Running Operations

[Anonymous]

We have lots of them at our club. every line has to cross at least 3 diamonds. so if you not paying attention you can get T-boned. I have only once Intionaly Hit another train. The person was being a Major [censored][banghead]. he was going acrossed the diamonds really slow. there was a Southbound, Northbound and a Northbound Ann Arbor train all waiting. he got almost done going acrossed. and stopped. I went over and said move. he had taken 10 minutes to get where he was. he just smiled and said no. I said move i will make you move. I then went over the the club president and he said i could. so i went through his train. that was fun. At our club the biggest cuase of derailments are the Micro engieering turnouts and slow motion switch machines.

[Anonymous]

So long as no-one gets hurt derailments are fun! ...that's when we get the cranes out... or you use those strange bulldozer things... anyone do a good model of them that doesn't cost the earth? Working the traffic round them is also fun... makes a great excuse for running out-of-place trains as well.

There's a simple set of rules for derailments on models...

1. DON'T POKE!
2. DON'T GET OUT THE SOLDERING IRON, XURON CUTTERS OR ANY OTHER
TOOLS.
3. DO ENGAGE YOUR BRAIN
4. GET PEN AND PAPER:-
NOTE THE LOCO/CAR NUMBER
NOTE THE LOCATION
NOTE THE DIRECTION OF TRAVEL
NOTE ANYTHING YOU THINK IS UNUSUAL (e.g. very hot
weather)
5. NOW YOU CAN START TO LOOK AT THINGS.

Okay, so it may be obvious what the problem is... but if it isn't you can spend forever going round in circles not resolving the problem.

Similarly... it may look like the reason is obvious... quick fix... everything else starts to jump the rails at that point... the problem was with the car not the track... which now has a brand new problem. I don't believe how many times I see this... even on high quality layouts at shows.

Some people leap into poking the car, others attack the track. If your auto conks out do you change all the tyres/ rebuild the road? Hopefully you call the experts or go about things systematically.

If you record every derailment you should pick up whether the problem is track or car related. It may be a combination... as in a switch size and a 6 wheel truck. It may be a particular type of car at a particular location (this could be several different cars... sometimes the way the truck moves under a car will be a problem.
There's all sorts of causes for derailments, data collection and analysis is not laborious and is the intelligent response.

Okay... so a board joint has shifted and misaligned the rails... fix it... but note what has happened... note anything specific that might help you find a cure if the problem recurs or other joints start to play up. It IS worth noting... what is obvious today and easily remembered for the future... but then there's life, work, bills, children...

Running operations (how many trains you have on the go at one time should have little to do with it... except, possibly, how much attention you are paying to any one... which makes me think... if you are switching and a train on the move derails... check back to confirm where it came from... it may have jumped the rails before you noticed it... i.e. it may have jumped at a board joint but run straight and level along the ties before coming off at a switch. (If you have sound, people talking or music on you may not hear the wheels on the ties).

Remember (after your fifth derailment in front of your guests... oh yeah, guests are a prime casue of derailments... just by being there... and you wanting to impress them...) Model Railroads are FUN!

[Big_Boy_4005]

Carl, a 6 wheel truck should work all the way down to 18" radius. 18" radius is tighter than a #4 switch. Atlas snap switches are 18" radius. I think you have found the bigger problem with the ballast.

Try taking the car with the 6 wheel trucks and push it by hand through the switch. By applying a little downward pressure as you push, you might feel some bumps. Any roughness is a potential problem. If you have an NMRA gauge (which nobody in HO should be without) check the gauge of the wheels, and the dimensions of the frog.

Oh, and Mister Beasley, it sounds like you are learning to be a train juggler.[swg]

[selector]

I've relied on that emergency stop button on more than one occasion. To minimize that event, I have left one loco, my little switcher 0-6-0, with no inertia programmed into it. That way, if I find myself getting too far behind the curve, I can change the outcome quickly with a twist on the throttle of my DT 400. The 0-6-0 stops dead, and whatever it was going to collide with (usually the Hudson) goes thundering safely past.

[MisterBeasley]

I've just been coming up with my layout and DCC. I've got 2 independent loops, linked by some crossovers, and I'm trying to run 3 trains - 2 clockwise and 1 counterclockwise, or maybe it's the other way around.

