Mailman56701 wrote: Ok, then how about, "Hey Joe, can I take train #431 over to location x ?"
The problem is that the guys that do that also tend not to follow other conventions and do things like interrupt the dispatcher when he's talking with someone else or make a move without telling the dispatcher, then calling in something like,
"Hey Joe, no one was coming so I moved up three towns to Jacksonville."
If you've done ops, you know what kind of trouble a guy like this can cause.
And unlike what Dave says, the dispatcher usually knows the idiots by voice.
Usually the "rules" are there for a reason.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
SpaceMouse wrote: Mailman56701 wrote: Ok, then how about, "Hey Joe, can I take train #431 over to location x ?" The problem is that the guys that do that also tend not to follow other conventions and do things like interrupt the dispatcher when he's talking with someone else or make a move without telling the dispatcher, then calling in something like,"Hey Joe, no one was coming so I moved up three towns to Jacksonville." If you've done ops, you know what kind of trouble a guy like this can cause. And unlike what Dave says, the dispatcher usually knows the idiots by voice. Usually the "rules" are there for a reason.
I know; rules per se wasn't what I thought was silly in the clip.
Mailman56701 wrote: SpaceMouse wrote: Mailman56701 wrote: Ok, then how about, "Hey Joe, can I take train #431 over to location x ?" The problem is that the guys that do that also tend not to follow other conventions and do things like interrupt the dispatcher when he's talking with someone else or make a move without telling the dispatcher, then calling in something like,"Hey Joe, no one was coming so I moved up three towns to Jacksonville." If you've done ops, you know what kind of trouble a guy like this can cause. And unlike what Dave says, the dispatcher usually knows the idiots by voice. Usually the "rules" are there for a reason. I know; rules per se wasn't what I thought was silly in the clip.
You know you're never going to hear the end of this, right?
SpaceMouse wrote: Mailman56701 wrote: SpaceMouse wrote: Mailman56701 wrote: Ok, then how about, "Hey Joe, can I take train #431 over to location x ?" The problem is that the guys that do that also tend not to follow other conventions and do things like interrupt the dispatcher when he's talking with someone else or make a move without telling the dispatcher, then calling in something like,"Hey Joe, no one was coming so I moved up three towns to Jacksonville." If you've done ops, you know what kind of trouble a guy like this can cause. And unlike what Dave says, the dispatcher usually knows the idiots by voice. Usually the "rules" are there for a reason. I know; rules per se wasn't what I thought was silly in the clip. You know you're never going to hear the end of this, right?
Just my opinion is all; not going to lose sleep over someone disagreeing with it :)
Mailman56701 wrote: BRAKIE wrote: Mailman56701 wrote: SpaceMouse wrote: Mailman56701 wrote: Each his own of course, but I recall on one of the DPB videos, two grown men talking on radios to each other, in serious tones, terms, etc., while operating the layout, and I thought it was one of the silliest things I'd ever seen :) I haven't seen the video, but I have been one of those guys talking on radios. One layout, 5 decks, 25' x 75', I worked had 25 trains running at once. The dispatcher, in another room, ran the trains by computer on a schematic that was three screens wide. For it to work, you have to follow the rules. But as soon as the radio shuts down, engineer and conductor start razzing each other, dissing the dispatcher, talking trash to the guy that over ran his siding and had to back-up 50 feet to avoid a major traffic jam. It's one heck of a party. On another layout, the rules are a little tighter, but there is beer and chips in the lounge for between trains. The dispatcher sits in a room 50 feet from the layout. This layout is celebrating it's 30th anniversary this month. Some people model an era and location, ops guys model the function of a railroad. Even there, there is a sliding scale of accuracy. Yeah, I know. What I found amusing was these guys were talking to each other like it was life and death though; "Dispatcher xyz, train abc requesting clearance to proceed to location def, etc........." with the answer in similar language. To me, a call/answer on the radio of "Hey Joe, can I take my train over to x ?" would have been sufficient :) You call like that to any of the dispatchers at the club you won't get a answer because we have no idea who's calling or the location of their train.Now if you identify yourself as train #431 we will know your location. Ok, then how about, "Hey Joe, can I take train #431 over to location x ?"
