Hey all
Im building a layout and im wondering how i can operate it. I have a Nice Staging yard, a mine, and some turnouts, i need advice, or ideas to help me out
Heres the layout
Tommy,
Welcome Aboard! Looking at your proposed plan(and I am assuming HO scale on a 4' by 8'), I like the idea of some staging. The negative is that 'long' reach to the back of the layout. Getting at those turnouts will be a problem, especially if you are going to switch that mine. If you are going to have to put turnouts back there, maybe having a double ended staging area that trains run through might be a more reliable feature. Moving the mine down by the enginehouse area , and developing the right leg into a branch serving another industry is where I would go. But you are the 'main man' for your railroad - Do what you are comfortable with.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
The idea of operations is to move cars from someplace to someplace on purpose in an organized manner.
The place the cars start from and the place the cars go to doesn't have to be on your railroad. One or both can be off the layout (in other words in staging.)
A big aid to operation is a "siding", a track wthat has a switch on both ends. One of the uses is to move the engines to the other end of the train. For example. If you built a train in staging with the engine on the end towards the layout and ran it out, the engine would be on the wrong end of the train to switch the mine. The solution is to put a track near the mine, next to the main track with a switch on both ends that is about as long as a train.
With your siding the train comes out of staging with empty hoppers, runs around the layout a couple times and then goes into the siding. the engine uncouple from the train and runs out the other end of the siding, then it comes back down the main. It pulls the loads out of the min and sets them on the main track. Then it takes the empty cars and puts them in the mine. If there is a caboose the train can leave it in the siding. The engin can then couple into the loads on the main, pull them past the switch and couple into the caboose. Note the train is pointed in the opposite direction now. The train can run around the the layot a couple times and then pull into the staging yard.
If you add a siding on the side with the engine house then a couple "yard" tracks and an industry track or two, you can have much more involved operations. Then a freight train can come out of staging, go to the yard, set out cars, pick up cars and go back to staging. You can run a train out of your yard that switches up the cars the freight brought in, spot and pull the industries, maybe spot and pull the mine and come back to the yard.
Think about that and feel free to ask more questions.
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
I can see two basic train operations.
1. Through train - This is where a train would come from staging. Run a specified number of laps to get to its "destination" and then return to staging. The problem here is that either coming out or going in the train is going to have to back up.
2. Local Train - train backs out of staging. Runs a specified number of laps to get to the mine. Switches out the specified (not all just certain ones) cars at the mine. Then either backs up that specified number of laps to get back where it came from, or runs another specified number of laps forward to the "next" town.
The engine house doesn't add much to the operation except that either of the above trains could stop there to switch out power. OR It could be used to change the direction of a train by pulling past the engine house lead. Pulling the loco out of the house and putting on the rear of the train (which just became the front of the train). Moving the train past the engine house lead on the other side. Put the original locomotive into the engine house.
Since there are no passing sidings only one train can be running at a given time.
Converting the engine house to another industry would greatly add to the operation, as would a passing siding. Another thing that would help with the through trains would be to add a reversing loop so the train could come out forward and return forward. Backing up a through train is just - ummm ummm distasteful at best.