How do you op?

[Paul S.]

Let's talk operations! Do you prefer timetable/train order or track warrant operations, go full-blown CTC, use car cards and waybills, or just run trains as the mood suits? Or somewhere on between?

Just for a tad more discussion fodder, here's a link to Lance Mindheim's thoughts on operation:

https://lancemindheim.com/2024/06/ho...h-your-trains/

Thanks to Russ C for the suggestion of this topic!

[Tim R]

Hi Paul;

I prefer TT&TO, but layout owners seem wary of it. Two layouts that I operate on somewhat regularly use it, and it's what I'm planning on using on my layout (provided I actually go down in the basement and work on it 🙄). A couple use CTC, but the one I operate monthly is mostly smoke signals.

For car forwarding, the HO layouts use car cards. Most of the N-scale layouts use tab on car, but one uses car cards. A rather laid back On30 layout uses hand written switch lists. I don't like unstructured car forwarding.

When I'm signing up for operations events and conventions I lean heavily toward TT&TO layouts.

[JerryZ]

Well according to Lance, I am in the minority, owning, and mostly operating on " multi-operator, long mainline run, session you normally associate with “operating sessions”.

My own railroad is TT&TO, running under the "Condensed Code of Operating Rules" (developed by Steve Karas and Robert Hanmer (the Fourth Printing, 2009 sits next to my computer for reference). I just hosted a session on Sunday, June 30, 2024 that involved 17 people plus myself.

Car forwarding is with Car cards / Waybills. I use the traditional four sided waybill (MicroMark), with my waybill database created in an Excel spreadsheet created by Steve Menker and modified for my needs by Allen DeBraal. Some of the layouts that I operate on utilize "Flex bill", which is a more prototypical looking waybill.

Of the railroads I operate on within our operating group (Rail Group Chicago), 6 are TT&TO, 1 is track warrant, 1 is CTC, and 1 is a combination of Rule 251 ABS and CTC.

When I attend weekend operating events, I also lean toward TT&TO layouts.

Regards,
Jerry
Willowbrook, IL

[Russ C]

Being in another country, things are done a bit different to the norm in the US. I model a southern New South Wales branchline terminal circa December 1960, a shunting layout.
Operations are OTS/TT (That's a new one for you Paul lol) https://www.artc.com.au/uploads/ANSY-506.pdf
It's Ordinary Train Staff / Time Table. The train staff is a token that the driver (engineer) has to have to run from one station to the next. It's an assurance that he's the only train in that section. The time table is such that one person can easily run a session.

Train consist -your going to laugh but I use a 12 sided dice and can be used in 2 ways. The card system is a pre-loaded train consist of up to 10 wagons long (I use 4 wheel wagons mostly, a trucked/bogie wagon counts for 2 wagons). The second method is a roll of the dice determines how many wagons are in the train, using a car card system.

[Russ C]

Just reading Lance's posting, I feel that he's 'contradicting himself. He said he has no interest in the 'chess' of switching cars yet that's a vital part of ops, model and real life. Then he says he's interested 'in capturing the prototype experience'. Really?? To me that's the same as what we're trying to capture in minature, wheather you call it 'chess moves' or not.
I've watched lots of people operate over the years and most run trains like their in a tearing hurry. No switching engine can run as fast as most operate at. When I switch, coupling or uncoupling, I stop, count to 5 (in my head, less chance of getting 'funny' looks lol) before moving off. That simulates airlines, couplings and walking. When the train's made up, i count 5 per wagon (up to 25) for pumping up the train line. To each their own in the long run but I'm not in any hurry.

[JerryZ]

Russ C asked "Do you block a consist by industry?"

Short answer, yes. Let me break that down a bit more.

Local switch jobs - I have two local switch jobs, one is a scheduled 3rd class train (520/521, the "crews" call it the Kirsten Mills Turn), and the South Spokane Switch (works within yard limits from DeBraal Yard to Spokane, and returns. Both have their consists blocked by town, and if time allows, industry (industry blocking done by me between sessions, or it don't get done, no time during sessions).

