My Northern Pacific Proto-Lanced layout operates: through freight, local industries and some passenger service. It serves: the railroad itself (Coal, oil, sand and parts for cars and locomotives and general freight) Copper Mining, Logging, Meat Packing, a brewery and a Railroad Express Agency. There are three copper mines served by the line, delivering empty ore cars and picking up loads and delivering mining supplies.
I am very new to operations, although I have been building and running trains on this layout since 1988. I’m finding that keeping the railroad supplied with coal, sand and oil seems to be 50% of my operations. In an interest to learn more about operations and find out if there are other model rails in my area, interested in operations, I joined the OpSIG. Most of the operations in Minnesota appear to be in the Twin Cities, so joining the OpSIG was not much help for me.I probably don’t operate prototypically and am content with that.