There are many facets to running a railroad be it 1:1 scale or 1:87 scale. Many people have way bills for their freight cars. The LION runs a model of based on New York City Transit, all cars on a train are linked with draw bars, there is no switching to do.
But the LION operates his railroad from the tower, and the trains, once released from the terminals, run automatically. But the LION still has his paper work. The tower and each supervisor's desk maintains a copy of the Train Register, logging each train that passes that station.
The LION created such a 24 hour train register for his Broadway Local line, based on actual NYCT train registers. The LION'S line runs 438 trains daily. There are "safety switches" all around the layout, so that I can stop the railroad if there is a problem. The safety switch also turns of the timers and the "Railroad Clock", in other words, it is a pause button. When I am done running trains for the night, I press the pause button and turn off the lights. When I return, I press the reset button and the scenario resumes where it left off.
If I were to run the railroad for an hour a day, it will take close to a month to run all of the trains shown in this Train Register. You can download a .pdf of the Train Register here, and make comments as desired.
Thanks, Elias
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS