How did you set up your operation sessions.

[jwar]

Perhaps I may be shaking the tree, sturrrrrring up some bees as I know everone likes his own method of doing things, which is ok as I may incorporate some from all of you.

Im well versed in locomotive and maintaince of way operations, this could keep one or two people busy, however need some input on better train operating sessions.

How do you change the session to keep from getting in the same ole rut, so that your guest will want to return. Im about to get into operations and want to do it right.

As Always, thank you for your reply's in advance, have a great day....John

[Anonymous]

John

What are you using for the operations?

Fast Clock?
Car Card System?
Timetables?
Train Orders?
Track Warrants?
Staging?
Radios?
Dispatcher?

Details, details...

[jwar]

Hey Dave, if I had any details I would have some ideas of what Im doing, LOL [(-D]

Will be using a fast clock, card system and timetables. From the depth of your reply...I"m now searching for a good book on the subject.. Its looks like my operations are a bit on the simple side.

My around the room layout is approx 11 X 15, 3 dc cabs ( will be three cab DCC). Over four or five people may be rather tight moving around throwing turnouts.. I have seven holes to stuff trains in with another three trains running on the three mains., plus a swicher working in the lower yard...John

[Curmudgeon]

I have used Car Card system in an "0" group, really liked it, especially when you get a guy who really likes to be yardmaster.
However, in my outdoor railway, car cards don't work for several reasons.
One, leaving everything where it is when you shut down is not an option (theft and damage).
Two, in real 1:1 Mother Nature, making the load card fit into the car card and not retain rainwater is a task I am unwilling to accomplish when you view reason #1.

So, I have printed waybills, 13 main ones, that are type of car specific, not car number specific.
We set out about 60 cars to start a session, operators grab a waybill and set up cars as indicated (order is not specified), and off they go.
I have a dozen "Dispatchers Option" waybills I pass out as add-ons to the drawn waybill, like Logging Engine Repair Parts which is a flat with a Heisler cylinder and crankcase, Shay, and Climax. Also a Fire Train, which is 2 poorly done tenders with water hose reels on top I picked up.

We have had 20 trains at one running, and last time had 16.
Gets busy.

We run Mixed trains, and have either a 12-car passenger train, or two 6-car trains.
Double-heading of 12 is required if using Moguls or 4-4-0's, the outside-framed 2-8-0's will handle the whole train on all th 4% grades.

We do it in all weather, even have two wedges and a rotary, and use them.

TOC

[Anonymous]

John

I hit you with those questions to get a feel for where you were at. I really enjoy operations, anything else is building up to operating [;)]

2 books I could recommend are both from Kalmbach:

Realistic Model Railroad Operation
http://store.yahoo.net/kalmbachcatalog/12231.html
This is Tony's book and will cover operations very well.
Also MR has a couple of downloadable PDF's you can get, I think they cost about $9.00

Also this book which is a repreint from John Armstrong [angel][bow][bow][bow]
http://store.yahoo.net/kalmbachcatalog/12148.html

I ask, because with car cards, you will get variety, also you can add situation cards, run day and night sessions, create a rule book, have people bid on the jobs, like the real RR.

I have yet to be to an operating session, though I hope to on another layout close to me, I run solo since most of my friends don't play with trains, but think they are cool.

I run car cards and use Track Warrants for movements, you may want to download this little program:

http://www.trainweb.org/mavmrrdigest/upinsmoke/

It's a Track Warrant creator program, I just found it and have yet to set up my RR but looks very good, it would help your dispatcher.

Hope some of that will help.

[jwar]

[bow][:D] Thank you Curmudgeon and dturman for the information and I would like to share a tad with motive operations

Having worked as a railroad machinist both in the running repair WPand as a backshop forman.SP, this is how the WP worked power.

I have read a few articles about operations and there doesnt seem to be much interest in the power side of operations.

Each day when locomotives enter the inbound lead for fuel and service, the daily inspection was a turn, therefore its inspected, light repairs and set out for available power unless there is a federal defect, thin flange, low pilot, that if ran and caught would be a form 5 problem for all concerned.

Every seven days when this same engine entered the lead it was a FULL SERVICE , this would be more intenst then a turn

Every month it became a MONTHLY, and in the shop for a longer period of time, including the turn, full service and mechanical and electrical checkout and repairs.

Every six months it was all the above, plus Heavy repairs, if a flange was close to 1 inch, she went to the drop pit, air brake controls changed out and mechanics, electricians, pipe fitter inspectors gave it a good hard look for future problems and this took, depending on how bad the company needed power about two or three days.

The annual insp was more complex then the above taking a longer period of time, sometime a full week as the main resv were droped for a hydro insp. main bearings were dropped and checked, and a hundred other repairs.

So with the above and this is the 70 and 80s, this is my roundhouse and back shop ops.

using a card syem for repair like a monopoly chance card, a engine will be a turn four times in, the card could have a surprise repair holding the power untill the fast clock time is up in the shop, for wheel work, blown piston, water leaks, bad air brakes ect. or the card could also be a clean quick turn and put on the outbound lead.

Would also pull these same card for the FS amd MO inspection.

Why you ask...on the 1 to 1 road this is what actually happeded dailey, they woud have power lined up and called before it came accross the inbound lead, then the surprise of a few turns needing longer repairs then anticapated, threw a monkey wrench to called crews, dispatchers, formen, supervisors, and the guy that lived in the big house at the top of the food chain, My main point is that anticaped power, does not make a power pool.

After my training as FLI (Federal Locomotive inspector...big woooop...6 cents more an hour) I was called in overtime to FLI, scared that some defect I missed could possable kill someone on down the line or get a form 5 and fine, I gave it my best shot. Reporting major defects to the forman he asked me if I was single handely trying to shut down the railroad. Showed him the defects, then he half ran to the nearest phone.

I didnt see the full picture of the compleat operationat that time, just mine. However as a forman years later felt the pressure of getting things shuffled around to get things done, everytime when a day ran smoooooth as silk, I allway felt like a hammer was about to be dropped....seemed there was allways some unforseen problem, after a while they did get to be fun, its either that or ulcers.

In a nutshell..My roundhouse if half built and I dont want to spent the time and effort and $$$$$ in it to be just a static display. This can also make it nessary to run extra power to the other end of the line, for avalable power. Sounds like fun to me.

Thanks again for your input....take care...John

[cmrproducts]

One of the problems I can see with the Car Cards is that IF you don’t remove the Waybills from the Car Card pocket each time the sequence is run (2 sided or 4 sided cards) then the same car just goes round and round to the same industries time and time again. Yes in the 1 to 1 world they usually did but then the layout and OPs is not a real job. It is supposed to be fun not boring.

Using the Pin System of car movement throws more random movements to cars and the chances of the same car continually being set out at the same industry does not happen.

I use a pin board, which lists all possible cars that can be used at a given industry. This eliminates the Tank Car being spotted at the cattle pens that is unless the operator just doesn’t care what he is doing and I have had this happen. Although that operator was not ask to come back again.

The Car card system can be done the same way but requires a little more work. Finding the proper car for a boxcar of the proper type could get a tad bit time consuming when setting up for OPs.

BOB H – Clarion, PA

[SpaceMouse]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cmrproducts

. This eliminates the Tank Car being spotted at the cattle pens that is unless the operator just doesn’t care what he is doing and I have had this happen. Although that operator was not ask to come back again.

BOB H – Clarion, PA

Bob,

That wasn't me, really. A man snuck into the basement when we weren't looking.

Can I come back?

It really wasn't me.

[cuyama]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cmrproducts

One of the problems I can see with the Car Cards is that IF you don’t remove the Waybills from the Car Card pocket each time the sequence is run (2 sided or 4 sided cards) then the same car just goes round and round to the same industries time and time again.

Hi Bob and all,

You and your operators may be more observant than our crew, but we've been using car-cards-and-waybills (CC&WB) for 10-12 sessions for year for about six years now on Rick Fortin's ATSF 4th district and nobody has noticed a pattern. With trips to staging, dwell time in yards, and a month between sessions, it's a long time before patterns repeat. And they never repeat all at once.

For very distinctive cars, I do swap a waybill from time to time.

We probabaly move 400-500 cars on 25-30 trains in a typical session. Mostly these are 4-sided waybills. Obviously on a smaller layout the repetition would probably be more obvious, so removing waybills and swapping them out occasionally would likely be good practice.

The nice thing about waybills is that they are self-correcting for car routing mistakes. If a car goes to the wrong place and its paperwork (CC&WB) goes with it, it's obvious it has been mis-spotted and it's easily corrected in the next session. Mis-spotting the car with most computer-based systems would cause the car to become "lost" unless you walk around doing a track-by-track inventory.

And if the car and its paperwork become separated (something CC&WB critics often cite), one can simply send the car or the paperwork to a RIP track and eventually the two find each other.

By the way, other good sources of ops information:

The Operations Special Interest Group

and the associated YahooGroup discussion list

also the Gateway NMRA ops pages
Look for "Featured Topics -- Operations" half-way down the home page

Regards,

Byron
http://www.modelrail.us

[Anonymous]

I just attended a Division NMRA meet and the topic Sunday was about operations, and the different methods. While the car card system is a lot of manual labor, filling in/writing the cards, you are right, it is more forgiving on misplaced cars. A couple of memebers at the clinic are using computer programs for the operations, but when asked they didn't seem to be real forthcoming on how well they liked it.

I have been using the car card system, I have about 250 cars, use the 4 cycle waybill and don't see a large repetition of cars. There is nothing saying you can't add another 4 cycle waybill and actually have 8 cycles, I do on some of my cars to add a little variety.

No matter what method a person chooses, the best part is you are operationg your layout with a purpose. I have ran trains without using the cards, just bringing in cars and switching. I felt lost, bored and not as interested. John, what ever you decide, have fun.

As for the car cards, you can buy them from MicroMark or Old Line Graphics, but there are some web sites, I think Gateway NMRA and some other sites have downloads available to make your own. I did this, modified them to meet my preferences and saved some money. Easy to do while watching TV, so you don't lose any valuable train time [;)]

[jrbernier]

John,

I use a basic 'car card' system. I set up all of the 'staged' trains ahead of time, and verify that cars at industries have a car card at that town. I use a 'sequential' order of operation to run the trains rather than a 'clock'. Many times it is just me who is running the railroad, and this works out fine. The railroad is in a 25' by 20' room with about 100 freight cars on the card system. 7 'thru' trains and a 'turn' operate on the railroad in a complete day.
Currently, the railroad is going through a major 'rebuild' that was supposed to be complete Sept 1st. Now it appears that the end of the year is more realistic! I hope to have 'operating sessions' going again at New Years.

Jim Bernier

[cmrproducts]

Byron

I have Ops every other week on Thursdays and about every 6 months I have an OPTUD (OP Till U Drop) a 12 hour session where we have 3 – 8 hour days run on the layout.

The layout has 2700 feet of track and we have 800 plus cars. There are 6 independent shortlines that feed cars to the mainline, which is the Conrail Lowgrade from Dubois to East Brady, PA.

On my every other Thursday night sessions we usually move 400 of the cars during an evening. We are a very serious switching orientated bunch. I can’t get enough operators to just move the coal trains.

So the group usually sees the same cars in 2 weeks of OPs. This is where I can see the same cars again an again.

During the OPTUDs I have repined the cars twice just to keep the 40 guys running the layout.

I have Oped on a Car Cards layout and I only operated once every year or so but it seemed that I was moving the same trains every time I went there. I must have been one really luck person to get the exact same trains (several different trains during each session) each time. And this was a large N scale layout.

