Hey all im still in the planning stage of my layout i have read Armstrongs “track planning for realistic Operation” and i am in the middle o fKoester’s “realistic Operation”.
And you really have to read both these books one after the next and lightbulbs will keep appearing over your head with realizations.
On to my question
How do you guys move trains? which methods do you use and how is it woring for you/your club?
Thanks all
Howard
Howard
Most of the guys in my club use those foam lined boxes stacked into a carry bag. http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/116-19255
I made my own a few years back that works good.
Pete
Looks like a good mode of transport.
not what i was looking for but helpful none the less.
my fault
what im asking is when you have a train move into the classification yard. and your yard master breaks down the trains and assembles the outbound trains. what methods are being used and how are they working out for you and your club?
waybills, switch list all the goodies.
Howard
Ah Ok, the first question confused me too.
I regularly operate in 4 different groups and each layout in the group has different schemes.
One layout deals with car quantities. Take 18 empty log frames & deliver to camp y. Pick up 18 full log frames. Pick up 10 double stacks at interchange yard. Drop 12 piggy backs. The yard is just shuffling cars of same types. Cut 20 full coal hoppers to the power plant industry spur. type stuff.
The card cards are probably the simplest. It is a self healing system. If an operator misses a car or spots something wrong the card is there for the next operator to read and move the car accordingly. The issue that we are facing on one layout is that the cars come into a yard they immediately get split into their next destination track - and often leave on the next train. So suddenly dedicated cars stock and tank don’t really need to be sorted at all as they will leave together on the next train. I’m trying to come up with a scheme to break this up.
Switch lists (such as Rail Op) are really nice as they provide the operators an exact sequence of what the train does. They are very intolerant of mistakes because the computer thinks the car is somewhere that it is not. If one is using switch lists without the computer it is a paperwork extravaganza to get set up. Yard work is easy because each yard track has been assigned something by the computer so the yardmaster just sets the cars onto the designated track.
Way bills I have least experience with. They can be implemented in several
We use the card system. An ops session is typically manned by 15 to 20 or so people. Each siding has a box for drop off, pick up and stay cards. Sidings are handled by individual switching routes. Yards are handled by dedicated yard masters.
Here’s a pic of one of the boxes
2 yards side by side
Sidings with drop boxes
Steel Mill manned by it’s own yardmaster
2 parking areas where many trains originate
I use switch lists generated by computer. I am using RailOp, but JMRI has an Operations module which does the same thing and is free.
The reason that I use it is because the computer generates the moves and it is mostly random. You don’t see whats coming and that makes it more interesting for me.
There are two parts to your question. How do you move the cars and how do you move the trains. They are essentially completely unrelated systems and you can mix and match betwen them.
Car forwarding:
There are lots of different ways to do this, depending on the level of detail you want. There are list systems that just tell you what types of cars to set out or pick up at a station (you pick which cars and industries). Other systems deal with routing individual cars. Tag on car systems use a colored or coded tag on top of a car to indicte its routing. Car card and waybill (CC&WB) uses a combination of a car card and a waybill to replicate a prototype waybill to assign destinations for cars. List systems (inconjucntion with CC&WB or using a computer database) generate switch and train lists to direct car movements. Virtually all the layouts in my area operate with car cards and waybills. You can easily make your own CC&WB using office suite software (word processor or spreadsheet), so it can be cheap to get into.
Train movement:
There are also many ways to do this. Probably the most common is where a dispatcher (person directing train movements) tells the trains verbally where they can operate. This is called “mother may I” or verbal dispatching, verbal authority (by the more PC people). You can also use variations of prototype systems such as timetable and train order (TT&TO), track warrant control (TWC), direct traffic control (DTC) or by using a dispatcher controled signal system, centralized traffic control (CTC). TT&TO is its own culture and has a fairly long learning curve. It was used from the 1850’s to the 1980’s. TWC and DTC are very simple to implement and understand. They were invented in the 1970’s and 1980’s and still used. CTC requires a lot of hardware and
i was thinking CC&WB as well and i thought about starting with TWC and as i finish my layout convert it over to ctc.
sounds good anyone else?
I use JMRI Decoder Pro free software. It has an Operations module, that you can keep track of all your locos, rolling stock, and build trains using manifests. It tracks car movements.
It creates computer generated car manifests and switch lists.