Frank Ellison's "Delta Lines" was literally light years ahead of model railroading operations. The complimentary PDF-download, The Art of Model Railroading, from 1944, provides 36 pages of insight to more effectively plan & interpret today's operations.
When you see the Delta Lines trackplan -- You will be amazed at how operations = smooth running. Also see Frank Ellison's, Realistic Freight Operations, at the Information Station.
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
Corey there is no wrong way to operate a model railroad. You can have as many rules you want. my operations are simple. i run one Train a day which is a local freight. This train ,like all freight locals, switches industries. My system for figuring out how many cars the industreis get are dertimened by scenerio cards. Each card has the name of the industrie, how many cars it gets, and what types. I make 10-15 cards for each industries. some are the same, some are rarer then others and some say "o nothing today". When I operate i pick a random card for each industrie and it tells me what each industry gets. This system is also described in Kalmbach's book " HO model railroad you can Build" .
from Gabe
"Mess with the best, die like the rest" -U.S. Marine Corp
MINRail (Minessota Rail Transportaion Corp.) - "If they got rid of the weeds what would hold the rails down?"
And yes I am 17.
Here are some worthy reads for you http://www.gatewaynmra.org/operate.htm
I was particularly fond of designing model railroad operations as it gave a little more background and overall explanations.
Byron Henderson has some worthy reads too that you should be able to get little more info from
http://layoutvision.com/id18.html
His ops for one and ops for a 4 x 8 should get you started in the right direction. There is also this
http://layoutvision.com/id1.html
The key is to start small, have fun, have diversity and add to the scheme as you go or want.
ratled
Sorry for some reason the links are not clickable no matter how much I try to change them.... strange
[I made those links clickable for you. –Moderator]
Modeling the Klamath River area in HO on a proto-lanced sub of the SP “The State of Jefferson Line”
Lance, thanks for the response. I really did enjoy the layout design, build and the switch plans books. Got a lot of info from them and i have to tell you .... struggling with the scenery only zones on my plans. I fight the impulse to plug every space with something :)
I will check out the groups that you noted. I don't know about the market either but I think that folks interested in what you do ( primarily switch layouts) and that have bought your previous books would be interested in an operations book.
thanks,
Corey
Railroading In Council Bluffs
http://www.rrincb.com/
Visit my caricature carving website:
http://iowacarver.tripod.com/
Thanks Ulrich, I appreciate the response. I will check out Tony's book at the Library.
Geep Fan I am just beginning a shelf railroad, very much along the lines of a Lance Mindheim type switching layout ( i enjoyed his books) and one of the things they are light on is operations. I guess my question is are there operation systems or books that you can buy that tell you how to do this etc.? Kind of like rule book etc. like war-gamers use? Does that make sense? I will have plenty of industry on the layout to switch etc. and i will use a cassette type yard like Lance does in his books but I don't want it to be real complicated and basically easy to use and fun to operate. I have read some on switch lists etc. but i don't know enough about operations to really get all that. Corey
I am just beginning a shelf railroad, very much along the lines of a Lance Mindheim type switching layout ( i enjoyed his books) and one of the things they are light on is operations. I guess my question is are there operation systems or books that you can buy that tell you how to do this etc.? Kind of like rule book etc. like war-gamers use? Does that make sense? I will have plenty of industry on the layout to switch etc. and i will use a cassette type yard like Lance does in his books but I don't want it to be real complicated and basically easy to use and fun to operate. I have read some on switch lists etc. but i don't know enough about operations to really get all that.
Hello Corey,
I'm glad you enjoyed the books. I continue to toy with the idea of doing a book on industrial switching operations but have held off as I'm not sure how much of a market there is for it. It's still something I'm considering. A few suggestions:
-Join the operations SIG (only $5) for the electronic magazine. http://www.opsig.org/reso/
Also, join their Yahoo chat group
-Make a habit of watching prototype switching videos on You Tube and copy what they do.
-The 'Proto Layouts' Yahoo group has a lot of professional railroader/modelers on it and is a good source of info.
-The South Florida Railfans Yahoo group has a lot of good info.
-Find a location on public property where you can watch an actual switch job perform it's work. This is a lot of fun and very informative.
All in all your best bet is to track down veteran operators and friendly pro railroaders and ask how they do it.
Lance
www.lancemindheim.com
Tony Koester´s book "Realistic Model Railroad Operation" should be what your are looking for.
Not sure this is where to post this and if i can get across my question here due to my own ignorance on the subject... but here goes!
Hope this makes sense and thanks for humoring me :)