prototype operations

[ShaunCN]

Does anyone operate their layouts ussing prototype operations, like signlas, car cards,waybills ect. I want to operate my layout in ths way but am i bit overwhelmed with all the info i am reading on the web. so can sombody explain to me an easy way to operate my model trains in a prototype manner. I would like to have trains switching cars at the grain elevators and coal elevators, and the factories. are their any certain names for types of trains, like wayfreights or thru freights.

Thanks

ShaunCN

[wp8thsub]

Join the Operations Special Interest Group list on Yahoo Groups. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ry-ops-industrialSIG/ You'll need a Yahoo ID to join.

[Dayliner]

Hi ShaunCN,

I use a variation of a system that was described by Spike Trail way back in the March 1974 MR (yes, I really am that old!). It was called Cargo Forwarding, or something like that, and I like it because it simulates the actual shipping and receiving patterns of the various industries we model, rather than just shuffling cars for the sake of shuffling cars. The system can be as high-tech or low-tech as you like--I am definitely at the low end of the scale as I put everything on 3x5 cards and keep the works in a recipe file box by my layout.

Start by listing all the industries on your layout, and then figure out how many carloads of each commodity that industry will ship and/or receive in a given period (I use a two-week shipping cycle myself, but that's not too important--what is important is that you use the same shipping cycle for every industry on your layout). Then for each individual shipment I draw up a card which indicates car type (I use AAR codes for this), cargo, shipper and consignee. If the shipment is from one industry to another on the same layout, that's all you need; if the shipper or consignee is off-line, then you will also have to indicate interchange routing (I have two interchanges on my layout). At the moment I have seven industry tracks as well as the two interchange tracks, and will end up with between 50 and 60 shipment cards. This part is kind of fun, as you can dream up all sorts customers across North America who can receive from or ship to industries on your railroad. I've got a mill that regularly ships a boxcar of lumber to Bucksnort, Tennessee. (Do any trains go to Bucksnort?)

OK so far? Now take some more 3x5 cards, and write up one for each revenue service freight car you have. List reporting marks, number, and car type (I also use these cards to record defects and routine maintenance, but that's optional). Now, take one of your shipment cards, and locate the nearest available car of the required type (on my railroad that's the yardmaster's job), clip the car card to the shipment card, and presto--you've got yourself a waybill. Draw a few more shipment cards and clip them to the car cards, and now you've got a train.

Now things get interesting. Are these cars empties being delivered to a shipper, or loads going to a consignee? On my layout, I assume that if the "from" industry is off-layout, then the car is a load which must be delivered and then the empty returned or released for another shipment. If the "from" industry is on-layout, then the car is an empty which must first be delivered to the shipper before being forwarded as indicated on the card. At each station (I have two), you need three card pockets marked "For set out", "Loading/unloading", and "For pickup". You can make little card boxes or pockets to mount on your layout fascia, you can just file everything in the card box like I do (but be sure to indicate the station clearly). All your cars going to station A are filed under "A--for setout", to station B, "B--for setout", etc. As you get to each station and finish your setouts, transfer the cards to "Loading/unloading" for the appropriate station. At the start of the next operating session, transfer those cards to the "For pickup" slot, and as your wayfreight arrives at each station, you can pick up those cars as well as setting out new deliveries.

At this point all the old heads are probably tearing their hair out and screaming, "How did he come up with something so complicated with so little hardware?" All I can say is that it works for me. I can make an operating session as short or as long as I like simply by varying the number of cards I pull. If I've got half an hour to myself after the kids are in bed, I can pull half a dozen cards and keep myself occupied. If I've got a buddy coming over for the evening, I can pull out all the stops (literally), and we can both be busy for a couple of hours at least.

There are more refinements to the system. For example, I've drawn up a fairly detailed list of car movement rules. But that's for another time, assuming I haven't bored you to death already.

Happy railroading'

[ClinchValleySD40]

You (and anyone else interested in Ops) are in luck. The round robin group I belong to (SE Mich Proto Operators) is having the annual Ops Weekend first weekend in March. Check out our website at http://www.michops.org plenty of info on the weekend and the layouts. It's open to anyone that likes ops and anyone that would like to learn ops. Sessions run Friday night, two on Saturday and one on Sunday morning. It is not necessary to sign up/attend all of them. If you'd like more info or have any questions, feel free to contact me.

Larry Burk
Holly, MI

[ShaunCN]

wow that was very confussing. I gees there is no easy way to do it.

ShaunCN

[Anonymous]

MR books shows they still sell their publication, "Realistic Model Railroad Operation." It lists for $19.95 and is a bargain at that, or any, price. It will take you by the hand and teach you the things you want to know about prototypical operation of your layout. The good thing here is that you will be able to learn at your own pace. When you want to stop and ponder, just put the book on the shelf until you're ready to have at it again.

