General Discussion (Model Railroader)

This link is also a good one:

http://www.gatewaynmra.org/articles/essence-of-ops.htm

Thanks, I'll be reading up on those sites.

I read this topic a couple weeks ago and reread it today. It pretty much took all day.

I am way too new to this hobby. So far I have been designing my layout with a couple things in mind.

1) I want a lot of track and places to go so my son can run his Hogwarts.

2) I want to see my 19th century steamers cross a tressle bridge.

3) I want to see the steams run through the forest, so I'm planning a logging operation.

4) Yards intregue me, but I've never operated one.

5) I've planned a staging yard beneath my track because I know it will increase the tracks capabilities.

6) I know I need operations because I will get tired of running laps no matter how complex the laps will be. But I have never done anything but run laps. My club is threatening to do some ops but since I've been there all we have done is work on the tracks. I have two new BLI locos that have never made a complete circuit at the club. The sit and idle in the passenger yard I am renovating.

That is all to say that this has been very interesting. Time to re-read Armstrong.

The concept i'm exploring is a large branch line operation basd upon the SP in S scale with two focal points for all switching as opposed to placing a switching district ever few feet. Open space will not be devoted to yards or engine terminals instead secondary trackage will serve as makeup/break up tracks and for switching.

Three easily accessible stagging yards-one acting as an interchange when operations call for it will provide storage capability. Provisions for one passing siding which will serve a second function as the interchange lead. This design fits well with an around-the-walls,point-to-point design. So far on paper I like it.

QUOTE: Originally posted by jfugate Topic this post: But watch out ... don't make it TOO high! It's far better to take an evening mocking things up, than to spend money and time building benchwork only to find it's too low or too high!

QUOTE: Originally posted by jfugate Topic this post: But watch out ... don't make it TOO high! It's far better to take an evening mocking things up, than to spend money and time building benchwork only to find it's too low or too high! Yes I wish I had forseen this error .I had to remove all of the riser's I had installed on my multi-leveled "Beaverton & North Plains Rail Transfer"Freelanced Branchline of the Rivergate Industrial Park in Portland Oregon.It would have saved me nearly 200 bucks,and the time fixing the miscalulation. But now that I have reparied my work I can now revise my Trackplan.With changing the height of the lower level this has changed the way trains travel onto and off the branch,since the Helix is NON-MOVABLE ( I say this because there is no other place to put this Floor Hog!)in refrence to the height of the lower level the ramp to lodeck is extended two and a half feet in to the lower level.Entrierly changing the track plan.

I come late to this forum, but a few things do not appear to have been said:

1) It is possible for trains to pass when both are longer than the siding (it is called a double saw-by meet); however, if the trians are much longer than the siding, this can get pretty hairy, and even with short overages, one probably would not want very many of them in a session, since they definitely can tie up a line.

2) People looking for selective compression of prototype facilities might want to check out some of the older USGS maps, which state right on them that the trackage shown in terminal areas is only a rough approximation of the real thing. USGS maps can be found in most university and some public libraries.

3) Freight Terminals and Trains, as well as the companion Passenger Terminals and Trains (Droege), remain the prototyper's bibles for foundations of operation as well as prototype design prior to the World War.

4) One thing to remember about prototype operation is that, at 12 inches to the foot, walking becomes a major concern in terms of how things are done. It takes a lot less time to drop off a car cutter, then pick him up, than it does to oblige him to walk the length of the train as much as twice. Many modelers' "operational" moves would make no sense to a real railroader for this reason.

5) Prototype railroads do not deliberately create switching "puzzles" unless no other solution exists. If you are one to like switching puzzles, then you need to be thinking in terms of situations which make these necessary, such as modeling an access-restricted wharf area where e.g. to switch right, it might be necessary to turn out left, then cross back over the normal route to get to a cramped business location. Even in the common situation of more than one business on a siding, the prototype will (if revenue permits) build a runaround to avoid having to pull and respot cars already switched to be loaded.

