Sunday Only Accommodation - The Living Layout

[wm3798]

Lately I've been spending the evening up in the train room, enjoying one of my favorite aspects of the hobby...  Operations.

I can hear some of you diving under your computer desk now, fearful that you'll be harshly criticized for secretly keeping a circle of Lionel Track, resplendent with log unloaders, smoke pills, and talking station.  But rest easy, I'm not here to belittle anyone.  I just want to share with you some of my discoveries.

When I designed my layout, I made sure it included a couple of "must haves" in the track plan.  These included:

• one large, dedicated industry,
  
• a branch line for local switching
  
• several coal mines, and an online consumer of coal
  
• A working yard and engine terminal
  
• A decent amount of staging
  
• A live interchange with another railroad.
[/*]

Seems like a pretty long list, but in my mind, these are the essentials of having a layout that is fun to operate once the construction is done.

What I've really come to enjoy is the ebb and flow of traffic... the circulatory system of the layout, if you will.  Over the years, I 've accumulated enough locomotives and rolling stock that I can run a variety of trains doing a variety of jobs.  The staging, yard and engine terminal allow me to mix things up without every having to touch a freight car.  (Obviously there are exceptions!)

Once you have that ability, you can enjoy running your layout simply by adding variety by what you run out of staging or from your yard.  But after a while, even that can get stagnant.  If you have a good stable of locomotives, you could add some flavoring by running your train out of staging, then providing it with "fresh horses," simulating a power change.  

This would be a common function of a division point terminal, and back in the days of steam, every 100 miles or so would be a division point.

But why stop there?  Back in the day, when cabooses were assigned to particular crews, there'd also be the opportunity to swap out the caboose, as well.  This was particularly true where a train might be leaving home rails and headed to an interchange.  So keep some extra cabooses handy as well...


So it's possible to have some fun running your trains without getting into the messy business of car cards and waybills, right?  Sure.

But now that you're thinking in terms of where the train is coming from and going to, and making the necessary moves to simulate that, you're more than likely going to start thinking about the whole consist, and not just the power and the caboose.

Also, odds are you've constructed a siding or two into your double dogbone twice around, where you might want to spot some of those cars.  The easiest thing to do is to imagine whatever you want that siding to be that day, then randomly determine what cars you want to put there.  After you've messed around with your power swap, send the train down the line, stop, cut out the cars bound for the industry, then pick up what’s there, and move on.  Clean, simple, direct.  This should keep you amused for awhile.

Then you might start to wonder, what if one of the cars I picked up should be headed in the other direction?  This might be as simple as looking at the road names on the cars.  If you’re modeling the mid-Atlantic, a car from the Southern Railway might not be headed to the same place a Boston and Maine car would be.  Same is true for your inbound materials.

Down at the lumber yard, you might get a boxcar full of doors and windows from Pella, Iowa, a flatcar full of dimensional lumber from western Canada, and another boxcar full of insulation bales from Texas.  Not likely to be dropped off simultaneously by the same the road freight.

So now, instead of having your main line trains doing the pick ups and set outs, you might want to send a local freight out from the yard to pick them up, so the destinations can be sorted out at the yard…


Ahhh.  The yard.  The nerve center of the railroad.  Now, if you want to keep it simple, the yard is a nice place to store your excess rolling stock, and monkey around with  swapping cars in and out of your trains.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  But when you add the destination of each one of those cars to the mix, suddenly your railroad becomes fraught with possibilities.  Cuts of cars come in from those through trains, and you have to consider where each one is bound, and then re-sort and re-block them into groups with similar destinations, whether that be on your layout, or somewhere beyond the basement.

This is where it can get messy.  If you’re only running a small layout with a limited number of trains and destinations, you can probably work out the blocking in your head based on road names or car types.  But if you’ve taken on a bit more, you might want to think about doing some clerical work to help the game move more smoothly.

Car Cards and Waybills can be time consuming to set up, but once they’re done, they really set your layout in motion.  There’s all kinds of information on different formats, so I won’t go into that here, but if you think of your layout as a board game, these are the equivalent of your property cards in Monopoly.  This process can really breathe life into your model railroad, and really change your approach to almost every aspect of the hobby.

