Relating to a topic I read earlier, how many people have operating sessions on thier own layouts, and how many of you attend operating sessions at others layouts? I try to have 6 sessions a year, hopefully starting this year in october due to my addition to train room(almost ready). I also attend op sessions at a friend of mines in fall/winter/spring months.Randy
I have a “session” just about anytime I can spare a couple of hours (Yes, it takes about two hours to complete all duties on my 11’6’’ by 8’6’’ layout). My car card and waybill system is flexible enough that if I am limited by time, not every industry “requests” a car that day. I set up the cars, and run both of the scheduled runs on my small layout. I hope to host some of my local modeling friends in the future, and maybe I’ll run the through freight and they can run the local. My apartment is a bit small to host more than a person or two.
My friend has a large basement layout, and we are preparing the layout for operation. Installation of tortoise switch motors, setup of car card and waybill routing, and a conversion from Railcommand to EasyDCC will seal the deal.
I plan on having them, I’ll use 2 to 5 operators in each session.
I have just recently switched from a simple car card system that I designed to the 4 cycle system that micro-mark puts out. Just completed all the car cards (460 cars and 60 loco cards)they could of made the lines a little longer. now all we(me and the wife) have to do is the waybills. I usually have 5-8 operators and run 20-25 trains a session lasting 4 hours. it used to take me 8 -10 hours to get ready because everything was hand written, hoping new system will shorten time by half. Randy
I usually have an operating session every other Thursday night. The other Thursday night I go up the road about a 1/4 mile and operate on another layout.
I usually have about 6 to 10 operators and this year round. Then usually twice a year I have an OPTUD (OP Till U Drop) which is on a Saturday and runs from 9:00am to 9:00pm. The last one was on 7/24. I had 41 operators throughout the day in 3 shifts.
Ran about 50 to 60 trains. We use the modified pin system and there are over 50 engines and 750 cars. The mainline is 1000ft with a total trackage of 2600ft. I have 6 shortlines feeding the mainline and model the CR lowgrade line from Dubois to East Brady, PA.
The operators have come from as far away as Cleveland (90 mile), Pittsburgh (80 mile) and Erie (80 mile).
Bob H Clarion, PA
I’m in an round robin operating group. There is an ops session at a layout just about every week. There are about 15 current operating layouts in the group, with a few more coming on line in the next year or so. During the summer it slows down a bit with sessions about every other week. Some guys host special sessions for some reason or other and some of us travel to other regions to attend weekend “Op Till You Drop” sessions.
Larry Burk
Holly, MI
On my HO layout the crew goes to work at 6:00 AM and switches cars that the through train as dropped during the night into industry order then proceeds to switch the industries.This crew usually ties up around 1-2 :00 PM or about 2 hours real time…Of course the crew may tie up earlier if there isn’t much work to do.[
]I use a 15-1 time clock…Its on my wrist.[;)]
I am helping a friend get ready for operations. We are working up the job descriptions for 3 switchers and he is tweaking the schedules for 2 first class and 4 second class trains plus 4 locals that run as extras. We run on a 6:1 fast clock so we can do 24 hours in 4 actual. Great fun! Beware…once hooked you want to: 1. operate realistically (sound helps here) and 2. get to point to point railroading with staging instead of roundy-roundy.
I used to know some guys who had layouts, and we would get together every week at one house or the other. I miss that. One day when I get my layout done, I’ll have to find a crew.
Our group of anywhere from 6 to 19 meet every Tuesday night and Saturday, if we feel like operating we do, if not, some work and others just talk. The important thing is that we enjoy the time together and do what suits the mood. Out club has 20 modules that we set up at the GATS show or anywhere else people would like to have a train running.
Have a blessed day and remember SANTA FE ALL THE WAY
Bob