Reading Model Railroaded has given me a lot of insight into operating American themed layouts. That made me wonder, how do operations differ on European-themed layouts. In general it seems European railways run a lot more passenger traffic than freight and trains are typically much shorter than in America. Are the operating procedures used different from American practice?
Well, Europe does use more passenger trains and fewer airplanes. But then most trips are shorter. Not many countries there are bigger than some of our states. People also live closer together: not at all like the American West.
USA uses freight trains to haul unit trains from farm or mine to users in distant cities. Also in USA shipping companies (the boat kind) can ship a container directly from Shang Hi to Chicago on a single manifest. We don’t have many goods wagons shipping directly to end users anymore. Yes, it is done, but it is not the big picture anymore.
ROAR
Very much so.
The concept of train order operation and dispatchers as used in N American is unknown in Europe and the UK.
NA railroads are heavily freight oriented and the freight moves from shipper to consignee, using private sidings direct to both parties. In Europe and the UK there is a lot more freight delivered to freight houses and “goods yards” which are like NA team tracks.
Since there are way more railroads in the NA, since they are private companies, there is a lot more variation in equipment and interchange in the NA is much more involved than in Europe or the UK.
Bear in mind that one single NA railroad company can be as big as a national railroad in Europe.
Layout size has a big impact on what can be modelled. Many European modellers go for smaller layouts, often highly detailed of a specific scene. Many times they are point to point with staging/fiddle yards on either end or both. This is through necessity, there are not the basement empires that we see here in the USA.
Era also would make a difference. Modern European railways are very passenger orientated. High speed trains dominate the long haul traffic. It seems to me that whatever freight hauling is done, tends to be at night.
European layouts are much more display layouts, designed to run a large number of trains, and not so much “operation” layouts, as we understand them. They usually consist of a station and a length of visible track to “parade” the trains. Staging, return loops etc. are hidden downstairs".
A smaller number of modelers build point-to-point layouts, depicting a branch line operation.
A picture tells more than a thousand words, so here is a layout I have designed for a Swiss friend of mine, which nicely demonstrates the basic concept of a lot of European (excluding the UK) layouts:
My friend likes to watch his trains run. His layout is computer-controlled, the actual timetable of the real Blausee-Mitholz station acting as a master for the train schedule.
Someone once said that if you say “train” to an American, they picture a freight train; if you say “train” to an Englishman, he pictures a passenger train. For a variety of reasons (high gasoline prices, shorter trips, better passenger and transit availability) Europe runs a higher pct. of passenger trains than run in North America. So of course modelers reflect that in their layout.
From what I’ve seen in books, videos etc. on European (primarily British) modelers, it seems like even if they can do a large layout, they do it closer to 1:1 to the prototype, like modeling a junction between two railroads in one town, with lots of space for scenery and structures. In the US and Canada it seems like we like squeeze in as many towns and stations as we can, so often the engine of a train is in one city while the end of the train is still in the last town.
Some of us do, and some of us don’t. There has actually been quite a trend in North American modeling toward NOT modeling multiple “towns” but rather to model one “place” - even on large layouts.
One friend of mine, modeling the PRR, is only modeling the trackage and operations in and around Baltimore, Maryland. And his layout is large, it fills a 26’ x 45’ basement and has three scenic decks! It features a full size model of Baltimore’s Penn Station with stations tracks over 15’ long.
Another modeler in our group, who “loosely” models the B&O, has a layout that fills a 1200 sq ft basement, that only models one “town”. That town has a large (20 plus foot long, 8 track) freight yard, engine terminal and mulitple industries. One other area of the layout has several large industries, and another has a large coal mine complex. The rest of the layout is just double track mainline running through the country side. There is also a very large unsceniced lower level staging area that can store 15-20 long trains.
My new layout (and the previous one it replaces), on my freelance “ATLANTIC CENTRAL”, also models only one “town” and several junctions and industries within about 25 miles on either side. The whole “span” of the layout repesents a theoretical distance of less than 50 miles, represented by about 8 scale miles of actual trackage - again only one large “town”. All major destinations are “off stage”. My layout is two levels in an 800 sq foot room.
All three of the layouts discribed are designed for passenger trains of 8-14 cars and freight trains of 30-50 cars.
And the second two are specificly designed for both “operation” and display running.
As for Euro
I guess I model more like a European layout then. What the distances are on my 1:160 would be the same if scaled up to 1:1. If it is a quarter mile in 1:160 then it is a quarter mile in 1:1.
One major difference between typical US prototype and Japanese practice is the sheer intensity of traffic. I model a secondary line through sparsely populated (for Japan) territory - and have 140+ trains a day operating into, out of or (mostly) through the subdivision station that’s the central point on my layout. Major lines have traffic that rivals the New York subway or the London Underground…
As in Europe, passenger operation dominates. Freight is rather limited, operating mostly in the off-hours. During the commuter rush morning and evening, freight simply isn’t scheduled.