BOB H – Clarion, PA

[jfugate]

John:

In my opinion, unless you have a cadre of people that are familiar with your railroad AND experienced in prototype operations, trying to do car cards, fast clock, and timetables with a dispatcher is trying to do too much.

What I did at first with the Siskiyou Line is ran a fast clock and trains in sequence and a dispatcher who just reported fast time. As the owner of the layout, I walked around and played referee, while we just ran things and timed them to the fast clock the first session. The idea was for people to get familar with the layout and for us to find out how long things took per fhe fast clock.

I'd say, "Okay, the next train out is the Siskiyou Line west out of Eugene". We'd get a crew and they would run the train. I'd say, "Okay, run Eugene to Rice Hill". At each town, they would report to the dispatcher and he would record the fast clock time. No car cards, no timetable. We were learning the railroad and how long things took.

We ran a couple of sessions very lose like this just to build up some familiarity with the layout.

Next, we added Track Warrants for the dispatcher. When you switched an industry, you just swapped a car one for one, or did what you felt like doing. We ran like this for a year.

After building up a year's worth of exerience with the layout, in the second year, I added car cards.

Easing into operations in this fashion minimized frustration and made things more fun for people, with new things to look forward to as well. By second year of operations, we had a some regulars who knew the railroad well and were comfortable with adding more complexity.

It's important to go slow because it takes time for people to really learn the layout and the operating procedures. After a year's time, my crew had approximately 40 hours of experience operating the railroad.

On the prototype, you know what they call someone who has a grand total of 40 hours experience?

Rookie! [swg]

[tatans]

Well, I send a locomotive and 3 empty log cars up to log site, load some logs, return to the sawmill, pick up a load of sawn wood and off to the delivery point, end of day. job completed.

[Anonymous]

John,

I would start with the very basics:

Which trains will you run?
Some prototype info could be handy here....

What will they do?
Local? Through freight?

Where will they go?
Staging to staging, Yard to yard etc....

When will they go?

Where will they meet?
A biggie, Who will be on the main when, Who waits for Whom Where?

Develop a time table based on the answers to the above questions and check it for meets and conflicts.....I have found that getting trains past each other on single manlines is the biggest issue...Train X waits for train Y etc...

Next would be to get your fast clock going run the schedule and see how far off base the original plan is....Make adjustments and re-do.....Eventually you may decide to drop or add trains, change a siding etc...For car cards, I tend to be very basic, Swap car for car...

[n2mopac]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jfugate

John:

In my opinion, unless you have a cadre of people that are familiar with your railroad AND experienced in prototype operations, trying to do car cards, fast clock, and timetables with a dispatcher is trying to do too much.

What I did at first with the Siskiyou Line is ran a fast clock and trains in sequence and a dispatcher who just reported fast time. As the owner of the layout, I walked around and played referee, while we just ran things and timed them to the fast clock the first session. The idea was for people to get familar with the layout and for us to find out how long things took per fhe fast clock.

I'd say, "Okay, the next train out is the Siskiyou Line west out of Eugene". We'd get a crew and they would run the train. I'd say, "Okay, run Eugene to Rice Hill". At each town, they would report to the dispatcher and he would record the fast clock time. No car cards, no timetable. We were learning the railroad and how long things took.

We ran a couple of sessions very lose like this just to build up some familiarity with the layout.

Next, we added Track Warrants for the dispatcher. When you switched an industry, you just swapped a car one for one, or did what you felt like doing. We ran like this for a year.

After building up a year's worth of exerience with the layout, in the second year, I added car cards.

Easing into operations in this fashion minimized frustration and made things more fun for people, with new things to look forward to as well. By second year of operations, we had a some regulars who knew the railroad well and were comfortable with adding more complexity.

It's important to go slow because it takes time for people to really learn the layout and the operating procedures. After a year's time, my crew had approximately 40 hours of experience operating the railroad.