Locals setting out, picking up by town - There are two trains, 500 / 501 that "block swap" cars at Bohemia, Noname, and Bessemer. The jobs work between Worley Yard and DeBraal Yard. The blocks are by station, all industries / car spots in those blocks are for the local switch crews to sort out. These jobs get blocked during a session. They don't always have any Worley setouts, and on occasion, a 2nd section will only run from Debraal to Worley.

Through trains. Scheduled eastward trains (400, 402, 404), which may run additional sections, have a "Worley Block" that gets set out at Worley Yard, and they pick up eastward GN or NP traffic depending on which way the continuing train is going. These trains are not assigned to GN or NP, the first one that has enough cars to go out gets the slot. That is why we run sections. Westward trains that are the counterpart to the 400s are all run as extras. They set out a Worley and cars between Worley and Debraal (these cars go into 501).

On Sunday's session, there was a 1-400 pre-blocked, and the South Spokane Switch was pre-blocked by station order at DeBraal Yard. The rest of the work was for the minions to do during the session. :-)

[Russ C]

I understand what you're saying Jerry. I think that blocking a train by industry is often counter productive as I ties up the switcher to the detriment of other work. Yep, block the consist by town, not necessarily by industry. Or even just assemble the train in unsorted cars and let the local deal with it once outside the yard.
I spent the first 3 years of my 42 year railway career in the signal box (tower) at the south end of Enfield yard, the main marshalling yard in Sydney. I've always observed cars being in the yard for 12 hours or more being built into trains, not always blocked up like we tend to do. This'll go beyond your typical operating session so I think that you'd get a headstart on things by blocking cars prior to the ops session, even if in cuts to be assembled later during the session.
And yards, our yards never have enough tracks to serve our needs so the faster the first train of the session are 'evicted' from the yard, the better.

[craigtownsend]

I think modelers tend to have way too many "blocks" and that slows down yards way too much.
Well and crews that think they know how to switch a yard, but cherry pick cars one at a time.

Say I have 20 "blocks". Common sense says, make 20 blocks. Well that's all well and good if you have 20 tracks to sort. But what if you have 2 tracks?

Well you sort blocks 1-10 in one chunk, and 11-20 in the other. And don't worry about getting the order of 11-20 right. Just get 11-20 cars in one track. The train that takes cars blocked for stations 11-20 can either take those cars all the way to station 15, where it can be separated into to 11-14, 16-20 tracks/piles.

Instead what I see a lot of "experienced" operators do is this:
Let's pull all the 1 block cars out and set them to one track and ignore everything else. They finally get block 1 done and move onto block 2...

So now I'm cherry picking cars one by one. It's a time waster.

By the time they get halfway done the yard is plugged and messed up.


Sure I've spent time switching 1:1 cars but dang I've got to some layouts and worked yards and had them cleared and organized in probably half the expected time (and not running fast just because but running at normal speeds).

At one layout I had a mentor tell me what I was doing was wrong by sorting mass blocking cars instead of cherry picking one by one. And then after I sorted everything out and the inbound train gave me more cars to switch and the yard wasn't a mess, I think he finally understood.

Yard switching can make or break a ops session.

During SoundRail, I got to experience a husband/wife team absolutely f up a yard and drag the entire railroad to a stop. We ended up back hauling tracks to the opposite end of the layout yard to reswitch the mess and attempt to fix the RR. When the dust settled and the couple left, 4 or 5 of us there looked at each other and said what the heck was that.

[Jeff B]

Great subject. I have run operations sessions on my last two layouts. When we moved in 2016 and I had to start over, I switched from a basic run double track main with some switching opportunities to a switching only layout in an 8 x 17 room. My main reason was that most days, I operate alone, usually have less than an hour, and like switching.

