The Modeler's Forum

Another of my threads from RR-Line.  I'm about to have my first op sessions in a year, which will get posted after the older content.
----------------------------
27.Oct-2013: For a year or so, I've been thinking seriously about operations on my B&M Eastern Route layout. I'm modeling a mostly double-track line that mixed heavy industry with a fairly high-density passenger service. The layout was planned and built with operations in mind; I know what kind of plant the B&M had in place to handle the traffic and I've modeled as much as I can.

The track and control systems are ready and I have enough equipment for a somewhat anachronistic weekday schedule (just don't get concerned at McGinnis-paint RDCs operating alongside steam). I'm now at the point of experimenting with timetables and freight movements, trying to put together an operating plan which will be functional and fun when I invite guests over.

My first question is about fast clocks. My MRC Prodigy Advance DCC system's has a settable ratio, but I have not found an OEM or 3rd party clock display that works with it. Also, my Wireless hand-held appears to have a bug - the time is always 00:00. If MRC says anything useful about that, I'll report it here.

I know some of you are using JMRI's clock, others the built-in clocks in NCE or Digitrax. Is there a modestly-priced, easy-to-set product that would let me put two synchronized displays up on the wall, one for either end of the room?

28-Oct-2013: NHGuy answered:

QuoteAs far as I know there are no external clocks available except for the NCE system but are quite a bit on the expensive side to me. There are several external fast clock systems available. I use the GML Enterprises fast clock system. http://www.thegmlenterprises.com/id19.html It is a good reliable system. I have the clock controller and 6 clocks of the 8 inch clock faces type. In the long run it was more cost effective for me to purchase this entire system than buy the expensive clock faces(that I could not get to work on another fellow's railroad) for the NCE's built in clock system which is what I use. What I needed for the NCE system to do the same thing was more than 3 to 1 in costs for the clock faces. Several of us have use this same GML system in our operations. I would look around for a suitable fast clock system and evaluate what you need. I am not aware of other clocks available for JMRI, MRC or Digitrax as I don't use any
of these systems and had stopped looking after I purchased the GML system. That is not to say that they are not available.

Thank you, Bill; GML is still the price of a nice loco, but it will handle my plans to have one or two non-throttle operating positions: Bexley Towerman and Draw Operator, plus the ability to run one or two trains on DC.

MRC got back to me just before lunch - I should send both the Prodigy base station and the wireless back, with a check for $50 and they will upgrade. Not awful for equipment that is 4 & 8 years old, respectively. There is a week in December when I won't care if I can't run DCC, so that's when I'll do it.

Dave1905 replied:

QuoteThere is a company that sells wifi connected fast clocks. Joe Atkinson tested one on his IAIS layout. Wee bit pricey. I'll see if I can figure out which company it is. Iowa Scaled Engineering link
http://www.iascaled.com/

His link to Iowa Scaled Engineering's product isn't valid anymore, but it may still be findable by searching their site: Iowa Scaled Engineering (http://www.iascaled.com/)

11-Nov-2013: Thanks for the pointers, Bill & Dave. The look of GML's clock faces is more era appropriate, but I'm thinking I will put off buying one till I get some friends over for a test run. But that's getting closer.

I've been working on an Employee Timetable. I'm aiming at timetable/train order operation, but in multiple track territory with interlockings
and a few miles of CTC, I'll be using a different subset of the rules, and not writing a great many train orders, when I get to that point. First, I just want to try a non-clocked run to see how things work out.

Timetable2.png

I did a spreadsheet, but without formulas for train timings. This gives the lineup for the operator at Draw (staging for both ends of the line).

Pete replied:

QuoteI just took a good look at the schedule. If my math is correct, that's 29 trains a day. You have a busy little stretch of railroad there!

Keep us posted, and keep that Draw working!

12-Nov-2013: I should have mentioned: my staging and equipment pool is too small to just run right through noon or midnight - I will have to turn most of the consists.  My plan is to run a morning as one session, then the corresponding afternoon as the next.

But it was a busy RR: In 1947, 9 inbound and 3 outbound passenger trains passed West Lynn between 7 and 8 AM on a weekday. Today, only 3/3. I'm starting out with a 'Saturday' schedule to get yard and way-freight activity with a modest passenger schedule - most freight and yard jobs were 6 days a week. If my crew likes that, we can move up to midweek, and then do a Monday (inbound freights heavy). I haven't worked out Sunday yet, but this was the era of the Blue Laws so things will be quieter.

24-Nov-2013: I did some test runs at a 6:1 clock ratio and adjusted all my running times. At this rate, a passenger run takes between 25 and 40 minutes, depending on station stops, which feels about right. The two through freights can do their work in the allowed time as well. Now I have to see how local freights do.

Meanwhile, I've finished the weekday timetable & crew assignments for both weekdays and Saturdays. Weekdays take 6 throttles, Saturdays 5. I have to work out whether I have enough locos of plausible types to run either yet.

CardRack.png

Finally, I started setting up for card order freight. This is two of MicroMark's sorting cases for Bexley's 5-track yard.

SpurCardHolder.png

And this is "vinyl undersill" from the big box DIY store 'vinyl siding' section for a single industry with four spots. I looked for the smaller strip that Vagel mentioned as being in the 'bath' section, but couldn't find it.

Note that I'm also labeling things for visitors. In the 1950s, low-volume signs were still mostly painted, either by hand or using a stencil. R.W. Jones wrote about the B&M sign painter who handled the destination signs at North Station, so I've been practicing with a small flat brush and Titanium White artist's acrylic. I wouldn't qualify as a journeyman, but I'm improving. I'll probably try replacing the red Sharpie on the F-channel with black paint at some point, though I expect lettering on an uneven surface will be much tougher.

5-Dec-2013: Over the last few days, I put up more vinyl undersill, but I still had 8 or 9 industries that need it. I also started filling out car card/envelopes from the MicroMark "starter" card operations set I got for Christmas several years ago. So far, I've done ~30 of the ~70 cars on the layout. I had estimated I'd need ~75 cars for freight operations on the completed portions, but that may be a bit under. I have ~20 more Green Dot cars in the storage boxes I take to Hub Modular setups, so I should be OK with the 100 cards provided in the set. Doing the waybills is going to take more thought.

An off-line comment made me realize that I haven't explained some basics here, so:

The layout is an oval with four passenger stations and two sets of yard limits. See this page in my build thread for my current plan (much nicer than that on page 10, with most text readable):

Track plan about the 1/5 point of this page (https://modelersforum.com/index.php?topic=6843.105)

The staging yard at the top is Draw. Then, clockwise the River Works (GE plant) flag stop, West Lynn yard, Bexley (major town, with aspects of Salem, MA), Bexley Engine Terminal & Yard, Rowley (modules), Newburyport West (minor junction), Newburyport and back to staging. The main staging tracks are mostly commuter-train sized, so I made two longer ones that rejoin the main between West Lynn and Bexley - this is the prototype junction of the Saugus Branch. Because it's my railroad, the New Haven built a tunnel under Boston Harbor and for reasons lost in time, connected it to the Saugus Branch rather than the Eastern Route main. So I will be operating run-throughs with the NH as well as B&M trains to/from Boston.

The operating scheme is that passenger consists leave Draw, run around the oval and terminate back at Draw. Of necessity, local/commuter passenger consists will be seen more than once in a 12-scale-hour operating session. As with the prototype, there are only a few long-haul trains, so they only appear once. Consists must be turned & rearranged between the morning and afternoon sessions of a single day.

Freight arrives on the RR via 1) a BM/NH Providence - Portland run through named the Casco (opposite side of the job is the Narraganset) and 2) one hauler from East Somerville per shift that turns at Bexley. As with the prototype, most of the freight originates or terminates on-layout. Pickup and delivery are handled by the Lynn Goat, Bexley Switcher and Portsmouth local (east in the morning, west in the afternoon).

I'm presently thinking hard about whether I can do card-order freight the way some manage it: A waybill describes a closed cycle, and stays with the car till the Freight Agent decides to rearrange things. The alternative, where waybills describe an originating or terminating load, and cars frequently move empty, appears to be more work. But the extra realism may be worth it to me.

NHGuy commented:

QuoteI like the progress. There are a few suggestions that I would offer from an operations stand point from experience. As you are going to run the morning and afternoon sessions as two separate sessions, which is a great idea, I would recommend running the morning session a few times to see what shakes out and make the corrections. Make sure you tell your crews that there are going to be two different scenarios so they will be prepared for them in the future. You can Beta test each to see if meets and schedules can be met to your expectations. Adjust from there. Ask for comments from your crew. They are an invaluable source of information on how your scheme 'looks' and works for them. I have added and removed trains and redesigned trackage from those suggestions that make the layout run better. Once that is done then run the other session and do the same thing.
The beauty of a 4 waybill system is that it is so flexible. You don't have to use the same car for the same loads all the time. You can move empty cars as empty's without removing the waybill. The railroad 'station agents' did this to order empty cars for loading and I do the same with the waybill. I send empty cars from industries that got a load in and then 'the agent' sends that empty car from one industry to the other (next waybill move). Even if it is next door, across town or in another town. The RETURN TO YARD printed on the car card is there IF you want to use it. Doesn't mean you have to us it. I use it rarely because an empty car doesn't have to go to a yard first to get sent out empty again unless it is going off line or to another major yard or you want it to. You also don't have to use all four sides of the waybill. I have several cars that go from a specific supplier to an end user. It only goes two places. From the supplier to the industry and return. Again, you can change cars when ever you want so the same car doesn't keep showing up at the same industry unless you want it to. An example of this is a coal train. Who is really going to pay attention to the car numbers and say I have seen this car here four times already. Especially a non specific car like a black hopper. Nobody. You will know but the operators won't. They are just concerned with where the car goes. I've used the same cars in my coal train for years and my crews haven't noticed. I re-arrange them sometimes but that is about it.

Speaking of car cards, I would also suggest installing sorting shelves in towns. These provide a place to put the car cards so crews can sort them without putting them on the layout to do so. A 1x4 or 1x6 (to give you room to anchor the shelf to the benchwork) will work well. You can paint these to match your fascia color. It is going to happen. I still have to install these myself but I don't have that much scenery yet so I can get away with 'allowing' this practice. I will not allow it after the scenery is in but operators get in a habit and it is hard to break them of it. That is what the sorting shelves is for. To keep the cards off the layout and damaging scenery.

If you don't have cup holders and throttle holders I suggest you get these now and install them. I have installed lanyards on my NCE Cab 04P radio throttles so they hang around the neck for hands free operation. Tethered throttles need a place to hang so that is what the throttle holders are for or if the crew needs to take a break they can hang them there. If you are not allowing drinks in the layout area then you don't need cup holders. I do so I have these. You have to remind operators they are there once in a while when you see them plop a coffee cup or soda can on the layout. I politely tell them that there is a cup holder right on the fascia for that.

Just some food for thought for you to digest. Use them if you wish or don't. I thought I would just mention them for you to think about. Bill

11-Dec-2013: Thanks for the input, Bill. I'll have to think about how to do repeated morning sessions without afternoon sessions, as about a third of the cars that come on-stage in a day will do so via the Providence - Portland freight in the early morning, and the same fraction of the cars that go off-stage do so on the other side of the job in the late evening. But I can always fix that up with an evening of switching between sessions.

I haven't yet written a single waybill - the cases I'm trying to solve are smaller spurs that should be empty for a day or even most of a week between deliveries. A number of these receive car types the visible railroad can't plausibly load (reefers, coal hoppers, covered hoppers). One place I can stash cars for a day or two is in the 15-18 car 'through' block in the Providence-Portland freights I can also let empties sit in Bexley yard, as they'd move at lower priority than loads. But I need to fit those two together - empty D&H hoppers shouldn't return home via Providence in a priority train.

I haven't made shelves yet, but they're on the to-do list. I like local operator Bruce R's fold-down shelves, but one of mine is needed where the fascia is on a long 30 inch radius curve. Maybe I can make a slide-out shelf there.

I have a half-dozen throttle holders and will buy/make more as I find locations that need them. I rarely drink anything in the layout space, but operators may want to, so I will look around for the folding cup holders I've seen in photos of others' layouts.

CVSNE said: Iowa Scaled fast clocks (https://www.iascaled.com/store/ModelRailroad/FastClocks)

QuoteI use these - and yes they are a bit pricey but they do work as advertised. I went with them since the configuration of my layout and location of the dispatcher's office in relation to the layout meant I was willing to pay to avoid stringing wires between the dispatcher's desk and layout.
One possibility for getting stated with fast clocks that is very low cost - if you have a smart phone - is to download a fast clock app for the phone.
Marty

NHGuy said:

QuoteLook for the cup holders in boat and RV stores. They are less expensive there and have more variety.

15-Dec-2013: Thanks, Marty. Bill, searching for "folding cup holder" turned them up for as little as $2.50 each from a marine supplier.

Milestone: all freight cars presently on the layout have car cards. I will start on waybills as soon as I decide the best way to get text into those teeny spaces on the MicroMark blanks. A Sharpie "fine" pen is not fine enough to be easily readable at that character size.

9-Mar-2014: Update: My old typewriter works on the MM waybills, but it's time to fix the sticky keys (clean with rubbing alcohol). And buy the cupholders, finish my two new commuter coaches and do a couple of DCC conversions. Because I'd invited some Hub Division friends over for a trial Op Session on April 13.

MarkF said:

QuoteJames, somehow I missed this thread before but am enjoying following along as you prepare for operations. This is my favorite part of the hobby and I faced many of the same issues you are facing when I set up my first layout. One area I couldn't find any information on was how to set up a car card and waybill system. Fortunately, I have several friends in the area that I could learn from, but once I had it figured out, I set up a web page that explains how I approached it.

Alas, his page was on a Comcast home site and is now gone.

That's an interesting write-up, Mark. I've been reading and thinking about operations for years, but I never got to the point of formalizing the "multiplier" as you do. My layout is smaller than yours, so I'm estimating about 70 freight cars for its current level of completion.

On another note, pouring an ounce or two of rubbing alcohol through the typewriter's key pivots improved it a lot.

1-Apr-2014: My old typewriter works better (but not like new) after cleaning with rubbing alcohol, but boy does the computer keyboard feel funny after a while on something where the shift key lifts the whole carriage, weighing at least a pound. Some might say I'm spending too much time researching each waybill, but it feels right to have the Gear Works receiving castings from GSC in Granite City, Ill (not IL in my era) via NYC to Rotterdam Jct., NY, then B&M. I'm only 1/4 done, but it progresses. I've read up on LCL routes too - there will be quite a few moves. Next are grain, produce and coal moves.

NHGuy said:

QuoteYup, you use a different set of muscles with an old typewriter James. If you need new ones I can have Remington send you some in a boxcar from their factory in Middletown on my railroad. If you use that CRC contact cleaner it  will also lube the keys and carriage.

3-Apr-2014: My Olympia Socialite from High School is small, light and has a dust cover, so all I ask is that it last as long as I do. Waybill the boxcar to GE River Works, Bldg. 41 Receiving, West Lynn Mass. and once it's empty I'll spot it at Bexley Freight House to be loaded with Marchant Calculators (my mother's roommate worked there when we moved out of Boston, so there are still boxes with their logo kicking around in family attics). I got to use one in HS, but that was just as the Bowmar Brain was being launched, and I've never seen another.

9-Apr-2014: Matching waybills to car cards is being quite interesting. I'd been expecting to operate even before I had any permanent track, so I'd bought John Nehrich's freight car fleet books, kept track of Ted Culotta etc. and been careful about what I bought. But matching my "1950s national average" fleet to the industries I've got reveals issues:

1. Too many hopper cars. If my locale wasn't coastal, power plants and GE's River works complex would use all I own. But as it was, their coal arrived by sea. Neither does my locale justify hoppers in bridge traffic, either loaded or empty. Even with locomotive coal and coke for GE's foundry, I only need 10% hoppers.

2. Just barely enough gons: GE received and shipped them, plus a couple for enginehouse ash.

3. Enough reefers, maybe even for the full layout. As I complete the round-the-walls oval, I will add two mid-room peninsulas, which will add several destinations for meat & produce.

4. The tank car surge is years away: The 2nd peninsula will add an oil terminal generating 5-10 cars a day, including some of the colorful specialized cars the manufacturers like. For now, I only need 4 on the layout, black SHPX or GATX.

5. A few more regional cars, for moves which they would have been assigned to. I know the AAR Car Service rules were widely ignored, but routinely using a per-diem boxcar for a mill-to-printer paper back & forth would eventually irritate someone in Accounting.

So far, everything has been fixed up by swapping cars between the layout and my "train show" boxes. But I've about 15 more waybills to type. I'm reasonably confident about pleasing my crew Sunday afternoon.

NHGuy said:

QuoteAnswer to #1. Send the rest of the hoppers off line as a unit train. Run it through one way or both ways. This will utilize your hoppers and give you an extra train to run.

#2 Never enough gons or flats for that matter.

#3 Think about clean out tracks for the reefers as they did get a cleaning before the next use. Same with stock cars if your going to have any. This adds interests in operations if you 'play the game' with the evolution of a car. Reefers were often used for return loads of 'clean' lading such as news print and other items that would not contaminate the vegetable loads (See #5). Meat reefers on the other hand only were used in meat service because of animal transport regulations.

#4 Put the scheme together now so you have it in place when you need it for the tank cars.

#5 It fun to mess with the accountants or bean counters. Yuk, Yuk. Bill

13-Apr-2014: A reasonably successful afternoon operating trains. A couple of people who'd been interested were unable to attend, but we had enough of a crew to run the freight schedule. During the 'pre dawn' portion of the 12:01 to noon timetable session, I was doing considerable 'piloting', dealing with a weird DCC glitch and replacing a guardrail, so no pictures of the 'Casco' working Bexley or out
on the road.

No1EricWLynn.jpg

As 'dawn' arrived, Erich's '1st Lynn Goat' was pulling Acme and the team tracks.

No1ShackBexley.jpg

Meanwhile, Shack was figuring out what the 'Camel' needed to do in Bexley yard.

No1TT4227.jpg

One thing was to give the F-3 he was using a spin on the turntable (the Motive Power Desk really needs more DCC roadswitchers and switchers).

No1ShackEricWLynn.jpg

Erich switches on the west lead while Shack cuts off to pick up the 'for and via Boston' cars from the east lead. Then the Camel will pull into the middle siding and end its run in staging. In summary (Shack/Erich, feel free to chime in if you're members here):

1. The equipment stayed on the track pretty well. The T-1a Berkshire I used for the Casco doesn't have the best suspension, and I either need to adjust the tunnel portal or use diesels next time.

