Simple answer: as long as it takes! Not being a smart A**. It varies with the number of sites involved which can be different each time you switch a town if you are working with car cards and waybills. Not every site will necessarily get switched every time. And some cars may sit while loading/unloading, or if pulled may have to be respotted. Usually a local or assigned switcher will have a regular start time and will get done when they are done. An 8 hour shift can run from 4 to 6 hours on a good day and take up to 12 on a bad day. Don’t be afraid to throw in a blue flag now and then, say if a tank car is unloading and can’t be touched, etc. Enjoy the variables, and have fun! jc5729 John Colley, Port townsend, WA
How long is a piece of string? Why worry about time anyway, there are so many variables in each operating session, some will take many hours, some can take 15 minutes depending on what you want to get done. Do you want to run an entire week’s worth of railroad transportation operations in one mammoth session with your friends, or do you want to switch just one industry at the end of a long day to relax before going to bed?
I can’t answer that question on my own layout let alone even take a guess on yours! Time is relative my friend. [;)]
How long to switch a town? could take a whole evenings time, depending on the switching complexity. I am working out my own modular multi-level layout planning as I type
I think I have managed in a smaller space than yours a rather serious multi-railroad plan with plenty of interest for everything. No duckunders, just smart planning.
Get out your pencil and pad and sketch out a few ideas, look at track plans and read some basic railroad stuff, a book called Track Planning for Realistic Operation is a good buy.
[quote user=“jfugate”]
Brakie:
Great discussion – I love a point and counter-point discussion, since it really helps one think through the topic.
Your point that there’s so much information online today that you don’t need actual “trial and error” experience is an interesting one. I would label the “trial and error” instead “hands on experience”, and what you’re describing one can now find online in the yahoo groups as “anecdotal” experience.
One of the things I am expected to do in my day job is train adults (software developers in my case). There are actually 4 distinct ways people learn, and the US population is split almost equally among the four ways:
Learning method 1 - Book learning: People with this bent learn the most from reading books and attending academic lectures. This teaching method focuses on theory. The traditional college course is structured for people with this bent, but it only fits about 25% of the population really well.
Learning method 2 - Active experimentation: People with this bent learn the most from hands on experience and being able to actually manipulate things and make mistakes. This is best embodied by “clinic” or “lab” time in formal training courses, and to a certain degree by apprenticeship programs.
Learning method 3 - Watching: People with this bent learn the most from watching others demonstrate the techniques. In college courses this can be seen when the instructor demonstrates the concept, and is also the heart of apprenticeship programs. Show and tell in grade school also uses this method of teaching.
Learning method 4 - Anecdotes: People with this bent learn the most from hearing others who have been there relay their experiences. Traditional college courses almost totally ignore this kind of learning, which means they are missing 25% of the population that "doesn’t fit th
Being a newbie as well I figured I’d chime in here with another newbie’s perspective.
Generally, I find that I’m a person who “learns by doing” more often than not – tempered of course by understanding the theory behind something.
Joe - no offense to you (Lord knows I respect you immensely!) but your option #2 and #3 are useless without understanding the theory behind WHY something works the way it does. If you don’t understand the theory behind something then all you can do is replicate an existing thing, you can’t create something new. Admittedly you can learn theory by having someone explain it to you (“option 3”) and some people may find this easier than books but I would argue that having a book reference available in any and all cases makes it easier to absorb the knowledge since you can refer back to it at any time.
An example from the “real world”. By day I’m a network architect on one of the largest network backbones in the US. I design traffic paths all day and night (I’m a digital plumber basically). There are folks working here that don’t have the same level of understanding (e.g. theoretical knowledge) to know how certain protocols work so can’t handle the design work – they can IMPLEMENT a design, but they can’t create a new one with just a set of requirements.
I see it as the same thing in model railroading and I’m taking a similar approach. I’m trying to model the Reading & Northern (regional shortline) in the Reading, PA area – curren era. Now I am not a professional railroader at all – heck I don’t even know any professional railroaders! What I do know though is there is a plethora of information out there that I can try to consume (and I have).
So step one for anyone should ALWAYS be “understand the theory”. Why, for example, is a yard set up the way it is? Forget for a moment how it works but looks at W
Greg,Here you go.
http://kalmbachcatalog.stores.yahoo.net/12248.html
Theres tons of information available…
Way ahead of you on that one - already have the kalmbach book!
Thanks for the other one though - more theory! 
Greg:
True, none of us can depend on one of the 4 learning preferences exclusively. However, we do have preferences and will gravitate toward that preference quickly when given a chance.