On the prototype, you know what they call someone who has a grand total of 40 hours experience?

Rookie! [swg]

How many fast clock hours is that, Joe? If you're running a 6:1 they would have 240 scale hours, which does sound a little better. [:)]

Ron

[n2mopac]

I have to reiterate what a couple of my fellow modelers stated above. John Armstrong's book on designing for operations is hands down the best book for basic concepts of operations I have ever seen. It is a must have!!! Tony Koester's book on operations is also good and is more oriented toward setting up the actual process of operations as opposed to being conceptual like Armstrong's. The web pages by the OpsSig and Gateway NMRA listed above are also fantastic. Read all of these and you will be a long way down the road on understanding how ops work.

Ron

[jfugate]

QUOTE: Originally posted by n2mopac
How many fast clock hours is that, Joe? If you're running a 6:1 they would have 240 scale hours, which does sound a little better. [:)]

Ron

Good point, Ron. At our 8:1 fast clock ratio, that's 320 hours of experience ... or about two months.

Even so, I would say a railroader who's been on the job two months is still wet behind the ears ... hardly an "old hand" by any stretch of the imagination!

My basic point is still true -- we just don't operate our railroad often enough for people to get really proficient at it like they would if they did this 40 hours a week, for years on end.

So it's important to cut people some slack when doing a prototypical op session, since they just won't be as proficient as a real railroader would be.

[jrbernier]

Bob,
The point is to REMOVE the waybill from the car card after the delivery is complete! The 'burned' waybills go back in my pile of future 'car orders'. I have about 6 days worth of car order/waybill's and they are kept by the Dispatcher/Car Distributor person. We pull a days worth every operation session and assign them to 'perspective empties' before an operating session starts.
On an old club I belonged to, we pulled the waybill when the empty car arrived back in the yard. The waybills were put in a special pocket and folks immediately rebilled cars - And yes, that SOO Line flat car seemed to always be taking a load of lumber to the the Deer Creek lumber company! After about 6 months of this, we started pulling the waybills from 'empty' cars before the operation session began. Solved the problem. BTW, I use a 2 side waybill - A car order on one side, and a waybill on the other side to move the car from the shipper to the consignee.

Jim Bernier

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jrbernier

Bob,
The point is to REMOVE the waybill from the car card after the delivery is complete! The 'burned' waybills go back in my pile of future 'car orders'. I have about 6 days worth of car order/waybill's and they are kept by the Dispatcher/Car Distributor person. We pull a days worth every operation session and assign them to 'perspective empties' before an operating session starts.
On an old club I belonged to, we pulled the waybill when the empty car arrived back in the yard. The waybills were put in a special pocket and folks immediately rebilled cars - And yes, that SOO Line flat car seemed to always be taking a load of lumber to the the Deer Creek lumber company! After about 6 months of this, we started pulling the waybills from 'empty' cars before the operation session began. Solved the problem. BTW, I use a 2 side waybill - A car order on one side, and a waybill on the other side to move the car from the shipper to the consignee.

Jim Bernier

Hmmm, not a bad idea, but I don't know if I want to spend and hour or so, could be less, re-inserting waybills to run my session, but that's when I am solo, I guess in a club enviroment it makes better sense. I do on occassion make/replace waybills. But that is after a couple of months running.

[cmrproducts]

Jim

This works well on smaller layouts as I have operated on layouts with only 60 cars. But when you are moving 400 plus cars in a 3 hour evening session I do not want to spend hours getting ready for the next session.

Using the pin system I now use it takes me about 45 minutes to totally repin the system.

Having such a large layout has presented me with many new challenges that most other modelers will never run into.

BOB H - Clarion, PA

[Pruitt]

Bob H -

Can you provide some details of the Pin System?

I don't think I've heard of it before.

[cmrproducts]

Mark

I use the modified pin system (tacks on cars – but use poster putty to hold the tacks on the cars).