Tom

[Dayliner]

QUOTE:
wow that was very confussing. I gees there is no easy way to do it.

Sorry, ShaunCN. It wasn't meant to be confusing (but looking at my post again I can see how it could come across that way). I thought it might be of interest to you, or others, to see how one person is doing it (and I'm quite new to all this too).

Operations are a like a lot of other aspects of this hobby, I think. There isn't really a "right" way to do it. Find an approach that works for you, and don't be afraid to modify or tweak it so that you're comfortable with it. After all, it's your railroad, and you get to run it the way you want to.

Cheers,

[Anonymous]

There is an easier way to do operations with coloured dots on the top of your cars, and corresponding colours for your industries. A guy at our local club did it this way for a while to get a feeling for the operational potential of his layout. He then switched to car cards, but the dots worked for quite some time.

See: http://www.safetyrule.ca/trains/car_cards.htm

Denis' articles about the colour dot system in The Interchange can be found at www.ovar.ca . The newsletters are in pdf format.

Andrew

[dehusman]

What operations boils down to is giving cars a destination.

There are 4 basic types of movements you can have on your layout:
1. A car is loaded somewhere off your layout and comes onto the visible portion of your layout, is spotted, unloaded and returns empty.
2. A car is to be loaded on your layout and sent to an off layout destination, an empty must be located , spotted, the car loaded, pulled and then sent on to its destination.
3. A car is loaded on your layout and shipped to a location on your layout (a combination of #1 & #2 only it all takes place on the visible portion of the layout).
4. A car overheads the layout, it is going from a location off your layout to a destination off your layout, but crosses your layout.

There are several basic ways to communicate the destination:
1. Tag on car - some sort of color or otherwise coded label or object (thumbtack or "chip") is placed on the car.
2. Car Card and Waybill - each railcar has a car card and "waybills" are attached to it giving information on destination and commodity.
3. List - either handwritten or computer generated, the list has each car and its destination written out on a form that the crew uses.

Thats the basics. Exactly how you arrange things is very much your choice. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want.

Dave H.

[AntonioFP45]

Defintely interested in prototype style operations, though a simplified version of it.

[Anonymous]

http://www.gatewaynmra.org/operate.htm

[Anonymous]

ShaunCN, once you "ease-in" to the "Ops" concept, you will never find model R.R.ing boring. You may wi***o make some changes in your layout design to farther increase the challenges offered with prototype "operations." But, is that a bad thing? I've often wondered how many cases of model railroader's "burn-out" could have been saved by turning to the "Ops" concept.

[Anonymous]

Let's see...

Your railroad.. let's call it "Choo Choo Lines" has a boxcar sitting empty and not making any money for you.

One day your phone rings and a SAWMILL in Woodside wants you to deliver ONE empty Boxcar so they can load wood for a factory in Toytown.

After you deliver that boxcar and it is loaded, the phone will ring again asking you to deliver that loaded Boxcar to Toytown for the toy factory.

You later are told that toys are now loaded into that boxcar at Toytown and you are asked to deliver those toys to New York City and drop it off at the warehouse there.

The warehouse calls you and says they are very pleased with the toys and can you get another load of toys for New York City?

Suddenly you find yourself, Choo Choo lines, Sawmill, Factory and Warehouse all partners in delivering toys to the stores in New York City in time for Christmas.

That one lonely empty "Choo Choo Lines" boxcar on your layout isnt so lonely and empty is it now?


I thought by writing this out in a picture/story form will help.

Lee

P.S. Other children in other cities learn of this wonderful toy and Demand explodes across North America. Suddenly you need to find other Sawmills, factories, warehouses more boxcars and bigger locomotives (more of them too) etc etc etc.

Your small region finds good employment making toys for America, becomes a boom town and now demands Furnature, Food, Mail, Passenger Service, Newspaper, Chemicals (Paints for toys etc) coal or oil for those cold winters and numerous other "stuff" that your railroad is now able to deliver.

What a jackpot of revenue and business eh? All for one boxcar load of toys.

That sawmill may require other carloads of supplies, sawdust to be shipped out, and possibly lumber to be sent to New York City...(now we are getting into big time railroading eh?)

That Toy factory in Toy town may need paints, brushes, supplies, cardboard boxes and "tools" as well as parts (Nails, Screws ball bearings etc)

The Warehouse in New York City may get so impressed with your impeccable service and ask you for other things and possibly bigger ticket items to keep New York City's customers happy.

