Operations - A Personal Struggle

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I admit it; I’m mainly a 'roundy-rounder.

Oh, it’s not that I don’t have the means to operate… I have bill boxes, waybills, car cards, and a staging yard. But I’ve had maybe a total of 3 legitimate operating sessions on my layout since fall 2006.

What gives?

I think I get it now. I like to railfan; no question there. And sometimes “ops” seems like work. But there’s a much deeper issue behind it all:

My prototype. It’s the prototype’s fault.

I chose the PRR’s Middle Division to allow me to run virtually all of PRR’s equipment, including passenger, intermodal, coal drags, mixed freights, and steam, all present in 1956 on the Middle Division. But I tried to cram this onto a door layout. The first casualties were 2 of the 4 main tracks.

The real Pennsy Middle Division of 1956 stretched from Marysville PA (north of Enola) to Altoona, and was, in most places, four tracks wide and saw over 150 trains a day. And I’m modeling this on a hollow core door? GACK! Who has that kind of staging? Who has that many trains? Heck, you need 50 trains just for a single 8-hour trick!

To make matters worse, the majority of trains traversing the Middle Division were through-trains. Yes, there were locals (including a very busy one working Lewistown and the Milroy Secondary) as well as interchange opportunities with the narrow gauge East Broad Top and standard gauge Huntingdon & Broad Top. But locals can be handled with switch lists, and the through freights just barrel through. Plus, my layout doesn’t have room for the proper run-around tracks for switching, so I end up tying up both mains to do it.

So for now my layout is little more than a fun place to run the trains I build, all with the dream of a much larger future layout when space and lifestyle allow. But I’m not going to fall into the trap

2

When you stat over, what will you do with your current layout? Sell it? Or keep it for display and train shows?

I have all the neccisary things for op sessions, waybill stuff, and enough locomotives to keep 4 or 5 people busy EVEN IF they don’t bring their own locomotives. The things I’m missing is operators (except in the summer), Digitrax throttles, and the ability to run trains without dead spots…[banghead]

3

The current train layout at the store I work at is no more than a passing siding with 2 spurs serving 2 different industries (one facing point and the other a trailing point). I had a customer switch for 40 minutes yesterday. He had a smile on his face the whole time.

I for one am NOT a roundy-roundy fella. My layout at home has a continuous mainline around the outside of my walls, but my focus is absolutely on switching and operating.

David B

4

I can’t really “start over” untile I retire from the Air Force, so that will probably be in February of 2016 (boy, that sounds like a long time!). By that time the current layout will have been through a number of moves and will probably be on its last legs. I plan to canibalize it for every useable part. That includes structures, trees, signals, the DCC components, details, fences, rock faces, et.c I believe in recycling!

The carcas that would be left would be of no use to anyone. I plan to lay waste to it. That’s because I’ve already spent hobby dollars on every bush and garbage can. I don’t plan on spending that money twice.

5

Dave, it reads to me that for Ops to be something fun and memorable, it must be shared. Think of Joe Fugate’s Ops sessions. For you and me, what we have to run on is not really conducive to shared operations, both by design and size. While we both have the capability, such as it is, our lone pair of eyes on the layout means that we can really only do straight running and perhaps some easy switching or cutting. To do anything else on my layout means I have to focus entirely on one area of the layout and the rest goes “unmarshalled”.

Most of us are loners, most of us probably don’t interact with other modellers or club members (I don’t know of any regular gatherings or clubs where I live except for one 30 miles away…a bit of a drive).

Maybe I am missing some aspect that would change my impression, but it seems to me that if one is a solitary operator, one is relegated largely to railfanning or simple switching.

-Crandell

6

Don’t tense yourself into a struggle. Remember, this hobby is intended to be “FUN”…not a source of stress.

There are many trackplans that allow for a balance of both; switching operations and run through (roundy-round/watching em’ roll) scenarios. My personal preference. That’s how my friend who got me into this hobby had his layout setup way back in the late 70s. His layout was based on the Atlas “Great Eastern Trunk”, which featured a double track mainline, a small freight yard for classifying, a turntable, and several industrial spurs.

7

I like to just run trains too! My chosen prototype (KCS) has very few branch lines and pimarily runs freight with a lot of unit coal and grain trains. When we moved to our new home, I immediately set up my previous modular layout which was a nice sized two track “plywood pacific”. I could run long unit and freight trains. I enjoyed the “model” rail fanning. The problem was that I finally had my dream basement (1800 sq ft) and the temporay layout was keeping me from moving forward.

Two weeks ago I constructed two 16’ (modular sections 6+6+4) four track staging yards. One staging yard for each end of the layout. I broke the modular oval layout apart and re-configured it to a “u” shape, with a staging yard on each end. As I construct the layout, I just keep moving the staging yards out. I hope to get back to running 35-45 unit trains, however the new staging yards limit trains to about 15 cars.

You have a very nice layout. What about constucting some detachable staging yards that could be attached to your present layout, but utilized in your future layout as well?

8

Crandell,

Good point. At lest one of my op sessions involved a complete stranger who was traveling through the area and asked if he could stop by. But otherwise it’s mostly me and my 5 year old son operating, with my 3 year old supervising.

Dave B,

We do switching every few weeks, and can spend upwards of an hour doing so. But usually it’s unstructured and without regard for the paperwork. These sessions are fun (and they certainly point out rolling stock issues far more than roundy-rounding does), but they don’t feel like “true operations.”

My hope is to work closely with people who are smart on MRR operations and people who are smart on how things were done on the Northern Central so that I can design for real operations from the start.

The single track mainline will go far toward discouraging simple 'roundy-rounding. Especially if I have to set up meets and run by signals.

9

Aha…! Read my mind! I installed this about a year ago…:

10

Hi, Dave.