2. The roller track cleaning car needed help on some industrial tracks I rarely use when running trains by myself.

3. Aside from the period in which the MRC wireless dongle and its base station were not talking, the power & turnout controls did well.

4. The 'ease of use' aspects of my control system did their job, but the learning curve for switching in areas with power-routing turnouts can't be eliminated.

6. I need to write 1-page-per-train direction sheets for all the freights. People probably won't need them after their 2nd session, but they need to exist.

7. Not so many active waybills next time. Only one train got slightly too big, but freight execution time was longer than I'd guessed in the timetable. Another DCC switcher would let Bexley run 3 tricks while West Lynn gets two of its own.

8. Much of Bexley yard is hard to switch due to its location by the stairs. I need to show visitors how to maximize what they can do in the accessible part, and I need to consider how work is assigned to minimize coupling/uncoupling elsewhere.

9. Card shuffling/throttle resting shelves. With the momentum settings required for decent sound/motion matching, it turns out to be really useful to just lay the throttle down and tweak knobs/push buttons while doing other things as the loco starts/stops.

I'm going to run out the rest of the 'morning' session during the week, keeping track of timing and how much the main track gets used. And then see if I can round up a crew for May 10.

Pete commented:

QuoteThis sounds like a Good Afternoon all around. Glad things went well, and that the glitches were minor.
I'm slightly bothered by item (9) though, where you mention putting the throttle down and pushing buttons. Setting the throttle down on a layout is
like leaning on the layout or strewing your paperwork all over it -- a general Op Session No-No. Is there a way you could add a support on, say, the fascia, to allow operators to set the throttle down somewhere other than on the layout? If so, this might be worth considering.

Overall, though, I think you can be pleased. Your Operators seem to have enjoyed themselves!

15-Apr-2014: MarkF commented:

QuoteJames, congrats on your first session! Now the real fun begins; tweaking your railroad to operations. So many things will surface that you didn't plan on or come across while running by yourself.

You mentioned coming up with some sort of sheet that explains the various trains. Down here with our operating group, just about everyone uses a variation of a train card that we developed a few years ago. When someone signs up for a train, the dispatcher hands them their train card which contains just about all information they might need for them to operate that train.

Below is an example of one from my railroad. This is a shot of the sheet in the dispatcher's book which replicates that card for the dispatcher's information. The card itself is double sided as indicated by the dotted lines. These can be as simple or as elaborate as you want them to be, but we have found them very useful for newbies and experienced operators alike.

MarkF_TrainCardA.png

QuoteThe top of the card shows information such as train, departure time, engine number, etc., and also shows a 'difficulty' color of either green (easy), yellow or red (a lot of switching).
It also gives fairly detailed information for the engineer as to where to go and what he is to do at various stops along the way.
Just some food for thought.
I did this in Excel, which explains the light colored lines in the back ground. They don't print out. That is a screen shot so it captured those lines. As for the back side, that is optional. I only use the back side if its a long run with a lot of instructions, or a turn as in the example above.

That's pretty fancy; looks like it's got forms? I was thinking of a similar form factor, but probably not double-sided, as my RR only has 4 passenger stations. About the same level of detail for operations, though.

22-Apr-2014: A 2nd op session is scheduled for May 10, probably with enough people to run passenger with at least one Towerman. In preparation:

1. More freight cars: 4 built, one bought, 4 coming from my kit stash (but I won't get into the resin till Summer).

2. Implement a marker for cars/waybills which aren't loaded/unloaded yet: initially, a purple paperclip.

3. Places to hang timetables or binder clips of car cards by every control panel.

4. Added DCC/sound to a Life-Like USRA 0-8-0, identified two candidates for another freight loco conversion.

5. Fixed the DCC glitch: Prodigy Advance does things faster if it isn't polling cabs that aren't there. I had bought throttle #4 but forgot to re-set the limit from 3.

6. A little trackwork and fixing things MEC 622 (a rather rigid Genesis USRA Light Mikado) didn't like, plus one broken closure rail feeder.

Not yet begun: make ETT #5 by adding a 2nd trick of the Bexley Switcher to ETT #4. And shelves by the yards. And installing the rest of my throttle holders.

9-May-2014: All the timetables etc. for tomorrow's operators are printed, highlighted and in page protectors. I have two more waybills to type and passenger trains to re-stage, but tomorrow morning is plenty of time for that. Pictures when it's happened.

10-May-2014: On average, it worked. The bad:

The Prodigy Advance radio dongle can apparently handle being at the far end of the control buss with one throttle, but not with three. Alas, moving it back to the base station created a wireless dead spot in Newburyport, and I didn't have an extra long RJ-45 straight through cable. But they're cheap.

The NCE SW9SR decoder I installed in 1231 had a big problem with unexpected reversing/speed changes (probably mis-reading packets, I may have to buy that oscilloscope). But I had a spare engine, even an appropriate type.

Otherwise, the track, electrical & equipment stood up to 4 operators running a full 12 hours of freight. Not a lot of passengers got moved: a couple more operators and solving the DCC problems will fix that.

p5100003_1.jpg

Everybody was glad this runaway was off the table rather than into the pit.

p5100004_1.jpg

Ken and Rob teamed up on the 2nd Lynn Goat.

p5100007_1.jpg

Mal bringing M-10 (the 'Narraganset') through Rowley.

p5100008_1.jpg

M-10 was 22 cars, too long to clear in Bexley yard. But the 2nd Bexley Goat was on duty, so Mal did his set off from the main while Anonymous added the pick-up on the rear.

Something I didn't realize until the bull session after: Four of us attended MIT, the 5th is a railroad executive (unphotographed to avoid a ration of s**t from co-workers).

26-Sep-2014: Non-photogenic update: I installed and tested my GML Enterprises fast clock last night. It would have been a much simpler job if I'd dared to put the clocks on the chimney in the center of the layout, facing out. But I've never seen a chimney which didn't leak a little under the flashing when the wind was just wrong and the rain was pouring. This one certainly does. So I mounted them above the windows at the ends of the layout instead. And used 16 GA wire, hand-twisted, because I had it on hand.

I'm trying to organize an op session for the weekend of October 18, which is probably my last opportunity before Thanksgiving.

14-Oct-2014: My next op session is Sunday 10/19 in the afternoon, so I've been busy up in the attic. I installed sorting shelves at West Lynn, Bexley and Newburyport, plus cup holders at most of the switching locations. I added snubbers to my DCC buss a while back. I got all the passenger consists organized. I still have to finish freight re-staging and waybill turning, plus waybills for a number of new cars and then engine/rail cleaning. I'm expecting a full house; If all goes well, I'll just be dispatcher/road foreman, though I plan to run the milk train, the one DC move the morning timetable requires. So there ought to be pictures.

19-Oct-2014: The B&M Eastern Route managed to accommodate nine operators this afternoon. Since almost everyone was on time, I started out with four 2-man crews and things went pretty well. We ran all 7 freight assignments to completion, plus 9 of 12 passenger trains in about 3 1/4 real-time hours.

No3TomJeffRowley.JPG

Here Tom and Jeff pass Rowley with #81, the eastbound State of Maine.

No3JimWLynn.JPG

Jim and Erich (hidden) discuss how to deal with the cars the Camel (B-21) just left at West Lynn.

No3SchuylerEBexley.JPG

Schuyler brings the eastbound Portsmouth Local (Y-7) out of Bexley yard at Robinson Rd. interlocking. Dave is visible in the other half of the attic, switching Bexley industries.

Most of the day's adrenaline was mine; the crew was quite experienced, but less than half had run here before. I had a fair number of 'where does this car go' questions, plus glitches, wheel/track cleaning and showing which turnout to throw to clear one short or another. And a blown fuse to diagnose & fix. I stopped the clock while I did that.

Lessons learned:

1. The fuse I put on the Prodigy Advance's output is probably more trouble than it's worth. Mixing DC and DCC power in adjacent blocks (the reason I installed it) has never blown it, but something a crew did at East Bexley did at about 8 AM today. To its credit, it was faster than the PSX-1 between it and the track.

2. The last DCC circuit breaker (at Bexley) is a prerequisite for the next session.

3. So are several signals to act as switch position indicators.

4. I'm half way through adding the requested labels to the West Lynn switch levers.

5. I need to get a track cleaning car in service.

6. I need a better way of cleaning DCC locomotive wheels; too many of my decoders won't run on DC.

7. 4:1 (the clock's slowest ratio) is OK for both passenger and freight under Employee's Timetable #5.

8. The next time I start off with 2-man crews, I need to designate which to split up and when, so the rush-hour-only throttles get manned in time.

Pete (Orionvp17) commented:

QuoteJames, this sounds like a productive (and enjoyable) afternoon. A Grand Day Out, as it were.
On locomotive wheels: Have you tried a paper towel with a dollop of cleaning fluid (your choice) on the rails with the locomotive run on to the wet part and held to spin the wheels clean? We have a number of hosts out here in Flyover Country that use that technique with satisfaction.

Good luck on the rest of the "Honey-Do" list!
Looking forward to the Next Report

I've used paper towels and pieces of cloth, but the isopropanol the Hub uses can leave a stain on track & scenery. With DC, I can pick the loco up, go to my cleaning station (an old power pack with a Kadee brush) and be putting it back in the track in less than 2 minutes. With DCC, a separate cleaning station costs more time (moving the throttle, or setting up the loco on the station's dedicated throttle) and/or money (the dedicated throttle & circuit breaker, so shorts don't disturb the rest of the layout).

