a side and we can “do” this railroad operation thing…