Book on Railroad Operations

[medickistler]

Im looking for a good book to learn Operations so that I can understand better how Railroads operate so that I can make my layout functional for operating sessions.  Anyone have an good suggestions

[BroadwayLion]

Well, I am certain that there are books that can help you to better understand that, indeed, our host, Kalmach publishes just such a book which you should have no trouble finding.

That said, each railroad does do things differently. And just what do you mean by "operations"?

Operations are specific to the branch and the needs of its customers. The era that you want to model makes a difference too: A steam engine is run differently from a diesel and both from an electric. Passenger operations are different from freight operations. And of course the whole thing revolves around what sort of a railroad you want to build. A logging railroad is different from a main line freight railroad, and these are both different from the Long Island Rail Road.

You probably only want to model a short segment of that railroad, and so what is happening on that segment.

Now let us look at the BNSF that runs right through our front yard (more or less).

We have a dozen or so 112 car coal trains headed east with two locomotives on the point and one on the tail.

We have a dozen or so 112 car hopper trains running empty the other way.

More recently we have seen about six daily 112 car unit oil trains running east, and these of course return empty west.

Traffic Origination within a few miles of where I am sitting includes an Ethanol Plant, Two large grain elevators running 50-100 car shuttle trains, The oil terminal that I spoke of is a little ways down the line, in addition to oil out, they also receive fracking sand inbound in covered hoppers.

Focusing on the Ethanol plant, they receive corn by both rail and truck, they also receive gasoline for denaturing the ethanol so that they do not need to buy a liquor license! They receive coal for their heating and cooling plants, and they ship dry brewers yeast by rail or wet brewers yeast by truck.

The ethanol plant has four miles of track right next to the BNSF, with access to the mainline at both the east and west ends of the plant. They have two of their own locomotives for moving cars around the plant. The cars that they receive come from Dickinson, 25 miles to the west, they pass the plant and then back into the sidings from the east switch. Departing trains also headed to Dickinson depart from the West Switch. The crew that drops the cars is seldom the crew that picks up cars, and so that is an extra round trip empty for each crew. If many cars are departing the plant, a car knocker will drive in from Dickinson to inspect the train for the railroad. If there are only a few cars, the conductor gets to do this chore. The plant's own locomotives can never touch or fowl the mane lion. A derail enforces this rule.

Haliburton is going to build another sand terminal right here in Richardton, and someone else is planning a terminal just east of the Ethanol Plant.  (Go North Dakota~!)

Other than this, it is all just a simple single track mainline controlled out of Ft. Worth Texas.

ROAR

[dehusman]

For prototype operations:

A railroad, what it is, what it does, by John Armstrong.

 

For model operations:

Track Planning for realistic operations, by John Armstrong

Tony Koester's operations book from Kalmbach

[BRAKIE]

The books Dave mention is a good start.

Here's some excellent instruction on switching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OU9c2_t6o4

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHXHRZ6v-pM

[cuyama]

Realistic Model Railroad Operation: How to Run Your Trains Like the Real Thing by Tony Koester

An inexpensive and worthwhile investment is a membership in the Operations SIG.

[gandydancer19]

You can also look at this link - http://waynes-trains.com/site/Operations/Operations.html