A visitor suggested a wheel cleaning gadget that is dropped onto the track and picks up power from the rails. I imagined I could bring this to where the crew is working and use their throttle to power it. Searching, he might have meant the Trix brass brush tool?  I'd need more than one of the Trix gadgets to clean an E-7, and it wouldn't do anything for cars. Skidmore's appears to rely on the loco picking up
power from its first couple of axles, which won't do it for my larger DCC steam. Micro-Mark's #81360 is a quite reasonably priced prefab cleaning station, but it would need a place and it's own throttle as above.

But since this thread is for operations instead of Yet More Talk About Wheel Cleaning, some more notes: 87 cars on the layout is about the right number. We moved all but 9 in this AM session. At noon only a different set of 9 cars were in yards or sidings awaiting further movement. This session's B-22 (Boston-bound hauler) was way over its normal 16 car limit. I must remember to count for-and-via Boston cars when I'm flipping weighbills and apply "hold" markers as necessary. Creating car cards & weighbills for the express and milk moves was a good idea, as they apparently resolved all questions about how passenger trains should do this.

MarkF commented:

QuoteJames, congrats on the completion of another successful op session! Of course, it seems everyone session also generates a long 'to-do' list!
As for the wheel and track cleaning, around here we have all gotten into the habit of cleaning with alcohol and then treating all track and wheels with CRC. A very light coat seals the track and wheels, and because it is conductive, provides for a clean smooth running railroad! Harsco has been experimenting with this on his layout. He did a thorough cleaning and treatment nearly 3 years ago and has not experienced any problems since! I am also applying this to my layout and so far am impressed with the results

22-Oct-2014: Operational activity since Sunday has been first, moving some mis-classified cars to where they belonged, second correcting some errors and inconsistencies in the timetable and third, starting to address the wheel cleaning problem thus:
IMGP3580_v1.JPG

This took only a few minutes to cut from scrap 1/2" plywood, so I took time to plane and sand the corners, then paint it after nailing/gluing it together.

IMGP3582_v1.JPG

I've always wanted one of these. I bought a foam cradle, but I wouldn't set it on the layout: Its base is wide and prone to picking up cruft, and it's tight enough that it really takes two hands to put a locomotive in. Too tricky when hurrying with a steam engine & tender. The finished dimensions of this are 3" wide by 13" long, with a 1.5" deep trough.

Cleaning my Overland P-2c 3684 here, I found that the spring wire on the drawbar had gotten loose somehow, making power so inconsistent that the Lenz supercapacitor wasn't coping. A wave of the 100W gun and things are considerably better. Next, clean the rest of my brass steam, ensuring each has places to quickly and reliably attach clip leads.

Chuck commented:

QuoteLooks like you are jump starting that loco, James!
Good idea on the cradle, though. Easy enough to build.

Credit for this design goes to a Model Railroader author forty or more years ago, but the idea may be much older.

Pete encouraged:

QuoteAnother great idea, James! I'm having the same sorts of issues with the foam cradle, and may have to "borrow" this idea. Probably ought to do it soon, too, so I don't freeze when I try to use the saw. Thanks!
To get this back to Operations, you mentioned mis-classified cars (I assume operator error) and "errors and inconsistencies in the timetable." Could youexpand on the E&I part for us?
Thanks, and keep the progress going! You're inspiring us!

MarkF commented:

QuoteThat's a nice looking cradle. Ah yes, op sessions will keep you busy with maintenance and 'improvement projects' you hadn't anticipated. But it's all worth
it.

Looking at the weighbills, the mis-classified cars were partly my fault. Too much historic accuracy, too little clarity. I will eventually have to go back and re-do a number of bills whose first off-layout move is to South Boston or Providence via the never-built-in-the-real-world Harbor Tunnel. Their 'Via:' lines should all start the same way.

More generally, there isn't room on a MicroMark weighbill to list even half the Alphabet Route, let alone get a car to Denton TX via Potomac Yard. So vagueness will dominate for destinations that are more than one interchange beyond the D&H, MEC, NYNH&H, RUT, NYC, CV or CPR.

The timetable issues were just editing/proofreading: First, when I was making up the operating sequence sheet for the Draw staging yard, I'd mis-copied some items from the timetable itself. Second, I'd fiddled with the Freight Train Symbol Book but not reflected those changes in the sequence sheet. Nobody noticed but me, but I wasn't sure I'd get away with it a second time.

The timetable worked to the extent we used it; 3 passenger trains didn't get run this time. Only one got really stuck by a freight crew: The Lynn Goat started to tie a half-dozen cars on the rear end of the Camel as it returned to Boston, just as a westbound commuter train arrived in Bexley. 15 minutes down.

22-Oct-2014: MarkF commented:

QuoteJames, for what it's worth, when it comes to the waybills, I subscribe to the KISS (keep it simple stupid) theory. While it is interesting to put a lot of information on your waybills, the bottom line is most operators don't really pay attention to the 'extra details'. They only want to know one thing... where does the car go!
Here is an example of the waybills I use. These are a modified version of the 4 sided waybills, similar to what you are using from Micro Mark. Note that I do not have a 'via' line. In this case, the car is headed to Baltimore, MD via the 'Enola Block'. In the special instructions, there is a note to the yard operator to route this car via train BF-4. It says where it's going, although no one cares that it's going to Baltimore, but more importantly, it is telling the operator how to route the car there.
All cars headed off the railroad to 'points beyond the walls' are routed this way.
Hope this helps.

MarkF_Waybill.png

Mike_Hamer said:

QuoteJames, so great to see images from the ops session. Your layout is a thing of beauty and it must be rewarding for you to share your passion with friends. Keep
those ops pics coming in!

16-Jan-2015: This morning a nearby B&M modeler came over to see my layout and talk about operation. Tom is an expert structure & scenery builder with several AP certificates, but he only started operating a few years ago, mostly on another Seacoast Div. member's layout. We spent a couple of hours talking about my operating scheme vs. Bruce's, how I figured out how many cars I needed on the layout and how they would move in a session, etc. I'll see Tom at Bruce's layout tomorrow, where a group of us are trying out Erich's steam era timetable, and I'll likely visit Tom's layout in the next few weeks.

This bump is mostly to remind me that if I can write something coherent about how these factors shaped the evolution of my layout plan and operating scheme, it's probably worth posting here and might make an interesting article:

Room shape

My modeling interests

Characteristics of available locomotives

Prototype B&M freight operations plan

Historic might-have beens

1-Feb-2015: Last week I caught some more editing errors in Draw staging's sequence sheet - easy to fix. Today I started re-staging with the passenger trains today, which led to taking apart MEC 622, my Genesis USRA Light 2-8-2 to fix a loose connection on the motor. Alas, I now have four loose plastic clips that used to hold something together. Gravity and the loco's designed-in difficulty of dis-assembly seem an adequate substitute, but it gave me that "extra parts are unnerving" feeling.

Then I needed to clear a place for the typewriter to fix the abovementioned weighbills. This led to filing a bunch of papers, sorting my duplicate magazines, lugging them downstairs, posting them and actually disposing of a few. Actual typing may come tomorrow.

1-Mar-2015: My attic layout has been too cold this winter to safely invite a crew for an Eastern Route op session. But I've been doing some running elsewhere, so I thought I'd liven up this rather quiet forum.

Friday I was called off the spare board to run at Bruce R's 'New England freelance' layout:

imgp0909_v1.jpg

His crew is experienced and the operating pattern is pretty stable, though Friday was a test of the 'self healing' capabilities of his card-order system, because a lot of equipment remained out of place after a 'guest' operating scheme was tried out. I had a fairly relaxed evening running both freight & passenger.

imgp0911_v1.jpg

The layout's been pretty much finished for several years now, though Bruce continues to make improvements and has recently set his sights on the AP Scenery certificate.

This afternoon was different: Jon D. is deeply into the ATSF circa 1950, and his much larger layout goes all-out to represent LAUPT to Barstow and San Diego. Operations are still evolving, but they'd gotten far enough for a first try running freight alongside the passenger service that's Jon's primary focus.

imgp0914_v1.jpg

Here a crew of North of Boston Boomers collects to hear the operating plan.

imgp0916_v1.jpg

This duck-under is the main entrance. The 1st and 2nd districts bracket the Mission Tower wye, with the descent from Summit toward Victorville at the top.

imgp0917_v1.jpg

John L. getting some exercise following his train. It is very much a multi-level layout throughout.

imgp0918_v1.jpg

I was stationmaster at LAUPT; here it is with most of the day's arrivals wyed or switched out. Another visitor was Mission towerman. It felt like a visit to the big leagues, as Jon and his helpers have probably 60-70% of the prototype's tracks and switches running quite well.

This layout was taken down within a year as the owner moved elsewhere in New England. Ten years later, several of the operators shown have passed.

MarkF commented:

QuoteThat appears to be one huge layout James, and from the looks of that last picture, it's all handlaid track? How big is it? Looks like a fun layout to operate.

2-Mar-2015: I believe all the 'visible' track is handlaid; commercial turnouts and flextrack are used in hidden areas. Jon's basement has an irregular shape, so I can't give exact dimensions, and with all the trackage going here and there I didn't try pacing dimensions. But I think it's at least 40 feet the long way, and between 20 and 30 feet wide. It was an enjoyable afternoon.