For example, I will skim content that is all theory just enough to get the “gist” and then move to hands-on, which is where I will focus. However, I do love anecdotal information (type 4 in my post above) because that’s usually someone else’s “hands-on” experiences. I have trouble just watching someone else (type 3), though, because I want to get in there and “do it for them”. In other words, during a lab session of a training class, I always volunteer to “drive” if we’re in a paired-up lab situation.
The best training materials will give you all 4 learning preferences … start with some theory (preference 1), then get into demonstrations (preference 3), then talk to others who’ve done it and get stories of what works and what doesn’t (preference 4, and a bit of preference 2). Finally, it will have recommended projects for you to go try on your own (preference 2). As a bonus, there will be a way to report back what you learned (pr
I would categorize myself as a serious newbie and my experience over the past 18 months of being in the hobby leads me to agree with Joe. All of the books, videos and online information cannot substitute for actual hands-on experience.
I say this having read virtually the entire Kalmbach library of books, seen several how-to videos and been an active member on this forum and a reader of MRR and RMC for 2 years (I would also categorize myself as a Joe’s Category 1-type Learner since I generally do well learning things from books). I’m about 25% done with a 350 sq. ft. layout and there are a number of things for which I wasn’t able to find sufficient information on in any of these sources.
The challenge is that there are many choices in this hobby for which the existing reference books just don’t provide real guidance on. Examples include:
- Actually designing a model railroading scene (a town; an industrial complex, a farm, etc.). The scenery books all focus on how to make trees or assemble kits, etc. They don’t tell you how to combine these elements into a scene that looks “right” from a model railroading perspective.
-Designing a layout for a particular style of operation. I’ve read Koester’s books on operations as well as Armstrong’s on layout design. They tell you how to design a yard and layout a mainline. But critical questions like how many passing tracks do I need, the relationship between number of staging tracks and the size of the layout, and the “right” ratio between mainline and switching are not answered and perhaps cannot be answered in written form.
-Balancing the amount of track, structures, and scenery so you don’t end up with a layout that is too cramped. I’ve never seen any practical advice on this issue and even looking at pictures in MRR and Great
I am writing a book about a Cotton Belt railroader. Found an old conductor’s time books in a library and they document the time it took to switch. During the very last days of the Sherman Branch in TEXAS in the early 50s with steam used for motive power it took 10 minutes to either set out or pick up a single car. This was the accepted amount of time for this type of work and it was found in an official company record. Last run on the Sherman Branch was September 26, 1953.
It still takes about that long based on my track side observation…It can take longer IF cars need to be moved to get to the pickup or make the setout…Of course time is needed to replace the cars that needed move.
By breaking the switching down to a single pickup/setout movement, SSW9389 and Brakie seem to be on to something.
The key fact is that ‘towns,’ both prototype and model, are not created equal. On my monster, now under construction, I have a couple of towns that are, literally, a passing siding and one spur. I also have a couple (one of which has existed since 1980 and will be used unmodified) that will keep an operator busy for a long time. One, which actually has a prototype, requires every train that stops to make two complete-train reversing moves in order to continue, even if the only thing that is switched is the block ticket (staff-and-ticket operation, honest!) A real problem in geography translates into a real problem in switching.
Brakie made one legitimate point early on. It takes TIME for the ground man to unlock and throw the switch, hook up the air, perform the FRA required visual inspection… Too few modelers allow that time (and the extra stops to allow him to climb down from the doghouse or caboose, walk a few (or a few hundred) yards, then re-board when the job is finished.
As for learning, there is nothing like putting some track down, hooking up some wires and making a locomotive run. Also, I have never met a model railroader (most emphatically including myself) who achieved nirvana with a first layout. As we learn more, as our interests change, as our abilities increase (or decrease with advancing age, darn it!) the layout will change - anything from cutting in a new spur to rebuilding the entire world. The prototype adapts to economic change. We modelers have to learn to adapt to that as well, and keep on having fun while we do it.
Change is as inevitable as surf. The choice is clear. Either get up and ride the wave, or get put through the tumble wash cycle under it.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with methods that didn’t exist in 1964)
My employer takes covered hoppers of plastic pellets (and some other stuff). Drop-offs and set-outs may take a few minutes or as much as a half-hour, depending on how many cars need to be moved. Max 6 cars (all we can hold) min 1. We have space for 3 in our unloading area and 3 more in storage, with a runaround along the storage track. Total trackage is laid out like a switchback roughly parallel to the double-track main line, with the access spur from the main laid out so we could have a runaway come charging into storage.
I’ll have to climb on the roof to get a better view and a sketch, then go bother our buyer to find out what all is in the cars.
Handling us will take longer than an industry that sits on a trailing spur and needs only 1 car (total) picked up or dropped off at a time.