Anyway, I can go about 5 minutes before something goes awry. The good ones are "only" derailments. Some of the track is just pinned down while I fini***he scenery below and the bridges it runs over. Most of the rails aren't yet soldered, and I'm trying to run around to the turnouts that aren't wired in yet. Some noise, and if I'm lucky I can stop the trains in a controlled fashion before anything ugly happens.

The bad ones are collisions, or "close encounters of the train kind." Lately, I've been looking stupidly as 2 trains approach each other head-on, frantically trying NOT to hit the Emergency Stop button. Over the last few days, my best DCC learning experience is how to put everybody into a safe mode after an E-stop, but before putting the power back on.

Way more fun than DC.

[ac4400fan]

Your Guys advice helped alot ,i think i found 1 problem,too narrow of a turout for a 6 wheel truck? i cleared alot of them up ,seem to be ballast in the frogs ect,do you think something less then a #4 is to narrow?

Carl..

[Big_Boy_4005]

QUOTE: Originally posted by loathar

Big Boy- That's strange about the sig file size. I'm on the slowest dial up in the world and I haven't had any of the download problems that others have stated.[%-)]

Thanks Carl.

Loathar, we just had a topic about this a couple of days ago. You must be one of the lucky ones.

When I first entered this topic, the photo was working hard to fill the entire screen. This happens sometimes, before the forum's automatic formatting control takes over, and the image size shrinks, back to what we would consider normal. It may be caused by the source that it's linked from. That's one of the hazards of using images that we don't control.

[dgwinup]

SORRY SORRY SORRY!!!

I just couldn't resist! The devil made me do it! LOL

I should talk! I still have a car on it's side DEEP within a mountain from last month! I need to hatch the mountain top for access.

Darrell, smart-a** supreme, being quiet...for now

[dgwinup]

What's a derailment?

[dragenrider]

Derailments in operations are part of the fun! If it's one or two wheels, I pull the car back up on the rail with a makeshift rerailer and go on. A big wreck means calling in the "big hook" and a maintenance train. That requires clearing the track of other trains and getting the cars still on the rails out of the way. Badly wrecked cars may get hauled off on flat cars. Now, I have to reorder cars for those customer who used them in the first place. Ties up the rail line, changes everything and makes it much more interesting.

By the way, derailments aren't very common on my layout. That may be why they are more fun to work. [:P]

[Anonymous]

Derailments are prone to happen, and every one gets there share of them, sometime or another. It really is almost part of a contract you sign when you start the hobby. I am sure that you'll be able to fix what ever caused the derailment in no time!

[loathar]

Big Boy- That's strange about the sig file size. I'm on the slowest dial up in the world and I haven't had any of the download problems that others have stated.[%-)]

[Big_Boy_4005]

I have a rule at my house, one train at a time per operator. Train "juggling" is an open invitation to trouble. A minor glitch, or a moment's inattention, and disaster can strike. It sounds like you may have fallen victim to this concept. you could get away with 2 trains at a time, if you ran one on a loop, and did switching with the other.

That's a nice picture in your signature, but there is a slight problem with it. The size of the file is over 100K. Even with my cable connection, it's a slow loading image. It is even worse for those members who don't high bandwidth connections. Because it is in your signature, it goes to every post you have ever made. Please choose a smaller image. It doesn't have to look smaller, it just has to be compressed to make the file under 50K.

[AntonioFP45]

Relax,and make operations fun! If you jump in and turn it into a chore, you will lose interest.

Can you give us a breakdown of your operations routine? Might enable us to help you better.

Are you using magnetic uncouplers at your drop-off points? These are nice to use at your trackside industries.

Oh, and derailments? Look at the prototypes! The railroads, in general, had a high amount of derailments last year.

[loathar]

1 derailment and your upset??? I saw a club in Texas where if an engineer had a fatal crash, They put a scale tomb stone with your name on it in a little cemetary and you weren't alowed to operate for two weeks.Some guys had 6 or 7 head stones in there.

[Anonymous]

Even the "big guys" have derailments, both modelers and 1:1. See if you can determine the cause. Lots of possibilities, out of gauge wheel sets, track, flangeways in the turnouts, underweigh cars and so forth. A derailment is just another part of our learning process in the hobby. Now you get to learn the diagnosing and fixing skills!
Will

[ac4400fan]

Ok,This is my first time you can say im trying to run some operations,im sure im not the first,lol,well a long story short i was running 3 trains and moving around some cars witha 3rd,note: im using D.C when i had a derailment,y? never had any before.o well im going to give it another shot in the am,ill let you know how it goes.but any tips???

Carl...[8)]