This got me wondering if anyone models a working break down train in their operating session?
Would the person be happy or sad. Taken it out and took it into staging and changing it. Ready to bring it back into the yard for the next hour or two.
While it’s off layout for two hours. The person would have another locomotive waiting to leave and after that’s done and it’s ready to get wreck train back into the yard.
Would this be fun or not?
Modeling the break down train will run once every 5 or 6 months apart.
I’m not sure how proto’s operated it, but as I want to model an SP&S one as they were always somewhere along the line. I think that they’d hold a lower priority to other trains as I’ve watched the SP&S 8mm film on youtube and it shows an MoW train waiting on a very long GN Oregon Trunk boxcar drag.
I hate to nitpic your grammar, but, what do you mean by “break down train”? 50 years on 4 different railroads and I never heard that term. Are you referring to a wreck train which cleans up derailments? Or, a work train such as the MOW dept would have out doing track work?
Lets not get too excited about the terminology, but I’m going to assume that you mean a ‘wreck train’ for purposes of this discussion.
First question: how many operators are we talking about?
If a wreck train is going to operate in that function then it needs a ‘wreck’ to deal with. Wrecks take a lot of time to clean up. If you plant a wreck in the middle of your operations then, unless it happens to be on a secondary track or if you have alternate routes available, you are pretty much going to shut your ops session down.
So, my answer is a question: can you model a wreck without interfering with all of the other operators to an unreasonable degree? I know that you are not going to get into ripping up damaged track but if the consequence of modelling a wreck is to shut everybody down for a while then I don’t think that will be a very popular move. If, on the other hand, you are working by yourself then who cares what trains have to wait?
If you want to bring things to a complete halt, run a wreck train.
If you want to make ops a little more complicated, then run a MOW train.
While the second often interrupts the flow of traffic, the dispatcher has more options as these are usually planned for to some degree. Things may need to get done, but it won’t interrupt a hot passenger or freight train if the dispatcher knows his stuff. Lower class trains may well have to wait, though.
The wreck train is obvious and pretty focused in its purpose.
The MOW train cover just about anything and everything else: spreading ballast; dropping rip-rap; laying rail; trimming vegetation; repairing a bridge; moving MOW rolling stock or equipment to next location; etc, etc.
I’ve read that some operators dispatch a special train with a crane whenever an accidental unintended derailment occurs and follow some planned procedure to correct the drailment. I don’t know how this impacts the rest of the session since that track is unusable until the train is rerailed and put back in service.
If his layout is double tracked then a wreck train could work on one track cleaning up the mess, while the other track runs on slow orders through the wreck site. If th layout is single tracked then it would cause a shutdown for a while, say 15 minutes while the wreck is cleaned up. Then things could slowly be brought back to normal.
I wrote a several part article on this in the OpSig Dispatch Office. My suggestions was NOML (Not On My Layout). If you want to run the wrecker do so, but send it to a wreck on an adjacent line, not on yours. DON"T MODEL THE WRECK. A wreck that requires the wrecker shuts down the railroad for something between 8 hours and several days. If you sent out the wrecker and are using it then you won’t be passing many trains on the adjacent track. A real wrecker has to put out outriggers to keep the crane from turning over if the load is not centered on the track, plus if the crane turns any the rear of the crane will foul the adjacent track.
Even better send it to a wreck on another railroad. It was relatively common for one road to borrow a closer wrecker or one on the "right’ side of the wreck from a connecting railroad. Once you send the wrecker to the other road, then you can model detours of trains from the other road running around the derailment on your railroad.
First: This is a yes or no question would you run it if it was available?
Second: the train would leave the yard and go into staging on the other side of the layout. Pretend that the railroad had a wreck outside the layout not in it.
Operators on my layout was about 5 or 6 people.
The term break down train comes from Great Britain, England not in America. Half the time it sounds better to said.
Good thread. I like both “Wreck Trains” and M.O.W Trains. To me they’re very interesting and add flavor to railroad operating sessions.
Below is an vintage AHM diesel crane that I purchased a few years ago on ebay. I plan to reletter and detail into the SCL scheme to resemble the prototype crane in the photo below it:
I would be in favor to have one if it would be randomized. IE, you finished your yard job of assembling an outbound coal drag. you the recieve orders to take a MOW train to the other end of the layout.
I could ‘schedule’ a wreck train, but it would be a VERY infrequent occurrence. The train, powered by a DD13 diesel-hydraulic, resides in a cassette which can be connected to the main layout when, as and if. 99% probability, it would just pass through on the way to a ‘problem’ somewhere in the rest of Japan.
I almost always have a MOW train at or near the current end of track, with a light-duty steam loco on the point. Two gons (one a trash car) and a gon/brake carry rail joiners, prepared jumpers, track nails and loose ties for use in tracklaying. When work is done the train returns to the yard, where the trash is dumped and the consumables are replenished as necessary.
One of the fairly recent MR news items showed somebody’s N scale big hook rerailing a box car. The area was WAY too neat to appear realistic.
Where was this sage advice when I “modeled” this scenario?[;)]
I was pulling all the freight cars I owned just for kicks, 3 locos on the point, more farther back in the train. Was watching the middle somewhere, didn’t notice I lost something until it came all the way around and caught up with it! the 4 disconnect log cars were behind the caboose.
