Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse Harold and I (and now others) are having a discussion of what constitutes staging on page 3 of the 4x8 post. I'd love to hear your point of view. http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=3&TOPIC_ID=46916
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse Harold and I (and now others) are having a discussion of what constitutes staging on page 3 of the 4x8 post.
Controlling the movement of trains has a couple of facets. One is the "Procedures Manual" we talked about earlier, which describes what each of the trains does and how they interact in terms of Distribution of cars (through trains setting-off and picking-up blocks of cars that in turn are switched to- and from industries by local jobs, for example).The other facet is the order in which trains run and how they interact on the layout. In earlier times, this was defined to some extent by the employee timetable, describing the times trains reached various stations along the way. This is inherently time-related, as this is the way trains were kept form interacting in an unorganized fashion (i.e., crashing into each other!)In more modern times, all or nearly all trains on the real railroad run as "extras", without a specific set of timetable instructions. This is true even if they run at about the same time each day.On the smaller model railroad, it can still be important to manage the order in which the trains run. A traditional formal timetable can be used, but it demands timekeeping and is probably more trouble than it is worth to begin ops. I've successfully used sequence timetables in developing a number of ops sessions and I think it's a great way to organize and control a few trains and operators as you are beginning operations (or even in the longer term).The sequence timetable describes movements on the layout in terms of their relationship to one another. When a particular job is complete or reaches some defined point in its work, another job begins. This sequence can be over-ridden if necessary because a particular job is taking longer than expected, but provides a good starting point for operations.Here's an example of a sequence timetable. This one happens to also indicate where each of four crew members is to go as they reach various stages in the operation. This also suggests places for trains to meet and pass, etc. A sequence timetable is also described in the Model Railroad Ops clinic referenced in my first post.I think sequence timetables are a great way to get started. These can be developed on a computer (I used MS Excel for the example) or just some pencil notes. For many layouts, you don't really ever need anything more formal, unless it's fun for you.Communications and Control is just another tool to help make operations more realistic and fun. It should not be a status symbol. Timetable and Train Order operation is the "flavor of the month" and many people read a lot about it in the commercial press. It's true that TT&TO can be fun and challenging, but it is almost a hobby in itself. It requires a lot of set up and training and most small layouts are really not laid out in a fashion that makes TT&TO practical.My advice? Start small, start simple. Operate early and often for design feedback, fun, and motivation. Add complexity over time to the desired level of formality and challenge. Operations should not be a contest or a status symbol. It is a great way to bring more fun and variety to your model railroading experience.Questions or comments?Regards,Byron
Just a couple more comments regarding starting up operations. As mentioned in my clinic handout referenced earlier, I think of three elements in an operations plan: - the Distribution of cars to- and from industries - the Transportation of cars in trains from the visible layout to "somewhere else" - and the Communications and Control to make that movement go smoothly We talked about some ideas for Distribution (Such as Car cards and Waybills) and a bit about Transportation (trains that would work locally or move cars from "here" to "Somewhere else"). Communication is fairly easy on the smaller layout (everyone is probably fairly close together) and of course this is necessary only when there is more than one operator moving trains at once. Communications usually evolve over time. I use some simple terms to define this evolution: "Holler and Hope" -- Each operator works fairly independently, but lets everyone else know when they are moving, such as: "I'm leaving Los Molinos for Orchard Yard, all clear?" If there is someone in an intervening station, they holler back "Sorry, just let me clear up here in Sambone … just a couple of minutes". This avoids unintended consequences like running into a block being controlled by another cab in DC block control. "Mother. May I?" -- Someone, often the layout owner, acts as the "flight controller", giving permission to each operator for their various moves. This Dispatcher keeps an overall view of what's going on, either by actually being able to observe it or by keeping track on a sheet of paper, whiteboard, etc. Each crew informally asks the Dispatcher for permission to move. On a small layout, these means of communication are usually just operators talking with one another. For more interest, placing the Dispatcher in another room and communicating via radio (like the inexpensive FRS "walkie-talkies") can be fun. Another easy remote communication scheme is the intercoms that connect over the household AC wiring. But it's perfectly fine in the beginning to just talk to one another (use your inside voices, please!). Formal control systems -- These are often variations on real systems used by the railroad such as Track Warrant Control, Direct Train Control, Timetable and Train Order, or Centralized traffic Control. These require some planning and training and are definitely not necessary for starting ops. In fact, I think they can be a hindrance … in my opinion, getting the Distribution and Transportation elements right offers a lot of the fun of operating without a ton of set-up work and training. In the next post, a few thoughts about organizing the order in which trains run and their interactions. regards, Byron
QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse I was hoping to pick up some car cards and waybills this weekend but couldn't find any at Timonium. Is there a.pdf somewhere that could be downloaded and printed?
QUOTE: Originally posted by scubaterry I have learned a great deal on the CC&WB system just reading this page. Gives me motvation to get working on my system. That is the goal that keeps my pecking away at my layout daily - to get to the operation stage. I also have the micromark system. Can't wait.
QUOTE: Originally posted by bukwrm I Googled "car cars and waybills" and came across several older programs to generate them. One had an index of shippers, many it would seem were "Far West" or "Far East" as it were, off the layout. It seems to me that the better you understood what your industries, on your layout, shipped and received, the better you could create a card system.
QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse Thanks Byron. I was hoping to pick up some car cards and waybills this weekend but couldn't find any at Timonium. Is there a.pdf somewhere that could be downloaded and printed?
QUOTE: Originally posted by wiking2 This was my thinking too. I will have 2 through trains, a local that will handle 5 industries and a yard local taht will switch three customers in side the yard area. The staging track is in the upper left corner of the layout. This way the freight cars have a destination off track. If you click on the web page you can see a diagram of the layout.