15-Mar-2015: The Eastern Route's first operating session of 2015 will be early on April 4. To help explain activities to those unfamiliar with B&M freight movements, I had drawn a paper schematic. Today I figured out LibreOffice Draw and made a digital version:

EasternSchematic2015.png
This should cover most questions about what's modeled and how it relates to the unmodeled major B&M interchanges.

4-Apr-2015: My 4th op session turned out pretty well: The last freights were about an hour late at their terminals, but the seven of us also ran most of the passenger trains. Despite my replacing weighbills that had confused operators last time, and highlighting routing info on everything that doesn't go via Boston, there were at least 6 freight mis-routes.

This crew was a different mix than last time: The layout was new to 4 of the 6 visitors. One of the most experienced operators had run here before, the other hadn't. We started with 2-man crews. They shifted around at rush hour but Bexley yard had gotten congested so I annulled a few passenger trains rather than break up the remaining 2-man crews. I ran a couple of passenger trains and one freight myself.

My operating scheme entertained everyone, but even with the clock at 4:1, I noticed that I'm assuming the freight crews won't waste many moves - where a run-around or something else that ties up a main track is needed, if you don't do both pickups & deliveries with a single move, you get behind.

I found a mechanical problem in a turnout in Bexley yard's east throat too late to fix before visitors arrived, but I just tagged it; that end is lightly used and it wasn't really missed. Several passenger cars that I've been using for years here and at modular setups acted up repeatedly at several locations, but that ought to make them easy to diagnose.

Electrically, I had burned up a PSX-1 breaker earlier in the week adding sound short-circuit alerters, so mistakes in West Lynn affected 2/3 of the railroad. Alas, I couldn't buy the beepers with different tones, so everybody's directional hearing was tested. They did show me a few intermittent shorts that don't actually stop trains, which are on the punch list.

The MRC wireless worked for the whole three hours, though it was slow to respond to operators in the north end of the attic. I might be able to position the wireless dongle better, but there's no way to avoid a 'radio shadow' from the chimney with only one 'base station'. If I can install more RJ-45 sockets in that end without messing up the bus characteristics, I should, but I won't be sure it works till I use it in an op session.

I was pretty busy piloting & looking at the derailments early on, so I only got a few photos. Alas, bright sun in the windows confused my pocket camera's meter:

imgp0928_v1.jpg

Larry, Bengt & Ken collaborate on adding cars to the westbound Oil Job.

imgp0929_v1.jpg

Erich's gotten the Oil Job and the 2nd Lynn Goat out of the yard and is looking over the Bexley Goat's industrial work.

For next time: Do more of the prep in advance (two personal crises this week ate time I had set aside). Up to 10 guests if their experience suggests many will prefer 2-man crews. And watch the two switch jobs more closely, so I can intervene before a mess grows too big.

Pete commented:

QuoteOver all, this sounds like a Success. If everyone had fun, then you win. The "teething" issues apparently happen everywhere-- we ran into a lot of that last week out here on a "new" (think "unfamiliar to a lot of the crew") layout, and need to work out a fix.
I think the host had too many trains on the sheet, so he's planning to try two-man crews and about half the trains he had set up. If it works well, then we can add extras. And yes, he has a whole punch list of stuff to fix, some of which we addressed today.
Are you happy with the 4:1 clock ratio, and if not, where are you headed next?

I'm not sure if it is really 'teething' - A Seacoast Div. member I know has been operating for 10+ years and his regular crew takes the view 'if it's not one thing, it's another'. I was MoW chair for TMRC, and no matter how well things are engineered & built, entropy sneaks in sooner or later. But it does have me thinking about borrowing a topside creeper and hand-laying replacements for a couple of my most annoying commercial turnouts; heel-thrown points were developed by TMRC to reduce maintenance and they do.

4:1 is as slow as my GML clock goes. Building crew experience is the solution I like best. But if/when I need to make things easier, I can either reduce the freight car count from its present 80, or run my Saturday passenger schedule. In that era, enough jobs were 6 days/week that Saturdays had maybe 3/4 of the normal weekday passenger service. Making the decision before starting the clock will be easier once more of the local operating boomers have been here once already.

Mike_Hamer commented:

QuoteI found that removing a handful of cars from my layout and lessening the number of switching moves made the world of difference in my
operations. The operators still got to switch out industries and were still satisfied. This helped relieve congestion.
In model railroad operations, we know that switching out industries and blocking traffic more closely emulates "real" time than running a mainline train does. You can run a model train from one urban area on a layout to another one in a matter of minutes whereas in real time it may take an hour or two or more.
Looks like the lads are enjoying themselves!

13-May-2015: This is mostly journaling as I digest my dinner and otherwise wind down from op session #5. No pictures because I was as busy as a one-armed paperhanger in fly time.

I had four guests, two who'd never run the Eastern Route before. I decided to use my Saturday timetable for the first time, starting at midnight. It worked and we ran all the passenger trains. But with the clock at 4:1 two of the operators ran out of time before 'noon'.

I cleaned the track enough: Once over all track with my cleaning stick (lattice stock with scrap denim stapled around the end, soaked in 91% isopropanol), followed by a trip over main tracks & leads with my isopropanol/pad cleaning car.

I tried writing out detailed instructions for the Bexley and Lynn Goats (like the 'Train Card' MarkF posted earlier, but not as evolved). The operators didn't refer to them as much as I'd hoped, but they did help clarify a couple of bottlenecks in the freight operating plan.

I tried to avoid all the PSX-1 breakers making the same 'fweep' when tripped, but DigiKey doesn't have compatible parts with different tones. Annoying as it is, I'm not contracting for a container-full from China...

To Do:

1. Get organized about gluing insulation (card, styrene, maybe even wood) into rail gaps. Rail creeps, particularly as seasons change and as you use the RR. I fixed 4 or 5 closed gaps today, at least two which had given trouble before.

2. Either give up on the 3A fuse on the MRC control unit's output, or put a light in parallel with it so it will be unambiguous when it's blown (3 blown in 5 sessions).

3. Finish the in-progress Gorin Machine building and move the MRC wireless dongle up into it, above the benchwork. Moving the parts cabinet helped, but Newburyport needs either better signal or an extension of the plug-in buss.

4. Given current world-wide quality standards for embedded code, I can't avoid DCC device crashes. Today a couple of decoders and one DCC circuit breaker had to be power-cycled. I'm not going to knock products at this stage, but I am logging privately and if I decide to junk something for reliability, I will say what and why.

4. Shift Saturday freight times to reduce the two early-session bottlenecks (getting Portland cars into the EB Casco AM, getting the WB Portsmouth Local's Boston cars into the Oil Job PM). It's music to watch two sophisticated yard operators do that at 6:1, but I need a fallback for when I don't have two - 4:1 isn't enough.

5. Signals to indicate positions of critical turnouts. Parts on hand, and it will be cooler under the layout come July. Scenery until then, I guess.

6. Searching for prototypical but conspicuous markings for rail gaps. I know Conrail painted ties yellow at fouling points, but how was it handled 20 years earlier? 'They Just Knew' doesn't work for visitors.

7. [edit] I hadn't soldered some flextrack joints in Bexley yard when I built it 10 or 12 years ago. Today I paid. Tomorrow I solder. And I check the rest as I insulate rail gaps.

Pete commented:

QuoteAll in all, I think you should chalk this one up in the Success column. It sounds like folks had fun, like the glitches are relatively minor (although electronic crashes around here are anything but "minor), and like you have a good handle on What's Next.
I don't have good answers for any of it, so I'm not going to try, but I am following your "Mark the Fouling Point" discussion here and elsewhere. Good questions, and ones I'll have to address soon.

15-May-2015: A one-time B&M employee told me they'd painted insulated rail joints yellow as necessary to make them more visible to crews. I have CV switch detailing sets, but most of the bag's contents are other items. Proto 87 sells metal etched parts, but I need these for gaps. I settled on laser-engraved ?resin-board? parts from Precision Design ( www.pdc.ca but in 2025 they're sold by Prawn Designs (http://prawndesigns.com/indexTrain.shtml) ). They offer several sizes, I ordered the Code 70 and Code 83/100 six-bolt:

joint_bars0.jpeg

Here, a full 83/100 part is on the outside of the near Code 83 rail, and 1/2 of a code 70 part is between the spike heads on the inside of the far rail. If I hadn't spiked right next to the gaps, I might have been able to get flange clearance from the larger bars. The shape and bolt detail look pretty good, but I haven't zoomed in to the limit. I brush-painted these with yellow artist's acrylic.

From working on 1:1 track at Seashore Trolley Museum, I've learned the B&M installed few, if any 6-bolt bars after perhaps 1930.

joint_bars1.jpeg

They're not really 'in your face' either from track level or eye level, but they do make the gaps more conspicuous to me. I won't know how they are for operators using corrective lenses until I have another session. If they work, I'll need more, but I'll order full frets instead of the 'Easy Paint' I got this time.

21-May-2015: I was a guest operator at Dave Sias' B&M White Mountain Division layout in NH. He runs some of the same equipment as I do, but in a much different setting. We've also made different layout design tradeoffs:

Dave has modeled most of the important stations (7 total) on about 75 miles of railroad. I've only got four in maybe 15-20 miles of line. His trains are shorter because his stations and sidings had to be more compact. His freights do more diverse work because a larger fraction of his freight moves from one modeled destination to another (rural setting and more stations both make this easier). My passenger equipment wanted broader curves, and my sloping attic roof meant I wouldn't get much benefit from a multi-lap main line. Dave's winding plan squeezes a lot of scenic & operational good out of his space.