6) On the question of single location versus branch, I definitely would opt for the branch, even if the branch were no more than a long approach to servicing a single industry (e.g. a cement plant). One of the best track plans ever incorporating this idea was Charles Small's Cerro Azul (shown in MR's 101 Track Plans). If you do not want to use the switchback format, simply horseshoe the lower connection around to reach the upper level. The branch brings loads to the base terminal, where they then are switched into passing road freights coming and going from staging. Such a plan offers the lone wolf really all the action he could want.

7. I respectfully disagree with the assertion that easements have no more than cosmetic value on the model -- anyone who has run long-wheelbase steam, especially backward, knows this is not true. Easements aid tracking for longer equipment, and if the choice were to keep a minimum radius and sacrifice the easement or keep the easement and sacrifice the minimum radius, I definitely would opt for the latter.

On the former NP southwestern branch at Lisbon, ND, the house track had three grain elevators, an LP gas distributor, and the Standard Oil Company bulk plant, plus it was also used as the team track. I remember seeing 1955 Chevy's being unloaded from an automobile boxcar, and was asked to drive one of them downtown to the dealership. Multiple industries on a siding or spur are prototypical.

This forum for operation is a great idea.

Regarding "passing sidings" and their length, this would depend on the design of your layout. One of the members of our Tuesday night round-robin operating group has a loop to loop design (with staging in each loop). Thus, since you usually use all of the passing sidings sometime during the evening, your shortest siding determines the length of train you can run. Also, don't confuse passing sidings, meant for passing or meeting two or more different trains, with runaround tracks, used for way freights or local freights to run around their train to spot a car at a facing point spur. The latter can be used for runaround, but the other way around wouldn't work.

In our group, the host is always the Dispatcher, since he knows the railroad better than anyone. I get to run my railroad in between sessions, sometimes to fini***he evening's schedule if a certain train or trains didn's get run.

Staging tracks: If you are just designing your railroad, put in as many as you can get. You will NEVER have too many. The Poco Valley runs three different sessions, Morning, Afternoon, and Evening. A train might run westbound in the Morning, and not have its eastbound run until Evening. That train sits in one of the staging yards all Afternoon, tying it up, but not moving.

I find the 60% rule works pretty well (cars versus space). I take cars off the layout frequently. They stay on a shelf for a week or so, and this gives each operation more variety.

Poco Valley

QUOTE: Originally posted by nobullchitbids 7. I respectfully disagree with the assertion that easements have no more than cosmetic value on the model -- anyone who has run long-wheelbase steam, especially backward, knows this is not true. Easements aid tracking for longer equipment, and if the choice were to keep a minimum radius and sacrifice the easement or keep the easement and sacrifice the minimum radius, I definitely would opt for the latter.

True enough ... since I model the 1980s era I keep forgeting about long wheelbase steam locos. I just know for most of the stuff I run in the modern era, an easement doesn't make *that* much difference in how it tracks.

But you're right, so I stand corrected. For longer wheelbase stuff (locos, and 80 foot cars) an easement can help how it tracks. That said, it's also true that an easement does help your track alignment look more prototypical, and that's the reason most modelers use them ... improving how things track is not as frequent a justification for using easements on the model.

Once again, resurrecting this clinic because there have been some requests for how to find it.

I am a total newbee so if this seems elementary ....uh, keep it to yourself.

Do you need passing sidings if you have a two track main?

None less than Union Pacific says, "Yes." Without them, how will your crack limited get around that local hog loping along at 15 per?

U.P. typically uses high-speed "Y's" to create a third track in the middle which can be used in both directions.

SpaceMouse:

You need places where faster trains can overtake slower trains, where trains can stop and switch, and so on. You put crossovers every so often between the two mains and consider one main to be passing siding and the other to be mainline. The distance between crossovers tells you "passing siding length" as it were.

--Joe

QUOTE: Originally posted by jfugate SpaceMouse: You need places where faster trains can overtake slower trains, where trains can stop and switch, and so on. You put crossovers every so often between the two mains and consider one main to be passing siding and the other to be mainline. The distance between crossovers tells you "passing siding length" as it were. --Joe

Dang! Back to the drawing board.