Two-man crews a featherbed?

[markpierce]

I've had the opportunity to operate several well-planned layouts. Most have two-man crews. Only once was I given the sole responsibility, and despite crazy DCC electrical problems, it was the best. With two-man crews, aisles are jammed. Usually, the guy controlling the throttle (the engineer) only wants "his helper" to prepare routes (turnout switching, etc.) and handle paperwork: he doesn't want to be under the control of the "conducter." Personally, I believe a single-man-crew is highly preferable, and that two-man crews are principally a ploy to featherbed. What's your opinion?

[Anonymous]

I have long decided single person crews all the way under the control of a central dispatcher unless I had eneugh people who would otherwise be sitting around doing nothing.

James

[markpierce]

Free drinks in the dome car, and single-man crews? Please sign me up!

[Anonymous]

Well I've found the opposite on the large layout of a friend that I operate on. This would be for way freights that do switching along the route. Singles are OK on through trains and passenger trains.

There's just too much stuff to juggle on a switching run. We have wired throttles (will be converted to wireless in the near future), radio, train order with the switchlist, and an uncoupling tool ( a piece of rail). Finding a place to put all of this stuff is hard enough, but figuring out which car goes where, which one has to be picked up, operating the turnouts, make it way too busy. Two guys do it better - one guy runs the train, the other the radio, paperwork and uncoupling. When switching at areas with long sidings, it works faster if one fellow can operate the turnouts at the far end.

I think it mostly depends upon the type of layout you operate on.

Bob Boudreau

[TomDiehl]

Unless you're paying them, I don't see how you can consider it "featherbedding."

[Paul3]

At the large club layout I operate on, we always have two man crews (and sometimes three) on local freights.

All mainline through trains are all one man crewed...although we do have a position called "Fireman" that's used as a training tool to get new operators used to the operation without getting hopelessly lost. A Fireman acts as the asst. engineer, and will sometimes take the throttle or the radio or both, depending on his confidence and his engineer.

Paul A. Cutler III
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Weather Or No Go New Haven
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[Texas Zepher]

QUOTE: Originally posted by markpierce
With two-man crews, aisles are jammed. Usually, the guy controlling the throttle (the engineer) only wants "his helper" to prepare routes (turnout switching, etc.) and handle paperwork: he doesn't want to be under the control of the "conducter." Personally, I believe a single-man-crew is highly preferable, and that two-man crews are principally a ploy to featherbed. What's your opinion?

It depends on the layout and the rules of operation. The engineer should be doing exactly that. Watching the train and running the throttle. What the other person does depends. Whomever is controlling the paperwork is in charge of the train. This has nothing to do with the goodness or badness of two man crews just how it is implemented. When I take a new person out for their first operating session, I always MAKE them be the engineer because in some ways it is the easiest thing. I do the paperwork and switchman duties. I try to let them decide the switching moves.

I like two person crews because I don't have four hands...... When I am out there all alone I get car cards spread out all over the town I'm working.

[markpierce]

My issues with two-man crews is that the engineers I work with think they are in charge of the train (leaving the other guy to do diddly: in my opinion the conducter calls the moves) and that layouts I've operated on don't have big enough aisles. Way freights should have their trains properly blocked at their origination so that way-freight switching is mostly straight-forward. Switching should almost entirely be with trailing turnouts so moves are simple. If there is a facing turnout, leave the cars in town and switch them on the way back. If your train isn't scheduled to make the return, the cars should have originated at the other end of the line on a different train. Don't make life difficult.

[jfugate]

We use mostly two person crews when we operate on my Siskiyou Line and it's great fun.

It works especially well when we have "newbies" because our prototype operating procedures can be intimidating if you are new. So the newbie becomes the engineer, and gets the throttle. We tell newbies: just take the throttle and do what the conductor says to do.

My layout is in a 50 x 25 foot room with reasonable aisles, so we don't find the extra couple of bodies cause much of a problem.

I also enjoy the comraderie of a two person crew, especially on local frieght runs. Having the extra person to discuss moves with helps to think things out -- two heads are better than one, as they say.

I must be doing something right -- when we host an op session I often have to turn people away (put them on a future session's waiting list) ... [swg]


If you want to see for yourself what I mean, I post regular operating session reports with photos here: http://model-trains-video.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=13