We're both aiming for recognizable prototype locations tied to a specific era. He's compressed his towns more, but he's done an excellent job of choosing and building his 'signature' structures. And his layout is a lot more complete than mine.

p5210013_v1.jpg

Concord NH is his largest and busiest terminal. It usually has two operators; the one in the hole doubles as brakeman for freights with work in Meredith, NH (above and behind the access hole).

p5210015_v1.jpg

My first assignment was the 'Paper Train'. It's just ended its run at Woodsville, NH and the yardmaster is preparing to break it up.

p5210016_v1.jpg

Several different freights switch Ashland, NH in the course of a 'day'.

p5210019_v1.jpg

Woodsville was less congested in the 'afternoon'.

p5210020_v1.jpg

Extra 1501 North (the 'Pompey' job) spent a while in Ashland, on both the outbound and inbound legs of its turn. Here I've cleared the main for a passenger train. With one more car I'd have had to block the crossing.

8-Jul-2015: Mieke posted:

QuotePictures of today's operating session - the first one I was at, so I'll let jbvb do the explaining.

CAM00179_v1.jpg

Thanks, Mieke. First picture, L to R: Tom W., Bruce R., me, Thorsten E., Jack D. and Rick M's left arm.

CAM00180_v1.jpg

Front to rear is Thorsten waiting while Jack and Rick add the West Lynn pick-up to the Oil Job.

CAM00182_v1.jpg

CAM00184_v1.jpg

Jack is the visiting B&M modeler I organized the session for, Bruce and Tom are very experienced operators, Thorsten has run here before and it was Rick's first time. Mieke watched, helped me do the 'host' thing and talked with us, but isn't quite ready to take up a throttle (I hesitate to draw her away from structures and into 'things that move and the electrons that move them').

We ran the Saturday schedule; Bruce took the all-passenger throttle for his first time running the Eastern Route, Tom ran a mix of passenger & freight, Thorsten ran road freights, Jack & Rick teamed up to run the 2nd Bexley Goat, followed by the 2nd Lynn Goat. I was Towerman & Dispatcher plus a little Road Foreman, Yardmaster and Section Foreman. At 4:1, passenger operations were relaxed and the freight crews had enough time to do pretty much everything. When the main rod of the Narragansett's 2-8-4 came unscrewed in Bexley yard, we looked at the real time and decided to end the evening rather than run the Theatre Train.

- The attic was hot but not impractically so (today's much cooler, but New England weather guarantees surprises). I'll get a second fan and install both better before trying this again.

- The layout ran pretty well, but there were a couple of places where the track needed climate adjustments.

- The engine terminal block had no power; today's review/repair found a feeder I'd pulled loose running the signal power buss.

- Vacuuming the track, a trip around with the cleaning stick and cleaning locomotive wheels was enough, 2 mo. after the last session. I'd run the mains a few times in between, but there hadn't been any yard activity.

- The yellow joint bars at block gaps helped; there was a lot less feeping from the circuit breakers.

- No closed rail gaps, thanks to the styrene I'd glued into the joints last winter. A couple of derailments where I hadn't cleaned up the gauge well enough, but they're fixed now.

Pete and Bob (rca2) congratulated me, Bob wanted to know how the MRC radio throttles worked with the chimney in the way.

Thanks, Pete & Bob. I reduced the radio shadow issue by 1) moving the dongle to a socket closer to the edge of the layout (but still quite close to the command station) and 2) telling the operators to wave the throttle below their waists (where there's less layout in the way) if they don't get a response with it at eye level.

MarkF commented:

QuoteLooks and sounds like a successful session James! Every session with generate some sort of 'to-do' list for us. Fix one thing, and something else goes afoul. I guess it's to be expected. But all in all, it sounds and looks like a good time had by all.

18-Sep-2015: During a layout tour visit at the PSW Region convention in Scottsdale, AZ, the subject of local freight operation during times of heavy passenger traffic came up. I mentioned West Lynn as an example, and thought it would be worth posting a few details here:

WestLynnPlan.png

The five tracks across the middle of West Lynn are, from the top: West Lead, Westbound Main, Middle, Eastbound Main, East Lead. All of
these, plus the yard, existed in the prototype. One of the reasons I decided to model West Lynn was the plausible justification for a fan-out
that made my Draw staging (left) a useful length. My Middle turns into the staging track used by Bexley-Boston haulers. The other staging tracks are all passenger.

West Lynn's switcher originates at Bexley (below, on the opposite side of the room). It may move cars between Bexley and West Lynn,
but most traffic is set out and picked up by the Bexley-Boston haulers.

West Lynn yard (upper right corner) lets the B&M switcher get things organized without entering the main and offers some other car spots to switch. The upper two tracks serve Acme Fast Freight and West Lynn Team, leaving 6- and an 8-car tracks for sorting incoming and outgoing blocks.

Cars are interchanged with GE's in-plant RR on the two 'receiving' tracks in front of Bldg. 41. I haven't built the rest of GE's track, but when I do a 44-tonner will move cars between receiving and other internal spurs. If I need to liven things up, I'll add a few 'intra-plant' moves requiring GE's loco to cross the main to the Gear Works.

The B&M switcher usually has to foul two westbound passenger staging tracks (left upper) when switching 'receiving', but this hasn't been a problem yet. It only has to do runarounds when taking cars across the main to the Gear Works and Fuel spurs. Because at most two runarounds are needed per shift and they can be done on either side of the mains, it hasn't been a problem. Some operators choose to saw through the Middle track, others use the crossover at the bottom right.

So far, the track shown has been adequate for up to maybe 12 cars in and out in a shift, while 8-12 passenger trains and one hauler round trip pass through.

15-Nov-2015: Three friends came over this afternoon; we ran most of the Saturday AM schedule. At a clock ratio of 4:1 with a couple of pauses for mechanical issues, we ran out of time for the last two passenger trains.

imgp1278_v1.jpg

Here Jeff runs a light eastbound Portsmouth Local past Rowley. I hope this area gets evaluated for the Scenery AP soon.

imgp1279_v1.jpg

Thorsten is a bit taller than the builders of my attic anticipated 215 years ago. His Lynn Goat got half again as many cars as usual, but there was enough track to handle them. It just earned his crew some overtime.

The mechanical issues were a power turnout I had to adjust, an incompletely soldered rail joint and a stock rail - closure rail jumper which went open circuit. I'll fix that last one tomorrow. Meanwhile, after looking at and cleaning up some misdelivered cars, I'm making the errors into another dozen spreadsheet weighbills. Their 'block' field seems to be reducing confusion.

Nhguy (Bill Shanaman) commented:

QuoteBay Ridge Yard in New York operated by the New Haven had a similar track arrangement. The yard was divided in half by the 4 track mains. Two west and two East. They had it worked out where in a nutshell they made transfers on each side of the yard and crossed over the mains to deliver and pick up cuts of
cars during the day. Most of the regular switching took place at night as did most freight movement. Bill

28-Dec-2015: Bill (belatedly, but December has been busy), almost everything I know about Bay Ridge is from one NHRHTA Shoreliner article, and I don't recall it saying much about operating it, so thanks.

Last night four of us ran the Saturday timetable and only one train got annulled. This was because Erich kept on running the 2nd Bexley Goat well into overtime. There were only a couple of weighbill mis-reads, indicating I need to finish the job of converting them to spreadsheet output.

imgp1292_v1.jpg

Erich and Larry co-operate on moves in Bexley yard.

imgp1294_v1.jpg

Thorsten's steam-hauled Portsmouth Local approaches Bexley Tunnel. Mieke finished the skirts she was working on, but I hadn't glued this one's velcro in place yet.

16-Mar-2016: I did not manage to take any pictures of today's op session. Largely because I decided to try calling crews for particular trains.

Previously, I'd been giving a throttle and timetable to each crew, and relying on them to progress from one train to the next. I liked the way 'calling' worked during the early morning hours, but was distracted by fixing operational issues as the rush hour was supposed to be starting, so a number of trains got annulled.

The 9AM start led to some late arrivals. Two people hadn't confirmed so I wasn't sure which timetable to run until the last minute. And a Big Life Crisis afflicted one of my friends yesterday so my prep started with cleaning up in-progress scenery projects after dinner.

A couple of people had to leave about Noon, so we didn't run the whole 12 hours. The signal system got many positive comments, so
clearly I should get the rest of the main done as a fairly high priority.

Post mortem: Clock stopped about 10:00 scale time. Both yard switchers had run overtime, the Lynn Goat has another scale hour of switching to do. The Boston - Bexley hauler ran about 45 min. overtime, and was very light on the return trip. The passenger trains ran well, one turnout bothered a 2-8-2 and the caboose of its train. I managed to mix a DC turn to Bexley in with the DCC, but I caused some glitches by leaving block switches in the wrong position. The Portsmouth Local never got called. I wasn't using all the available throttles to the max during rush hour. Track and wheels were clean enough.

Next time:

1. Cabooses and passenger cars that occupy (trip signals) are pretty but not critical when almost all track is easily visible to operators.

2. Use the two wired throttles for the yard jobs. Maybe buy a third, for 3 wired and 3 wireless.

3. Keep the wireless throttles in a pool so I can find a free one when a train's crew is 'called'.

4. Some way of marking a timetable to remind crews what train they're running; If I give out separate train cards that's another thing to handle, and they need the view of where their train fits in with others present in the whole timetable.

Anyway, it was fun for me and the operators and I hope I can manage another before hot weather arrives.