I (with Wyatt's great help) expanded my layout into the next room earlier this year and included staging on both ends, so I can take 10-12 minutes of just mainline running when I want. This sort of splits the difference and allows me to do both.

As to details, I use the tab on car system and like it (N scale...no reading car numbers) Since my layout was and mostly still is a stub end branch, it was easy to develop a system - round tags for inbounds and square tags for outbounds. With my new capacity, it is getting a little more complicated but I will figure it out before I host sessions in November.

I have tried to implement the "ground eye view" and always used basic slow speeds (until the wife calls me for dinner, lol.)

[craigtownsend]

I've operated under car cards, switch lists, train lists, and 'swap boxcar for boxcar' type layouts. All the layouts I've ever done ops on each have their own twist to the ops session.

My home layout is a "other than main track" branchline. So no real train authority needed, but I'm going to make and print off a block register book (think train register style) for visitors and myself to keep track of ops sessions. The branch was once a 'block register' authority branch so it kinda fits. I'll start working on that after all the track is done.

As for moving cars around on my layout, I'm still up in the air. I know that I want the people working that layout to have a trainlist/switch list style instead of car cards, but I'm still trying to determine how I want to set up the variables to actually create the trainlist and/or switchlist. Right now I'm just using a random number generator spreadsheet to get ideas on frequency of car movements, etc. I may end up using JMRI at some point as it seems the most applicable to the time frame I'm modeling (computer generated train lists). The big problem I have with JMRI is that it can't keep track of the standing order of cars. I'm spoiled after reading standing orders of tracks or even train lists. This is one of the reasons I like car cards. I can sort the car cards into any standing order I want within a few seconds.

Supposedly Shipit? or a different program allows standing car order but I haven't figured that out for sure.

[KansasBob]

An excellent topic. I am a big fan of populating the JMRI Operations Pro and creating a switch list for each train in a sequence. I find this a good approach for a small/medium layout, where there are not multiple trains to deconflict. One of the things that I like most is the testing of the layout's "traffic flow" by running through this sequence of trains and seeing how cars are distributed, train lengths created, where there are gaps between the program and the envisioned outcome. This is done completely virtually in the software, even before you build the layout, giving you the opportunity to change track plans to better suit your goals. In my opinion, the approach can also give you more variety than car cards, but maybe I just don't understand that approach very well.

-Bob T.

[JerryZ]

Hi Bob: As far as I'm concerned, the best approach is whatever works best for each individual. There is no "right way". It should be the
"fun way" for all of us. "-) Have a Happy 4th!

[Russ C]

I concur with Jerry. Whatever works. In my instance it's the car card/switch list. JMRI works for some but I feel the larger the layout, the more complex it becomes and more liable for a novice operator to 'screw it up' and be intimidated by it.

[Greg]

So much in common here. I too live in Texas and I too also use jmri ops. lol
Yes there is a data entry point. But you can make as simple or complex as you want. Like using schedules to force certain cars to go to certain spurs. As stated you can run trains upon trains digitally so you can fine tune it to work just like you want it.

[Russ C]

Say I have 20 "blocks". Common sense says, make 20 blocks. Well that's all well and good if you have 20 tracks to sort. But what if you have 2 tracks?

Well you sort blocks 1-10 in one chunk, and 11-20 in the other. And don't worry about getting the order of 11-20 right. Just get 11-20 cars in one track. The train that takes cars blocked for stations 11-20 can either take those cars all the way to station 15, where it can be separated into to 11-14, 16-20 tracks/piles.

Instead what I see a lot of "experienced" operators do is this:
Let's pull all the 1 block cars out and set them to one track and ignore everything else. They finally get block 1 done and move onto block 2...

Yes, there's time constraints to switching/blocking. Sort by direction and block by location if there's time, by industry can be done at the town. The key is to have the train ready to depart in a timely manner. Otherwise you risk the yard becoming unworkable.

[john_plsn]

Nice topic, and I doubt there is any wrong answer.