[Anonymous]

Shaun,

After going to an operating session, I became hooked on the idea of prototypical operations. Designing a layout to operate and coming up with an operational plan will take some time and some reading up on your part. When I built my last layout, I thought I was building a layout designed for operations. After attending a few sessions I realized that my layout was not designed to operate and that was one of the main reasons I tore it out and started over.

Others have stated that the basic idea is to take loaded cars from an industry and deliver cars to be loaded. Most of us don't design our layouts with this goal in mind. Most real railraods, however are designed specifically for this purpose. No industry or passengers, no railroad.

When some one builds a layout, oftentimes the goal is to watch trains run around. I enjoy this aspect too. What this does is skew the use of space to facilitate running around. A real railroad is often a point to point. No run around. Not real easy to put on the trains, sit back and watch stuff run.

We often include loops to return (most layouts are giant loops). The curves eat up all the space which could be used to model industries or other aspects of a prototypical line. Imagine how the space on your layout might be used if there were no loops?? More prototypical operation has to pretty much be built into the layout design from the beginning in order to be most effective.

I would suggest that you decide what type of railroad you want to model. Two big categories are : Mainline or branchline. Mainline operations differ significantly from branchlines. Then get some books on the prototypes you are interested in and see what they did and how they were laid out. Mainline modeling with any degree of accuracy takes a lot of space, most of the proto guys model branchlines, you find a lot of clubs modeling mainline.

At this point you might want to look at your layout and develop a route for your trains based on what you see in the books and your basic decisions about the type of road you might enjoy.

You might pick one industry and develop a plan for it and go from there. Where do the cars for it come from and where will they go???

Beyond what others have mentioned here the topic can get as complicated and detail oriented as you want. There are time tables, fast clocks, train orders, dispatchers, switchlists etc. It can become a game of chess.

I have used the car card system described by dayliner. My operational plan is a combo of the car system described by him and timetable operations. The card plan may look difficult on paper but works like a charm and is a fun way to run a railroad without a lot of complication. It really is just shuffling the deck.

I would suggest that you check out the opSIg group mentioned earlier in this post. I would also recommend that you attend a prototypical (or any type) operating session in your area. Joe Fugate is a big operations buff. Look up his site. Look up Jack Burgess YV site as well as search MR over the past few years for articles by Dave Adams. You will see that many of these guys took years to sort out their plans and layout designs. I think that you will be able to look at what they have done and adapt it to your layout and operation of it.

However, if you get real into operations don't be surprised if you find your current situatiuon lacking a bit ....

my 2 cents,

[ShaunCN]

this is great guys but this topic is so old that now i have gotten the hang of operation ssince i first posted almost a year ago on this topic

[Anonymous]

It may be old topic ShaunCN, however I have enjoyed replying to it. Hopefully some one else would be able to turn this topic up under a forum search like you did long ago.

I too have been surprised at some of the "long dead" topics coming back to life. In my LHS I recall several of us really talking about a subject (long forgotten by now) and reaching the end of the converstation and a new customer walks in and asks a question... provoking a response that sends the discussion rolling all over again.

[AntonioFP45]

ShaunCN,

Please, don't worry about topics being old! The info is valuable! I don't recall reading this topic before so disregard the age.

Don't forget that since last year a bunch of newbies have climbed onboard. Many newbies are not familiar with realistic operation and may still be in the "Watching trains run in a circle" phase.

[8)][:D]

[canazar]

QUOTE: Originally posted by AntonioFP45

ShaunCN,

Please, don't worry about topics being old! The info is valuable! I don't recall reading this topic before so disregard the age.

Don't forget that since last year a bunch of newbies have climbed onboard. Many newbies are not familiar with realistic operation and may still be in the "Watching trains run in a circle" phase.

[8)][:D]

Newbie here. I admit it. But I enjoyed the thread alot. I have had the forunate luck to attend acouple of operating sessions on a large (2200 square feet of it) lay out. What an eye opener. I was just getting out of the "round the tree mode", thinking that there has to be more than this when i got inivited to attend. I got hooked all over again

Asking about the switcing, I have used both styles of cards and colored dots. I find the cards are great, but ti taskes alto of time to set up for a session. if you wantto come down after work and unwind, make it easy and use the colored dots trick. Or I saw on an old cover of MR (circa 1972), useing change. Grab a pocket full of change, and grab them at random. Pennies, dime, nickels. Then one all cars are tagged, sort them, then run them..

Thanks for putting down your thoughts. [:)]

Best Regards
John k

In fact tonight, I am adding the last 2 turnouts off my mainline that will be siding locations sevring industries. (Oil/fluids, asphalt plant, freight district and one that still needs a bisiness. Fore the time being I will insert a Miller Light bottle and call it the "brewery stop"