I’ve found that car cards and waybills give me a pretty solid “to do” list when it comes to modeling projects.  I find myself building loads for my open cars, weathering cars because of the type of service they may be in, and modifying the track plan to add a little length to a siding, or allow for a particular traffic pattern that I find that I need.  I might also determine that there’s an important industry my railroad serves that would be a fun project to build.


I think my favorite part about organizing my operations scheme is that every time I enter the train room, I can focus on something different.  There are locals to run, or the yard needs to be switched, and paperwork needs to be caught up.  Or a hot shot through freight is coming through that needs fresh power and a crew change.  I can also dim the lights and just let a train cruise around the layout without any thinking or paperwork at all!


I guess the point of the point of the point is that there are a lot of people who regard operations as some sort of virus they’d just as soon not catch.  I suppose it’s not for everyone.  There’s also the contingent that believes that you’re not a true operator until you’ve researched everything to death and you’re matching the operations of a particular railroad on a particular afternoon in July of 1981, right down to the actual train manifest.

I regard operations as a great tool to expand my own knowledge about my prototype, as well as a guide for the rest of my modeling.  I can say that in my experience, operations has added a lot of dimension to my enjoyment of the hobby, from building some new skills to meeting some great new friends.  I’d recommend it to anyone!

Lee

[Grampys Trains]

 Lee, your description of the steps involved in, for many of us, the ultimate goal of our model rr, operation, is right on the money. You've put into words and images many of my own thoughts and aspirations, lately. Almost all the construction, wiring, scenery, weathering, etc. is pretty much done. My next big project is making a few more card boxes and filling out the car cards and way bills. I totally agree with your recommendation. Thanks for a great post!

[pastorbob]

Welcome to the wonderful world of operations.  My Santa Fe, three decks, 33ft by 28 ft has been in operations mode (state) for several years, and I enjoy it very much.  Yes I have the standard yellow cards containing all the information, I have the white waybill cards plus ones I do myself based on the years I was with Santa Fe, I have the obligatory holders secured to the fascia board on the layout, I have a "schedule of operations" on a laptop dedicated to the railroad, I even have separate loco cards, and I use fixed consists (dcc), so I even have consist cards.

Life is good.  My work doesn't let me schedule a lot of group sessions, but I have an operating session going all the time using a cycle of movements.  I can work on a sermon for a couple of hours in my office, then go down to the railroad room (basement) and run trains following the timetable and sequence of events for 30 minutes, or an hour, or even longer, then go out and make hospital calls, membership calls, stop by the church office, then come home and drift down to the basement again while my wife does her things.

I am very lucky since the scenery is done, the structures are in place, and the DCC works reasonably well, electronics are my short suit.

Bob 

 

[wm3798]

 Pastor Bob, that's exactly what I'm driving at.  Including even the most rudimentary operation scheme to your layout helps provide some "purpose" to running the layout, and even to other modeling projects.

I've got a few projects on the workbench now that are all related to the operating system.  I need to build a load of plate steel, I'm working on scenicking a scrap yard, and I have to clean the wheels on my yard switcher!

I also like the fact that at any given moment, there's a train on the layout that I can turn on to run if all I want to do is railfan.  And even this is enhanced by operations, because there's always a different train and consist to watch, after it's been switched around in the yard.

Lee

[twhite]

Lee, you've got my vote!

Unfortunately, when I built my present Yuba River Sub, I was not thinking of 'operations' per se, as it was modeled after a trans-mountain through route through small California towns that really wouldn't have a lot of 'local' traffic, and I now realize that I've missed the boat, so to speak. 

However, I have instigated a loco change-over point at the largest yard (Deer Creek) where I can change from "Valley" to "Mountain" power, or add helpers for the grades.  It isn't much, but it does afford me some actual 'operating' time when a freight comes in for a changeover, or drops off of Yuba Summit to have the Articulateds taken off and lighter power substituted. 

And I have found that I can run a 'turn' or two of seasonal cattle shipments from lower elevation pasture to high mountain pasture, so there are times when I can do that, also. 

But if I had my 'druthers, I'd have designed the layout for more 'operational' possibilities and not just running trains.  Looking at it now, I can see some spots where I can incorporate a few more 'operational' possibilities without having to tear up and re-build too much.  And the more I think about it, the more I think I just might. 

I like 'running' trains, but I'm finding that--within my limitations--'operating' them is really satisfying. 

Glad you posted this thread.  It's real food for thought.. 

Tom