The system eliminates having to hold the Keypad, radio, car cards and your uncoupling tool (lets see that’s 4 hands!).

I have a pin board with all of the pins on them (which is just a picture frame so the pins stick to the glass) under the glass is a list of all car types and the associated pin colors so you don’t end up with a stock car at a refinery!

The base color of the tack is the town color and a center dot is the individual industry it goes to.

The pin system is totally random in repinning or it can be set up for proper commodity types. It also allows visiting equipment to be added to the roster with nothing more than adding a pin. There are no modifications needed to the cars. Random repining can be done (on the fly) during an OPs session without much trouble (just walk by the car and change pins) and the best thing is that running the trains between sessions will not foul up the pin system as it would with cards.

btw – I started out with car cards and have used switch lists, wheel reports on other layouts – wouldn’t go back to car cards.

BOB H – Clarion, PA

[Pruitt]

Thanks, Bob -

Sounds like a refined version of Allen's tab-on-car system, right?

[cmrproducts]

You got it!

I have a lot of new and inexperienced operators visit my layout during my OPTUD (OP Till U Drop) sessions (12 hours on a Saturday twice a year). It does not take them long to figure out how to use the sytem. This what I wanted so the nu-bees would not get furstrated and not try operations.

The carcards - wheel reports - etc. require you to know the layout. But this system all you have to do is match the colors and I have Monolopy card style laminated lists at each town showing the colors and associated industries. I have little flags at the actual industry to help locate the industry until I get all of the buildings built and the signs on each of them.

BOB H - Clarion, PA

[SpaceMouse]

I've "Opted till I Dropted"

I am a newbee that has run on Bob's layout. I loved it. My impressions.

The good: There are 20-25 trains running at all times. Sometimes there are teams, other times you are on your own. I've done both. There is plenty to do, every move is dispatcher controlled, so you want simplicity. Like Bob said, you don't have to carry a clipboard. Just a radio, s skewer, and a throttle. Your train has a route and you drop off cars and pick- empties as you go. The color code is easy, but I found you still need to know where things are. (I just walk ahead when I'm asked to hold a siding to see where the next drop off will be for me.) The key cards are a help, but I wish I had one to carry. It was easier the second time as I knew the layout better.. At any rate, it was an easy system to use.

The not so good: Ideally, I would have like to know what the car contents were and what I was picking up. It would have added to the fantasy.

Summation: For Bob's layout, it is twice as bg as my club's layout, I can't imagine a better system. There is a lot going on. Two major yards working, regional interchanges, mainline operations. There are traffic problems. You need simplicity.

[maandg]

Because my MA&G is still under construction - the third level which has the New Orleans terminus has yet to be built - I have not had a formal Op Session. In fact, in the over 30 years I've been in the hobby, I have to confess I have never participated in a true operating session. There are simply no layouts in the area that could support one....in fact; there are very few layouts period! I, by the way, live in the Jackson, MS area..not exactly out in the "sticks". It is my biggest regret in the hobby because it looks like so much fun. My MA&G was designed from the beginning to support operations for a crew of about 6-8. I believe I have enough local model railroaders interested to achieve this goal when the time comes.

Now that I've admitted to having NO operating experience, I would like to offer my plans for operating the MA&G. On an earlier, much smaller version of the MA&G, published in the April 2005 MR, I was using the Old Line Graphics CC&WB system. Occasionally I would switch cars on a solo basis and found it to be very enjoyable. I initially planned on implementing the CC&WB system on the new layout, but learned about the RailOp software program in the interim period. Even though I have not had any first hand experience with the program yet, I believe it will better suit my needs. I am a member of the RailOp Yahoo group and have gained a better understanding and enthusiasm for the program as a result.

Does anyone else out there use the RailOp, or any other computer-generated, car forwarding system? I would be interested in your experiences.