Pete commented:

QuoteSounds like a Day of Fun, James, except perhaps for the Big Life Crisis, which sounds ominous. Hope all are well.
I appreciate your post-mortem information-- it's helping me as I try to get a schedule going for a friend, and as I try to rebuild my latest tear-down of a Significant Chunk of my own railroad....
Your post-mortem, BTW, sounds a lot like some of the "Wine Time" discussions out here....

25-May-2016: Since my last op session, I've visited six countries and seen a lot of model and prototype railroading. But only one op session, courtesy of the chair of Port City Rails (the Maritime Federation of Model Railroaders convention in Saint John, NB):

IMGP9123v1.jpeg

Carleton RR owner Steve (l) discusses operations in Waterville with Peter, while Jeff (r) waits for a yard crew to finish switching his train.

IMGP9120v1.jpeg

Steve's two busiest yards are on different decks, but adjacent. Here Mark is in the midst of the action while Jeff continues to wait for his train. When they were finally done, it was a corker...

IMGP9117v1.jpeg

I started with an inter-line passenger service using a mix of CPR and Carleton RR equipment. Here it's leaving Avondale.

IMGP9114v1.jpeg

Quite a few passengers were waiting at Waterville.

IMGP9115v1.jpeg

The valley of the Saint John River is well suited to potato growing, and Steve put a lot of effort into this late-summer field.

George asked:

QuoteJames, the potato field in the last picture is impressive. How long did it take to make all those rows of plants?

26-May-2016: George, Steve didn't say. But his NMRA AP Scenery certificate was hung on a wall, and IIRC he said the field had been a lesson in humility.

18-Feb-2017: It's been almost a year since the last one, but today the Eastern Route had its tenth formal operating session. I dispatched the weekday afternoon timetable with five operators and an observer (Dave, who posted pictures in my layout thread).

imgp1889_v1.jpg

Erich switching in Bexley yard. The Prodigy Wireless transceiver is just above his head on the chimney side of the timber.

imgp1890_v1.jpg

Bengt and Ken with Draw staging in the background.

imgp1891_v1.jpg

Bruce and Tom coordinating a pickup at West Lynn.

We skipped a few rush-hour trains, mostly due to me neglecting my crew-calling duties while dealing with other issues. Bruce ran the 2nd Lynn Goat a bit past quitting time, but he got all the work done.

This time I gave wired throttles to the switching jobs in the south (urban) end of the layout. Passenger and freight in the north end used Prodigy Wireless throttles. With the relocated transceiver, signal was usable almost everywhere, but operators had to remember which direction to wave the throttle when their loco didn't respond. No serious accidents, but some frustration. Delayed throttle response is harder on switching than on through trains.

Punch List:

1. Extend hard-wired control buss: Try MRC #1502 powered extension plate at Bexley, move current Bexley plate to Rowley.

2. Empty hoppers were more troublesome than other freight cars. Weights vs. running them loaded all the time: Cerrobend once was the choice for pouring weight, what's changed since 1975?

3. Diagnose/fix signal heads 7w1B and 7w2B not showing Red in some cases. Probably contact issue.

4. Diagnose/fix Fuel Spur turnout point feed.

5. Reduce momentum on non-sound locomotives.

Dave (deemery on both RR-Line & Modelers Forum) added:

QuoteA couple thoughts:
1. Sound is a big help when trying to figure out which loco your throttle controls
2. It might help to have a handout that correlates the schematics for Bexley (where I spent most of my time) with the "ground" (track plan) It took me a long time to learn the track names and more importantly turnout IDs
3. The lever turnout controls for Bexley yard could use a numbering scheme, to speed up learning time
4. A mirror above Bexley yard might help brakemen find cars in the yard, particularly if waycards get mixed up
5. A wide assortment of road names is a big help to operators, it's easy to pick out the CN car in a string of B&M, D&H, PRR, NYC, MEC, CP, etc. etc.
6. Those foldover card tabs for each train were a big help in makng up trains and switching the yard
7. Put a magic marker next to the paper cups so each person can label his cup

MarkF commented:

QuoteLooks like a good session. With regard to your wireless throttles, I am not familiar with the Prodigy system, but for my Digitrax system, I have two radio receivers in my layout, one each at opposite sides of the room. This provides for excellent reception as I never get any complaints about the radio control.
Just about all of my operators use radio throttles, which means there are about 6 or so throttles at use at any give time with no problems.

4-Jun-2017: Belated thanks for the comments, I'll see what I can do to them. I am leaning toward a Raspberry Pi/JMRI/WiThrottle solution for the radio shadows. Belated credit to Mal Loughlin for the foldover card tabs idea. I will post a picture when I have a chance.

I've been working on my Downtown Newburyport peninsula and probably won't manage to organize another session till September or so. But I got a reproduction of 'B&M Terminal Division Freight Train Make Up' effective Oct. 31, 1954 scanned and on-line. It was issued long ago by Rolling Stock Reproductions of Readfield, ME:

B&M Freight Operations 1954 (https://www.faracresfarm.com/jbvb/rr/bmrr/operations.html)

The current version will take a while to load over slow links. If that's a bother, let me know and I'll make separate icons for the page images at the top level.

Also, my AP Chair told me this evening that he has my Chief Dispatcher AP certificate in hand.

 8) Just Wow. Looked like a barrel of fun James!

Thanks, Philip. It is fun, more than enough fun to outweigh the stress. So I keep on doing it.  Back to reposting the history:

6-Mar-2018: It's been more than a year since the last one, but the Eastern Route has had op session #11: Seven of us ran the Weekday Morning schedule last Saturday. The good news was that the track, signals and equipment performed well. The only failures were an operator breaking the contact spring on a brass steam engine's drawbar, so it ran jerkily the rest of the session, and my Ambroid Laconia open platform coach showing occasional shorts on the diverging routes of #6 turnouts. The drawbar was easy to solder once I had time. The coach's short turned out to be truck sideframe to brass wire truss rods to the other truck sideframe - fixed by turning one truck around.

Operationally, the session wasn't as smooth. Some engineers were having problems with power-routing turnouts: running locos into the frog end and creating a short, then not understanding that it was their engine shorting, or what to do about it. I had to replace my only fuse three times, stopping the clock each time. This gave the yard crews plenty of time, so almost everything was switched out at the end of the session. We ran most of the passenger trains, but the crew thinned out after the planned end at 4 PM. I think everybody had fun, but I was a bit frazzled at the end.

I have travel coming up in spring and summer, so I'm not sure there will be another session till I have a new Freight Train Symbol Book. This will put Newburyport's new City Railroad and Pond St. Freight house spur into use. It will also make the west terminal of the Portsmouth Freight staging rather than Bexley. This will greatly reduce switching in difficult-to-access locations behind my house's frame. It will also let me bring another dozen freight cars on stage in the morning, and back off-stage in the afternoon session.

Electro-mechanical:

1. I must do something about the turnouts at the east (clockwise) end of Bexley yard. At a minimum, I've worked out a circuit which will show which track that end of the yard is lined for, and remind operators when they must walk around the chimney to the panel to select another track. If it succeeds there, it can also be used for exit indicators for Draw staging. I have commercial turnouts with power-routing point contacts in both locations, so it will be useful that the circuit also tells whether those contacts are actually working.

2. The MRC 1530 WiFi interface works. Their business-card instructions were inadequate, but I found a web site explaining how to connect with a browser and set up a roster etc. The unit takes a minute or two to initialize, and operations that read/write large amounts of NVRAM data are slow. The signal gets around my big chimney just fine. Two operators started out with their phones (WiThrottle & Engine Driver). But one commented that the apps burned battery life. I may not be able to depend on phone throttles for a whole 3 hr. session. And I won't know how the 1530 does with its promised 8 operators until eight engineers try using it.

3. Hard-wire plug ins for Newburyport were worth the effort. I kept the MRC wireless throttles mostly in the south half of the space, and there was no frustration with them. No DCC components crashed badly enough to need power-cycling either.

4. Time to replace that fuse with an 1156 bulb, in a location conspicuous to the Bexley operator. Maybe a Bat-Signal on the backdrop will do the job. Or a recording of "Danger, Will Robinson, you have driven your locomotive into a short". Or both.

On the people side, I did OK at calling crews. But I didn't spend enough time on the controls and layout for one new operator. And I left some people idle in the early morning. Their conversations weren't a problem until someone needed to walk quickly to the other side of the chimney to clear a short. Next time, I'll assign two-man crews to the Bexley and Lynn yard jobs until rush hour starts. And I'll make a crew calling list which is easy to read and bookmark. Then the staging sequence lists can be just that, without the added burden of keeping track of throttle assignments.

The Downtown Newburyport peninsula leaves considerably less spare space in the attic. So 7 people felt a lot more crowded than 10 had at a previous op session. Some of that was me chasing feeping breakers more, but I need to get my not-progressing projects out of people space and store scenery materials more effectively. Happily, Downtown Newburyport manages with only four legs, so there's lots of room to store stuff under it, once I get through with the road and landform construction mess.

Pete commented:

QuoteThis is an excellent debrief of what sounds like a pretty good day overall. Lots of good info here, even for those of us who don't use the MRC system.... Many
 thanks.

MarkF commented:

QuoteJames, another session, another list of 'fixes'. Believe, I feel your pain. But from reading your commentary, you are to be commended for being so observant of the issues that surfaced, and your willingness to address them to make your sessions that much better.

