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Rob Spangler’s Western Pacific 8th Subdivision
They say that there is a prototype for every thing! Great setup! I am beginning to believe that operation may be better when a lot of stuff is manual. I noticed the large number of ground throws in use. That gets the operator right down into things. If you add the new couplers that are meant to be manual, you get so much more flexibility out of the railroad (you can spot a car anywhere). Sure, let that distant dispatcher at the CTC board set up meets and passes but let the train crew throw the switches for the local work. This looks like a great group. Hey, David Popp, how about a segment about this group on MR Video Plus?
Very enjoyable excursion. Liked the perspective afforded by the on rail camera (the i Car). It looks like everyone was engaged in the operation of the railroad - few spectators. I agree with John from Texas that MR Video Plus should do a segment. It would be interesting to hear from a group that is “learning the art …of operations”.
That was fun to watch. I was a bit concerned that the iCar was going to ram the train ahead. 
May I ask what camera you were using? I am in the market for on to use on our layout. Tnx!
Great backdrops!
The camera used is my iPhone! It is a special car that you see at the beginning of the video where my iPhone just slips into.
We have operated on several layouts and generally the crew throws their own switches and we use picks to uncouple cars (anywhere we want.) On another layout the dispatcher throws them on the main and the crew works their own in the yard. This one is totally done by the crew.
Rob does some great backdrops and he just did a river scene (that I have yet to see in person) that looks great too.
Getting into operations can be a little intimidating at first but with this group it has been lots of fun!
I plan on doing more of these videos, on other layouts too. I might do one where it is the view as though riding in the caboose looking back, as someone suggested might be fun.
Cool - I didn’t realize Jim submitted the video to MR but it’s fun to see it here. In case anyone from MR reads the comments, I’d be up for a segment on MR Video Plus or whatever.
I’m solidly behind our division’s operator training efforts. The ops group is a program that should prove beneficial to other NMRA divisions as well, and we’d be glad to share our experiences.
What scale are we talking about here? Another question is how does the iPhone record ahead when it is sitting sideways on the car?
Nice idea though.
This is HO scale. The iPhone sits in the car and there is a mirror that is set at an angle to make the camera point straight ahead. Then in post production you just reverse the image so that it looks right. Pretty clever. I didn’t come up with it but I like how it works.
Possibly the best video that I’ve watched presented in the user submitted video segment of MR. The era wasn’t the usual transition period, what a relief! The backdrops–well, need I comment? The operating crew members were enjoying themselves, certainly not taking the exercise over seriously, and great to see a female among them! Plenty of operation possibilities, trains were on the move, we weren’t waiting for something to happen, action aplenty. MR needs to follow this approach up in Video Plus on this and other such great layouts.