I know exactly whereof you speak! As a native (and naive) New Yorker, I started with a grandiose dream to model Grand Central with the lid off - and one leaf of an old dining room table! As time went on I operated on club railroads that operated (timetable, car cards, the works) and on clubs that ran in circles. My home layouts included roundy-rounders (simple and more complex,) switching on a shelf, a couple of point-to-point efforts (with really short trains) and, finally, a module which connected to the rest of the world with cassettes.

At the same time, my prototype inspiration changed from NYC to JNR and my plans slowly contracted from major city on a busy trunk line to smaller place on a secondary main. Then I visited the Upper Kiso Valley and the whole prototype thing came together. A nice secondary main, single track in the roughest country, with a very interesting narrow gauge logging show connecting at a small town that still retained the look and feel of Tokugawa-era Japan. Later I rather arbitrarily tacked on a coal-mining private railway, based on a real JNR branch on a different island.

From then until now, my efforts have been aimed at reproducing that look and feel. I think I’ve finally designed the layout of my dreams. Time - and a lot more construction - will tell how close I’ve come.

FWIW, the daily schedule lists 139 JNR trains and 23 TTT trains. Obviously, any given consist will have to play several (or many) parts, and possibly double(head) in brass (that being the most-used ingredient in most of my locomotives.)

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

11

Dave, this would be a perfect opertunity to switch to a proper scale…[:D]

David B

12

That’s why I model free-lance layouts. I can set up anything I want in the way of a track plan. I can model an imaginary division of a real or imaginary RR. I can mix and match any scenery I choose.

Elmer.

USN RET.

13

Crandell it it on the head.

Operations is a team sport.

14

Absolutely.

While there’s no way to tell where I’ll end up in 8 years, the hope is that I can hook up with a group of like-minded modelers.

One of the likely scenarios following my Air Force career would be for me to end up that one of the National Weather Service headquarters facilities just north of Washington, DC. I already know quite a number of like-minded modelers there; many are N scale and do northeastern modeling; plus they already do ops sessions.

The big trick is in planning a layout than can both be operated solo for the usual evenings/weekends, but can still challenge a half-dozen operators once a month. I haven’t the foggiest idea how to do that, even though I have Koester’s book on the subject.

As for scale, nice try Dave B![swg]

Actually, the Bellefonte Central RR would be a great HO subject… But anything short of a minor branchline on the Pennsy would be a bigger project in HO than I’m willing to bite off on. So N scale it is!

15

Bingo!

To me, being able to hold a prototype-based op session is the reason I do everything else in the hobby. And it’s the people aspect of the hobby that makes it the most fun.

A prototype op session means a house full of modelers who are there to have a good time running trains! That’s why I love 2 person crews as well – you even get comraderie as you run the trains. So you’re stuck in the hole for 15 min’s while dispatch gets some hot traffic by you? No problem … shoot the breeze with your partner! Sometimes being stuck in a siding can be the fun highlight of the evening’s op session if the conversation is good.

That people element is one of the things I miss about today’s MR. Al Kalmbach called the magazine “Model Railroader” because it’s what the people in the hobby were doing with model trains that made it the most interesting. When was the last time we saw a regular ol’ modeler (not some MR staffer or paid model) on MR’s cover? MR’s current slogan, “Dream it, plan it, build it” is all about the “it” … the stuff of the hobby, the static it. And what happened to “Operate it”?

I love Al’s original, admitedly campy slogan … “Model Railroading is FUN”. Pretty hard for an “it” to have fun … [swg]

16

Gee, Dave, having been to and toured Altoona, I can see an entire layout just devoted to ops there in say the early '50’s or even late '40’s. The supplies that place must have consumed! Loads in-empties out, and new locos and/or parts to ship out. jc5729 John Colley, Port Townsend, WA

17

I designed my layout with operations in mind but the track plan allows for just running trains through the scenery. It is an around-the-walls dogbone with stacked triple tracked staging loops at either end so that trains can run back and forth across the visible portion of the mainline. I’ll run both through trains and locals. Each track of the double track main has a cutoff track to bypass the staging loops which turns the layout into a larger double track oval. Those cutoff tracks allow for roundy-round running but they also have operational purpose. Someday I hope to have sufficient hopper cars to run unit coal trains, loads in one direction and empties in the other. The cutoff tracks will surve as their staging tracks. Up until now, I have been too busy with construction to commence with full fledged operations but that is the plan. There are just two many places where it is still bare plywood and I just don’t find it satisfying to operate over these areas. I hope to have the whole layout scenicked within the year, even if it is not fully detailed. At that point I plan to begin full fledged operations but can always switch to just train running when that mood suits me.

18

I think a big failing on my part was that I chose a plan that looked good to me, built it, and then thought about how to operate it.

I got it backwards.

Instead, I ought to consider first how I want to operate and then plan the layout accordingly.

When I chose the plan, I realized it would look great running at shows, which I sometimes do. But what looks great at shows ('roundy-rounding mostly) doesn’t automatically translate into satisfaction at home.

The next step for me is to perhaps alter the layout somewhat by choosing a different part of the Pennsy for it to represent. The Middle Division is just too big to represent on a door in any scale.

19

http://www.monumentalcity.net/maps/1905/

Scanned plates that will show all of the railroads including the Northern Central. You will want to hit “Save target as” onto your local drive and then open the image in the highest resolution your video card can give you.

There you will see alley level maps showing in some cases sidings.

Elsewhere on the webpage has some NCRR tidbits as well.

Dont give up on your railroad, Ive enjoyed it much though the pictures you presented here.

20

Awesome site! Thanks!

No, I’m not giving up on my layout by a long shot.

But on the to-do list is to eventually replace the code 80 track with more realistic code 55. I figured at that point I can re-arrange the trackage some to make things more conducive to operations.