The Blue Smoke RR is an O Gauge hi-rail pike featured in the 1987 book Great Toy Train Layouts of America, the follow-on video series of the same name (now on DVD) and in a June 1990 Model Railroader article. The track plan (designed by Steve Brenneisen of Ross Custom switches) is excellent; in 25’ x 25’ there’s a long double track main folded over itself with two peninsulas, passing sidings, numerious industrial sidings and a yard. The railroad has two control panels, one for yard operations and one for the mainline. Each panel is separated by a high mountain reaching almost to the ceiling.
Each engineer is also a dispatcher, they contact each other by telephone and
pass orders for cars and consists. Hoppers for the mine, lumber cars for the
sawmill, etc. While this is going on a passenger train is making the rounds
and a fast clock ticks away. This is not unlike the kind of operation scale
model railroaders have been enjoying for decades, but you don’t read much
about it on O gauge pikes. You could duplicate it on a smaller system,
tinplate or hi-rail.
Fast forward 20 years and you could replace the centralized panels with
walk-around controllers and use a PC based switchlist program. A walk-around throttle would certainly be good for solo operation, but too much of a tech revamp might spoil the railroad. The space allotted, the lack of wireless remotes/command control and the owners desire for dispatcher-oriented operations combined very well. Command control would eliminate the block operations, but I think the challenge would be in insuring command contol served the RR and didn’t become the focus.
Going back and looking at the Blue Smoke has me re-thinking layout design in general. I’ll never have the space for a linear design with miles of mainline, but
borrowing a few concepts from the Blue Smoke RR perhaps someday I’ll be able to build a railroad instead of just another layout.
Br