BRAKIE wrote: Mailman56701 wrote: SpaceMouse wrote: Mailman56701 wrote: Each his own of course, but I recall on one of the DPB videos, two grown men talking on radios to each other, in serious tones, terms, etc., while operating the layout, and I thought it was one of the silliest things I'd ever seen :) I haven't seen the video, but I have been one of those guys talking on radios. One layout, 5 decks, 25' x 75', I worked had 25 trains running at once. The dispatcher, in another room, ran the trains by computer on a schematic that was three screens wide. For it to work, you have to follow the rules. But as soon as the radio shuts down, engineer and conductor start razzing each other, dissing the dispatcher, talking trash to the guy that over ran his siding and had to back-up 50 feet to avoid a major traffic jam. It's one heck of a party. On another layout, the rules are a little tighter, but there is beer and chips in the lounge for between trains. The dispatcher sits in a room 50 feet from the layout. This layout is celebrating it's 30th anniversary this month. Some people model an era and location, ops guys model the function of a railroad. Even there, there is a sliding scale of accuracy. Yeah, I know. What I found amusing was these guys were talking to each other like it was life and death though; "Dispatcher xyz, train abc requesting clearance to proceed to location def, etc........." with the answer in similar language. To me, a call/answer on the radio of "Hey Joe, can I take my train over to x ?" would have been sufficient :) You call like that to any of the dispatchers at the club you won't get a answer because we have no idea who's calling or the location of their train.Now if you identify yourself as train #431 we will know your location.
Mailman56701 wrote: SpaceMouse wrote: Mailman56701 wrote: Each his own of course, but I recall on one of the DPB videos, two grown men talking on radios to each other, in serious tones, terms, etc., while operating the layout, and I thought it was one of the silliest things I'd ever seen :) I haven't seen the video, but I have been one of those guys talking on radios. One layout, 5 decks, 25' x 75', I worked had 25 trains running at once. The dispatcher, in another room, ran the trains by computer on a schematic that was three screens wide. For it to work, you have to follow the rules. But as soon as the radio shuts down, engineer and conductor start razzing each other, dissing the dispatcher, talking trash to the guy that over ran his siding and had to back-up 50 feet to avoid a major traffic jam. It's one heck of a party. On another layout, the rules are a little tighter, but there is beer and chips in the lounge for between trains. The dispatcher sits in a room 50 feet from the layout. This layout is celebrating it's 30th anniversary this month. Some people model an era and location, ops guys model the function of a railroad. Even there, there is a sliding scale of accuracy. Yeah, I know. What I found amusing was these guys were talking to each other like it was life and death though; "Dispatcher xyz, train abc requesting clearance to proceed to location def, etc........." with the answer in similar language. To me, a call/answer on the radio of "Hey Joe, can I take my train over to x ?" would have been sufficient :)
SpaceMouse wrote: Mailman56701 wrote: Each his own of course, but I recall on one of the DPB videos, two grown men talking on radios to each other, in serious tones, terms, etc., while operating the layout, and I thought it was one of the silliest things I'd ever seen :) I haven't seen the video, but I have been one of those guys talking on radios. One layout, 5 decks, 25' x 75', I worked had 25 trains running at once. The dispatcher, in another room, ran the trains by computer on a schematic that was three screens wide. For it to work, you have to follow the rules. But as soon as the radio shuts down, engineer and conductor start razzing each other, dissing the dispatcher, talking trash to the guy that over ran his siding and had to back-up 50 feet to avoid a major traffic jam. It's one heck of a party. On another layout, the rules are a little tighter, but there is beer and chips in the lounge for between trains. The dispatcher sits in a room 50 feet from the layout. This layout is celebrating it's 30th anniversary this month. Some people model an era and location, ops guys model the function of a railroad. Even there, there is a sliding scale of accuracy.
Mailman56701 wrote: Each his own of course, but I recall on one of the DPB videos, two grown men talking on radios to each other, in serious tones, terms, etc., while operating the layout, and I thought it was one of the silliest things I'd ever seen :)
Each his own of course, but I recall on one of the DPB videos, two grown men talking on radios to each other, in serious tones, terms, etc., while operating the layout, and I thought it was one of the silliest things I'd ever seen :)
I haven't seen the video, but I have been one of those guys talking on radios. One layout, 5 decks, 25' x 75', I worked had 25 trains running at once. The dispatcher, in another room, ran the trains by computer on a schematic that was three screens wide. For it to work, you have to follow the rules. But as soon as the radio shuts down, engineer and conductor start razzing each other, dissing the dispatcher, talking trash to the guy that over ran his siding and had to back-up 50 feet to avoid a major traffic jam. It's one heck of a party.
On another layout, the rules are a little tighter, but there is beer and chips in the lounge for between trains. The dispatcher sits in a room 50 feet from the layout. This layout is celebrating it's 30th anniversary this month.
Some people model an era and location, ops guys model the function of a railroad. Even there, there is a sliding scale of accuracy.
Yeah, I know. What I found amusing was these guys were talking to each other like it was life and death though; "Dispatcher xyz, train abc requesting clearance to proceed to location def, etc........." with the answer in similar language.
To me, a call/answer on the radio of "Hey Joe, can I take my train over to x ?" would have been sufficient :)
You call like that to any of the dispatchers at the club you won't get a answer because we have no idea who's calling or the location of their train.
Now if you identify yourself as train #431 we will know your location.
Ok, then how about, "Hey Joe, can I take train #431 over to location x ?"