Operation is by timetable - even light helper locomotives moving downgrade have their appointed slots on the daiya. If something unusual (like the Imperial Train) has to be inserted, a scheduled train has to be anulled to provide the necessary track occupancy slot. Of course, some trains have slots that are seldom operated, mostly freights scheduled for peak capacity during periods of slack business.
My layout is unusual for Japanese prototype - I actually incorporate car card and waybill operation. Still, at least 90% of the cars in JNR freights are just passing through - and only mine timbers and the occasional carload of coal move between origin and destination on the visibly modeled part of the system.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
For whatever value it adds to this conversation, some US roads had very high traffic levels in times past.
Here in the Baltimore area, old timetables and tower logs from the late 1930’s and all through the 1940’s, indicate that on the PRR’s busy 4 plus track mainline from Washhington to Boston, standing along the tracks near here where I live, just out side of Baltimore, one could expect to see a train, of one type or another, in one direction or the other, about every 8 minutes - virtually 24 hours a day - aprox. 180 trains a day.
Sheldon
The era that is used to answer this question makes a big difference. I kind of get the sense that the OP was asking about modern times, but don’t know for sure. Likewise I think the question is more about model railroad operations, rather than necessarily actual real-world operations?
I think it is reasonable to assume that most modellers run much a much greater volume of traffic than the real prototype, otherwise there would be long periods of nothing going on. Fast clock being one method.
One factor with UK railroading was that air brakes weren’t required the way they were here, so up until recent times many freight cars (sorry, “good wagons”) didn’t have air brakes. This restricted the length of a train to however many cars you could stop using just the engine brakes and the “brake van” at the rear. This means shorter and more frequent trains.
I understand it was because more than half of UK rolling stock was privately owned, rather than owned by the railways, and the private companies didn’t want to spend the money to invest in air brakes and so lobbied the government to not require them like in the US.
Hello,
Sir Madog hit the nail on the head with his comments for model railroads. I have spend some time on German forums dealing only with German themes for layouts. The vast majority is to watch the trains roll by, with what we would consider here in North America a heavy emphasis on passenger operations.
The 1:1 railroad is heavily funded by the government to enable passenger train service to such a degree that we can only dream about here in North America. On one the one forum there was a long discussion about Germany’s heaviest train, a ore train that had a increase in tonnage from 5,000 tons to 6,000 tons. In order to move such a train the use of two BR151 electric motors is used, having a combined HP of over 16,000 hp. To accelerate this train to speed quicker they use a third to start the train and uncouple it while in motion. This is to prevent a large disturbance in the passenger train schedule.
All trains have a number of axle restriction in Germany restricting the trains to a max length of around 40 freight cars. These short freights with big HP enable a system that can have relative fast passenger trains as well as freight scheduled tightly.
Both systems work, one is more fascinating then the other depending on your preferences.
Hope it helps
Frank
Most UK modellers that I know and discuss model railways with on various groups have no real concept of “operation” as we know it in North America.
The vast majority have one station model railways and just run a series of fixed rake (formation/consist) trains through the station, usually to some form on timetable but more like a sequence. As others have pointed out, mostly passenger trains as that’s what UK railway definitely are these days and mainly were in steam days.
Many of their model freight trains are run as a fixed formation, the same loco on the head end and the same freight cars every time. Their model railways are really “rail fan by the line side” dioramas and not operations based as many of us in North America like to model.
Much UK modelling is all in the details. Not just the details on the railway side of the fence but in the surrounding scenery. The fully detailed greenhouse and vegetable garden in a backyard, fully detailed shop windows, highly detailed streets, fully detailed canal locks with a barge and horses etc., etc… This detail modelling will be feature photos in the hobby magazine and there will be almost as many detail photos of what could be called “scenery” as there will be of model trains themselves.
As I explained below, one does not need to model multiple “towns” to model more indepth operations.
Even though myself and the others who’s layouts I discribed do not try to model both the origin and final destination of most trains, we still engage in car card systems, train orders, and various other methods of individual car forwarding.
Some freight traffic does originate and terminate on the layout, but most only does one or the other, and some just “bridges” though like our European friends.
Part of this is centered on how much selective compression you want to tolerate. Some is based on other visual concerns, like realisticly believable train lengths.
Modeling one place with continous through staging also balances the duties of train makeup/breakdown in proportion to our short mainline runs, actually allowing for more prototype action, not less.
Many more North American modelers use to be very scenicly focused as Roger discribed about modelers in Europe - some still are.
Some of us like to find balance in all these areas of the hobby.
Sheldon