I enjoy building structures and detailing my layout than operating, but I do operate, maybe ten times a month. Somewhat more during the long winters here in the northwest! [:)]
Still trying to build one, three years ago had own layout for conventions etc, anyone got some new ideas for layouts for HO’s
I host operating sessions once a month from September through May, then take the summer off. When the crew (8-12 operators) isn’t here I usually only do test runs for new equipment or “run bys” with the pre-assembled trains from the staging yard. If a job from the session isn’t completed, I finish it on my own as well.
Perhaps more clarafication in the subject line would have been helpful to answering the question posed. To “operate” implies to most of us having a predetermined schedule of freights picking up or dropping off cars at specific industries, or running passenger trains against a time schedule. Numerous past surveys here and elsewhere have demonstrated that less than 1/3 of hobbyists ever actually do any formal “operations” on their layouts. The vast major of us simply enjoy running trains around the layout. What might have been a better choice of words would have been,“How often do you run your trains and do you do operations?”
CNJ831
I operate mostly on weekends. Like many others, I get more time in during the fall and winter months.
Doug
Taking “operate” to mean “run with some purpose”, it’s when need to. That is, as they say in Newfoundland, “when I gets t’ urge, my son!” My layout is presently two levels on top of one another, both are yards off reverse loops. Sandwiched between these two at one end is the mid-level where these two will meet when the shelves that they are gets all the way round the room. This mid level is jury rig wired from the top level.
Operations are therefore making up trains, taking them onto the main, returning, and breaking up and classifying. There is also some maitainance switching etc. Mid level operations are nothing complex, limited to running into and out of a passing siding inside a dogbone type loop.
So, when I need a “quick burst on the trains” I power up and do something. This generally ends with a satisfying “By George I needed that!” [:)]
I don,t run trains for weeks at a time . But I like to admire what I have accomplished and sit down admire my rolling stock…rambo1
Don’t operate currently.
just take out my trains and hug them every so often.
contemplating move so not redoing layout.
Doug, in Utah