This can become quite lengthy, but I will focus on my "rough plans" on my SPIE RR. I will not have a long mainline, but hopefully I can overcome that with some simple yard related ops to keep operators attention with power moves and such. The locals may be super busy, but I will need to schedule them carefully as there will be restricted aisle space. Switching areas that are stacked one above the other will not be running at the same time. Continuous staging will help me have trains ready and yard ops will be minimized to keep the layout fluid. For the most part only local trains will be completely classified where mainline trains will have some cars switched out and replaced. Then they could be moved ahead or back the other way. My hopes is that the mainline operators don't easily recognise a train that mostly replaced the power.

The weeds here are so very tall.

I hope to put JMRI to use, but be very restrictive. Why, because the hard work has been done, thank you, and I can print train and/or switch lists for specific locations. I need to go in and create the restrictions/guidelines which may drive me nuts, but that's ok. As much as I want a dispatcher I may have to rely on signals to give permissions for trains to move, which would actually be prefered.

Time will tell, but I can see where I want to be.

[N Scale Brad]

I have been using card cards and waybills that I have made myself. So far I have about 70 freight cars that are in service for the 8 industries on the layout. As I operate the layout in three different eras some of the cars are not used in all eras. Eastbound and westbound manifest freights drop off or pick up cars at the division point in Carlin. All Southern Pacific trains must stop in Carlin for crew changes and eastbound will also take on fuel. A road switcher assigned to the Carlin yard will take a local west as far as Lovelock with several industries being served in Battle Mountain.

So far I have been running this by myself and have done simulated operating sessions over the course of a couple of days with as many as 11 trains. I hope of having a few friends from my Ntrak group over at some point in the future to have an actual operating session.

[craigtownsend]

I had an interesting op experience on Saturday over at Greg Wright's outdoor layout. He's will known in the Olympia area as having a indoor narrow gauge 1:32 layout (I operated on that during Soundrail this year). Greg's outdoor line is basically a folded dogbone shape with a branchline of one end, and a spur off the other end with a small yard in the middle of the dogbone. Everything has tight short curves, limited space and perfect for modeling a logging railroad. My wife asked how long I'd be gone, and I said I'm sure only 3 hours because the layouts not that big and ops couldn't take that long. Boy was I wrong! There was 4 of us (2 crews, one running as the conductor, one as the engineer) and we ran ops for just shy of 6 hours. One crew ran the yard job which consisted of them moving cuts of loaded log cars to the log dump, dumping the logs (ie removing them) and then swapping loads for empties. By the time the yard crew worked the log cars, the 'road crew' (that was the one I ran) came back with more loaded logs which we swapped out for the empties and brought them back up to the loading areas. Besides the logs, we also had a few boxcars to move around, and a MOW type train.

No car cards, but simple instruction sheets (similar to switch lists), no real switching puzzles. I counted a total of 10 different spot locations for the road crew, and 3 or 4 for the yard crew (plus all the switching).

The overall enjoyment of the ops wasn't due to anything special, it was just plain fun. The pace was busy enough, but not so busy that we couldn't stop to take a break, go pee, etc. When we finally put everything away I was shocked that we had been running for almost 6 hours.

[Jeff B]

I used to be a fan of card cards.....until I operated on a layout with narrow aisle and my fellow operator knocked them all out of my hand, scattering any semblance of organization I had in my hands. I have seen a few car card layouts with what I think is a track for holding shower doors, and they work great for holding the cards rather than put them in my hand.

Someday, if I tire of the tab on car system, I might implement JMRI.

[Greg]

I will make sure my phone and my internet are turned off when that happens. Lol

[Paul S.]

While TT/TO is appropriate for the decade and division on which my layout is based, neither is really required. That's because yards limits take effect just about immediately as Southern and L&N trains enter the layout from staging.

Form 19s and switch lists, while handy for reinforcing the layout's operating "atmosphere," are more "passengers" than anything useful, as I operate alone. So I can focus on being the engineer and brakies, rather than being the conductor.