QUOTE: Originally posted by MisterBeasley Before this clinic, I had kind of dismissed my own 5x12 layout as "too small for ops," and I didn't include any staging as such.
QUOTE: Originally posted by MisterBeasley However, I realized that it might someday become "too small for me," and my track plan did include a couple of sidings right off the main that ran conveniently to the edge of the layout for future expansions. Now, I'm thinking of adding a temporary staging yard to one of these, which I could easily put up and take down as needed, but which wouldn't take any space when not in use.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse Thanks for doing this clinic. It needs to be done and it is not easy to get through. I went back and re-read Koester's quick start. (Started getting MR in March 2005) I'm faced with a decision. Either I figure out how to translate everything into operations that run only one direction, or I use engines that are out of era. The problem is that although all my old-time engines can make the 3.1 grade of the outer loop with 4 cars, only one can make 3 cars up the 3.7 down grade of the inner loop. The rest only pull up one or themselves. My 1910's Shay and my 1920's 2-8-0 don't have a problem.
QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse So if I can simplify what you are saying, I should start slow. I should pick a few cars and determine movements for them. You it seems, would have me specify what I was carrying, Koester says not to worry about it.
QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse I think part of my problem "getting it" is a fundamental misunderstanding of what a car cards and way bills are. Mixed in is the Switch list. Correct me if I'm wrong here. For our intents and purposes, the Waybill is the 4-sided "card" that fits inside the pouch of the Car Card. The switch list represents the tasks the train must perform.
QUOTE: Originally posted by MisterBeasley I'd think that a computer program would make a good "scrambler" to provide these cards. It would need an inventory of rolling stock, and some sort of destination information as well. "Long East" and "Long West" seems like a good way to handle off-layout movement designations. Is there something like this out there?
But for a smaller layout or if you are just starting out, hand-writing works great and the start-up time is much reduced. The experience of hand-writing also gives you the background to use the Waybills software most effectively. There are also computer programs that actually create the car and train movement, usually via a computer-generated switchlist. Most are a royal pain to use, IMHO. There are two challenges. One is the amount of set-up work and tuning that is required to get everything to run as planned. The second is that if a car is mis-routed, the software loses it forever until the layout owner manually finds it and corrects the computer. For newbies to ops, I think the car-cards-and-waybills (CC&WB) offer a good balance of realism and simplicity. If a car is mis-routed with CC&WB, it's self-correcting. The next job through sees that the car is not where the paperwork says it is supposed to be and takes it to the yard, staging, or spots it in the correct location. And for cars and paperwork that become separated, it's easy to have a simple rule "Take cars with no paperwork to track 1 in the yard" and do the same with paperwork that has become separated from the car. A happy reunion results. CC&WB are always self-correcting. Nice when working with new or casual operators. regards, Byron
QUOTE: Originally posted by wiking2 I have a 4 x 8 layout that will have 6 customer's 1 interchange and a team track. There is a diagram of my layout at the web page below . I was wondering i would have 56 movements under what you say. How do you decied what each freight car does. I will be using the microcard system.
QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse Thanks Harold, but I have an ulterior motive. Our club wants to go to a car card system and no one really knows how to do it. So I was planning on a test on my layout.
Thanks for the comments and questions.
QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse I understand that the car cards mark the movement of products and movement of empty cars over four op sessions.
QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse My problem is understanding how the car cards are developed. I've started Bruce Chubb's book twice and have not gotten past his description of his home layout. So I have a layout, a couple of industries, and a bunch of cars. What strategy would you use to develop logical car cards for these cars?
Here's the basic sequence of steps I have used to develop car-cards-and-waybills for layouts of all sizes, from one moving 8-12 cars per session to those moving 400-500 per session. First step, decide (roughly) how many cars on average you would like to o appear at each industry each session. It doesn't matter for now if the cars arrive empty and leave full or vice-versa. Count interchange, if you have it, as another industry for now. To make it simple, I'll just assume everything is boxcars for now. This yields a list that looks like: Feedmill 2 Freighthouse 2 Interchange 3 Team track 1 For now, we'll assume that you're using all four cycles of the waybill. I'll talk in a later post about situations where I don't use four cycles, but let's keep it simple for now. The first rough approximation is to multiply all those numbers above times four (for the four cycles), resulting in: Feedmill 8 Freighthouse 8 Interchange 12 Team track 4 Tweaking these numbers a bit is fine at this point. No matter what you do, there will likely be some variability in how many cars turn up each session except on the very smallest layouts. Now you can start filling in waybills. You'll need one cycle for each of the movements you counted above. I just use tick marks on a piece of paper to keep track of how many I've written for each industry and interchange as I go along. But what about movements "off the benchwork" to the east and west, for example? I call these "Long East" and "Long West" destinations, and I think they are best used in between most routings to an on-layout industry to help give a sense that the railroad we see before is just a snapshot of a larger rail system. <start philosophic dissertation> Some people use the older concept of routing all cars from one industry on the visible layout to another on the visible layout. I personally find that this limits realism. If the industries are really so close together, wouldn’t the industries just use trucks or wagons? Occasionally there are movements like this on the real railroad, so a few are OK, especially simulating the confiscation of an empty (more on that later). <end philosophic dissertation> If we do want to include this idea of connecting off the visible benchwork, we need to alternate each delivery on the visible layout with a movement "some where else". Long East, Long West, to interchange, it doesn't matter too much at this stage. In the next post, I'll give some examples. regards, Byron
Ray Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western R.R. (S.L.O.&W.) in HO
We'll get there sooner or later!
QUOTE: Originally posted by scubaterry It does strike me as strange how some of the least productive/interesting topics seem to go on forever and the topics with some "meat" seem to never get off the ground.
Mark P.
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