Also, I echo Joe Fugate's comments about starting with a sequenced session. This is exactly the approach I plan to take. I learned about it in John Pryke's article in MR a while back. He also demonstrates how he orchestrates the planning of it in the Allen Keller video of his New Haven layout. John's "Sequenced Timetable" approach is very attractive to me. Especially since I will have 19 passenger trains arriving/departing New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal each 24-hour period. These trains will run on their actual prototype schedules (with the exception of my own two MA&G passenger trains) and dictate how all freight will be scheduled. The sequenced timetable approach looks like a good starting point for me. The RailOp switchlists will also simplify car forwarding - especially during those early sessions.

It would be nice if I could cut my operating "teeth" on an established layout, but it looks like I will be on my own in that regard. Nonetheless, I look forward to having the dispatcher call that first train...one day.

[jrbernier]

Bob H,

On our old club railroad, we had between 250-350 cars on the 'card system' and it took about 30-45 minutes to 'prep' the railroad before the Sunday afternoon operating session. Sometimes I would 'prep' the railroad on the usual Thursday night running/BS sessions. With 3 yards, 9 towns, 2 staging yards, and 10 scheduled trains and at least 6 extra's - We operated a 24 hour schedule in 4 real hours.
The key is to calculate how many 'car orders' are going to be generated each day. This includes movements from on-line shippers or off-line(staging) shippers. Once we pulled the number of car orders from the stack, we just looked around the railroad for perspective empties. The key is that we were not trying to find a waybill for every empty car. We are looking for a suitible empty to 'capture' . If there are not enough of the correct type of empties available, the car orders are reused the next 'day'. If we want to simulate a 'grain rush', we add special colored car orders to 'flood' the railroad. We can pull them after the late summer/fall grain rush is over.
I have tried to work with a 'computer' system, but there is just too much maintenace to keep it in sync. Also, my model railroad is set in the late 50's - Computers just do not seem right! Also, I sort of enjoy reading the routing info/special instructions on the car order/waybills.......
The colored tack/dot sure makes operation 'simple', but I just do not like seeing that stuff on the cars. I have operated with the system, and it is easy for new operators to use.
Last summer I operated on the big traveling layout at the NMRA convention, and also with the Ops SIG group on a couple of home layouts. I enjoyed the different modes of operation.

Jim Bernier

[cmrproducts]

Jim

Yes, I have to agree that having the pins on the cars does not look the best. But then again as I have stated before I am OPs before looks. I am slowly getting the scenery and buildings done but when doing a prototypical layout one has to scratch build almost everything!

Having only been working on the layout for 5 years now there are a lot of cardboard boxes set around for buildings as well as a number of paper building flats.

One of the things I like about the Pin System is that I can show off the layout, run a few trains between sessions and not have to worry about the loss of cards because the trains is not where it was left at the end of the last session.

We do not get into this having to have all trains returned to yard or staging when 9:00 rolls around. The operators just pull their train into a siding and walk away. With the layout as big as this it may take me a week to find a train that had not finished its run from the previous Ops.

When we begin the next session I just assign the train to an operator, not necessarily the one that was operating it the last time. It is so easy for the operator to just pick up the train on the Keypad and continue on.

Again I am trying to make it as easy as possible for anyone to run the layout. In the past we had so many members of our club lose interest in any type of OPs due to the complicated block system and when DCC came along and especially Radio this went a long way to get the occasional operators back into running trains.

The Pin system helped by eliminating more frustration in having to learn the layout that most club members just don’t want to do. And running roundy round is way too boring especially during our weeklong show in October (which by the way is coming up in 2 weeks).

So the pin system just carried over onto my home layout. And the ease of having operators being able to bring in their equipment to t\run on my layout also was a benefit.

BOB H – Clarion, PA

[Pruitt]

Bob,

Can you post a picture or two of your pins, please? I'm following your descriptions, but having a hard time picturing these. Are they upside-down thumbtacks, with the paint on the underside of the head?

Also, where is Clarion? I'm in NJ and would like to drop by your club's open house, unless you're many hours away.....