No,no,no. Ya gotta obey the block signals..When its your turn you'll get a green block..lol!
That's why we need the train number.The CTC board has white block occupancy indicators and the train order will tell us the rest because each TO is in the order we received them.Eastbound are on our left and Westbounds on our right.A very simple but,workable solution to train handling.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
I would say that I do "Proto-lance" modeling. My road is CNW post 1995 (they bought UP). It gives me, IMO, enough license to be creative with certain aspects of road power, rolling stock, and operations while staying (partly at least) grounded in some aspect of prototypical equipment and operation.
That being said I'm not a "rivet counter" kind of modeler. I don't have the patience and, FWIW IMO, while the train is moving around your layout you probably can't spot every tiny little detail on it as you're ideally concentrating on watching your train, track ahead, and thinking about what you're doing next. If I was to build a "display quality" engine/car/building that would be static 99% of the time...then I'd probably try to get as prototypically close/accurate as possible.
In the end I think it's ultimately up to you. Are you happy more as an operator or do you prefer exact models?
Dan
BRAKIE wrote: Mailman56701 wrote: BRAKIE wrote: Mailman56701 wrote: SpaceMouse wrote: Mailman56701 wrote: Each his own of course, but I recall on one of the DPB videos, two grown men talking on radios to each other, in serious tones, terms, etc., while operating the layout, and I thought it was one of the silliest things I'd ever seen :) I haven't seen the video, but I have been one of those guys talking on radios. One layout, 5 decks, 25' x 75', I worked had 25 trains running at once. The dispatcher, in another room, ran the trains by computer on a schematic that was three screens wide. For it to work, you have to follow the rules. But as soon as the radio shuts down, engineer and conductor start razzing each other, dissing the dispatcher, talking trash to the guy that over ran his siding and had to back-up 50 feet to avoid a major traffic jam. It's one heck of a party. On another layout, the rules are a little tighter, but there is beer and chips in the lounge for between trains. The dispatcher sits in a room 50 feet from the layout. This layout is celebrating it's 30th anniversary this month. Some people model an era and location, ops guys model the function of a railroad. Even there, there is a sliding scale of accuracy. Yeah, I know. What I found amusing was these guys were talking to each other like it was life and death though; "Dispatcher xyz, train abc requesting clearance to proceed to location def, etc........." with the answer in similar language. To me, a call/answer on the radio of "Hey Joe, can I take my train over to x ?" would have been sufficient :) You call like that to any of the dispatchers at the club you won't get a answer because we have no idea who's calling or the location of their train.Now if you identify yourself as train #431 we will know your location. Ok, then how about, "Hey Joe, can I take train #431 over to location x ?" No,no,no. Ya gotta obey the block signals..When its your turn you'll get a green block..lol!That's why we need the train number.The CTC board has white block occupancy indicators and the train order will tell us the rest because each TO is in the order we received them.Eastbound are on our left and Westbounds on our right.A very simple but,workable solution to train handling.
Sounds like a good setup, thanks for the info. Brakie !
Mine is not very prototypical, it is occurs in my house under a roof. Keeps the paint shiny and non-weathered,
although unlike the prototype I have to use a vacuum to keep the dust down.
When it comes right down to it, the question shouldn't be "How far SHOULD," but "How far WOULD--" and I really think that's up to the individual modeler.
Personally, I think it depends on each individual's approach to the hobby. Some of us like to watch trains, others like to 'operate' them. With some of us, if every detail isn't right down to the 'built' date on a particular freight car, we just shake our heads and put it back in the box, with others if that latest GE AC-whatever diesel is pulling a bunch of 40-foot ice reefers past a bunch of Ford Model A's stopped at the crossing--oh, well. It's a choice.
Personally, I model the 'forties and early 'fifties with big steam's last big show. I'm careful that the 'big steam' I run mainly represent the particular railroad I model--plus WWII 'loaners' from other railroads, and I try and check the 'built' dates on the rolling stock to make sure that nothing I purchase was built later than 1952--though I've got several automobile cars from a later date simply because I like the way they look--and if a diesel is on the layout, it's nothing later than an F-3 or a PA, because that's what I'm comfortble with esthetically. The landscape, highways, autos and buildings are kept within the period I model--of course with most buildings, that's easy, since 'period' buildings are far more common than 'modern' ones.
But that's me. However if a buddy of mine wanted to bring over his latest 2008 GE or EMD diesel whatzits, I'd just grin and tell him "Go for it. I just don't have any diesel servicing facilities." Chances are, he'd chuckle and say, "Yah, but could I use one of your Yellowstones to help my train over your Yuba Summit?"
It's all good. Whatever works for the individual.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
The reality is, no matter what your age and the price of you models, we are still boys playing with toys. Ask your significant other. They will say we look cute, “playing” with our trains.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.