With regard to your DCC fuses, is there a reason you don't use resetting circuit breakers, such as those offered by Tony's Train Exchange? I use them and they are great! Of course, ideally, operators would check their route before moving to ensure everything is aligned correctly!

7-Mar-2018: I'm using Tony's PSXs; they try every 2 seconds till the short is cleared, then reset. All the operator has to do is 1) decide it's their loco causing the problem and 2) throw the turnout or pull the loco back off the gap. But if more than one loco is active in the power district, or the short affects two power districts, step one occasionally takes a minute or more. I have both LED and sound indicators wired to my PSXs, but when two of them trip simultaneously, twice as many engineers look around wondering 'did I do that?'

So I've decided there's a DCC design point I haven't heard mentioned before: Where possible, avoid power district boundaries associated with turnouts. Even if the turnouts are insulfrog, don't set it up so derailments at the points can affect two districts. I can do this in the Bexley yard at the cost of an afternoon in cramped quarters running new feeders. It also makes it simpler to install the indicator circuits I mentioned above.

Michael Hohn commented:

QuoteYou've written a good description of the things that can get in the way of smooth operations.
One problem that's hard to eliminate completely is running through turnouts that are thrown wrong. We all do it or come close. I've even caught myself being very responsible by looking ahead and throwing turnouts for my route and then realizing I've thrown one already set correctly or I'll throw one on a parallel tracks. I'll think to myself "what's wrong with my eyesight, or my brain? Concentrate!"
Wouldn't it be nice if the turnout rails glowed for the route that's been set? Sort of like the virtual first down lines superimposed on the broadcast image in televised football.
Maybe not.

7-Mar-2018: Even if I could make the rails glow, on my layout it's not unheard-of for a crew to pass a RED signal and only notice when the loco stops and the FEEP starts. I ran past a red home signal myself Saturday.

Which brings up another point: prototypic signals are visible from the train, not necessarily from a quarter of a scale mile off to one side of the signal. I left a lot of light leaks in/around the LEDs on my signals, but that isn't always enough.

Two-man crews might help with both; in my layout's era, there were 5 guys keeping track of all the aspects of running a local freight. On the model, one running the locomotive, the other keeping track of cars to be switched and superior trains. Calling signals to one another would help a lot, but that's something you only encounter in a real cab ride (or cab ride video).

Michael_Hohn replied:

QuoteMy experience with our large club layout is that as operators get more experienced on a layout they learn it to the point where they avoid mistakes and react more quickly to problems. Frequent op sessions help even when very informal. Just having time to run trains around the layout is educational. There is value in playtime.
Some of our members like to pair up when running trains and we almost always do that when we have a new person.
Finally, once we had operated seriously for a while, we found we had to pay more attention to power districts.

8-Mar-2018: The Eastern Route will make it's first appearance on the Eastern Massachusetts operation event Railrun next month, the 31st event in the series. In preparation for operators who don't know either my layout or how my bit of the New England RR network did its job, I've made these 'bullet points':

- T-Mobile & Sprint signal are very poor here. Switch to 'airplane mode' to be sure you'll have battery when the session is over.
- EAST is clockwise, outbound from Boston. WEST is counterclockwise, inbound.
- Most trains leave Draw or Saugus staging, run around the layout and terminate by entering the staging track they left.
- Maps on chimney show how Eastern Route fits into New England rail network.
- Fast clocks are mounted on each end wall of the room.
- MRC Prodigy Advance DCC system:
- Throttle plug-in points are in Beige boxes or outlined in White.
- Phone throttles connect to "MRCWi-Fi_BM_Eastern Route".
- Visiting MRC throttles configure as Cabs 7 and 8.
- DCC power districts are Draw, West Lynn, Bexley, East Bexley & Newburyport.
- Each district indicates shorts by Red Light on the panel, FEEP.
- Turnouts with scale switch motors visible on the layout are power operated from a control panel: Draw, Bexley or East Bexley (1).
- All turnouts in the Bexley Depot area are operated by keyswitches. Numbers and letters key levers to the schematic.
- Rowley Team uses a toggle switch.
- Newburyport Spring Switch at End of Double Track - manual control on Draw panel.
- Other power turnouts are operated by Red pushbuttons on control panels.
- Other turnouts are hand-throw: NORMAL position is pushed IN toward the layout.
- GE, West Lynn, Bexley Yard and East Bexley use Humpyard levers.
- River Works and Newburyport use push/pull knobs

14-Mar-2019: An exchange of messages with Pete led me to type enough that I felt it worth saving here. He'd noted my comment on signal viewing angles and suggested repeaters. He's planning a repeater using position-lights and wondered if I'd had any operator issues due to color blindness:

No operators have mentioned being color-blind. I could do position-lights, if I had room/time to install separate signal drivers for each repeater: 50% cost increase and double the wire for each signal repeated (4-6 LEDs per head repeated). Operators would also have to have some acquaintance with both sets of aspects.

Searchlight repeaters might be simpler, but only if the Circuitron and Paisley drivers I'm using are current-regulated. If so they can run two LEDs in series. I'll need to ask the vendors. Even so, I'll need identical LEDs if the Yellow/Caution aspect is to be recognizable in both places. And it seems I can't get any more of what Oregon Rail Supply was using.

But the underlying issue is putting the repeater where operators will think to look for it. One important signal could be repeated in a unique location on the fascia. But my layout is mostly double track and has several interlockings with limited or no fascia space. All the others with limited viewing angles would need to go on control panels. I've gotten used to questions from operators who aren't good at mapping a schematic on a control panel to the track in front of them. I expect signal repeaters on control panels would have the same issue.

14-Apr-2019: RailRun 2019 Action Report: Six operators new to the Eastern Route, one experienced Helper and me. Ran the whole 12 hours, missed a couple of commuter trains in the afternoon rush. No photos as I was too busy.

1. Re-doing most of the weighbills with 11 point/bold blocking codes was helpful. I was asked about the few remaining typed weighbills several times, also about a couple of blocking codes I'd mis-typed.
2. Erich brought a couple of MRC wired throttles, so I didn't have to schedule throttles.
3. Nobody except Erich was experienced at WiThrottle or EngineDriver, so the MRC 1530 WiFi interface went largely unused.
4. Rewiring Bexley Yard was definitely worth it: no blown fuses and few FEEPs I had to intervene in. One did take me a minute: A short when the Yard 1 turnout was reversed. Turned out to be a loco across the block gap up the ladder on Yard 4. Painting ties for 'fouling points' will probably help,
5. The Train Cards were helpful for the switchers and local freights, so I'll complete them. But one visitor got bollixed up westbound in Newburyport and ran quite late. However, he sorted out his Bexley setout correctly so only complicated things there for 15 scale minutes.
6. I/R detectors, possibly with some automation, are needed now that I'm splitting one of the long 'Saugus' staging tracks.

I managed Draw Operator (staging) fairly well among my other duties. I did the two 'move a train up' operations before they were needed. I'm still not completely happy about how visitors interact with my layout, though - it's fairly complicated compared to most other RRs I've operated. Having more op sessions this year will help me, personally, as local operators will get more familiar with the Eastern. Materials improvements on the Punch List will help too. And maybe my 10-y-o will get to the point where he can be a 'pilot' too. I'll find out next year, fate willing.

11-May-2019: Another op session this morning: Four experienced operators, one 2nd timer and one newcomer. I was crew caller, Draw (staging) operator and Bexley Train Director (a B&M title for towermen managing CTC segments). A somewhat late start led us to stop the clock at 10:30 AM, so the last two morning passenger trains didn't run. But we did run the whole weekday rush hour.

1. Running the Bexley Goat is a complicated job, even with the blocking codes on the re-issued weighbills. Quite a few misroutes today.

2. The Portsmouth Freight ran near its 12-car limit, but Erich had plenty of time to do Newburyport once he oriented himself.

3. Bexley managed to handle a passenger train turning in the yard while both the Goat and the Camel (Boston - Bexley hauler turn) were in the yard, but the session would have been more balanced if I'd enforced the 7:45 quit time for the 1st Bexley Goat and 8:15 start time for the 2nd. I'll think about modest shifts of freight activity away from the morning rush.

4. 4:1 fast clock is about right for the number of freight cars and moves in a typical session, but the passenger timings are pretty slow. Maybe I'll try trimming the freight car population by 10% next time and see if I can speed up the clock. Experience to date suggests that increasing load/unload times alone won't simplify much.

5. Recent improvements to operating documents have helped, but I missed opportunities to have the two least experienced operators read them before their jobs started.

6. Three operators used phone/WiFi throttle apps for the whole session without any trouble from the MRC 1530. I gave wired throttles to others running in the north half of the room, and wireless to Bexley and West Lynn engineers. There was some congestion around the two Bexley plug-in locations, none elsewhere.

7. None of my visitors had the combination of cab ride/rule book experience and comfort with other aspects of their job to put any energy into prototypical whistle & bell use. The most experienced were paying attention to the signals. And this crew is getting the hang of keeping the passenger trains more or less on time.

I'll be trying another in June.

Pete commented:

QuoteExcellent summary, James! Sounds like an enjoyable session, with some lessons learned and catalogued (and to be applied out here when the time comes), and that's a Good Thing!
Keep Training, and please keep us posted.

Michael_Hohn asked:

QuoteInteresting observations.
I think it's hard to build a timetable that works well for both freight and passenger trains. Do you run all your trains from a timetable?

Thanks, Pete. Mike, I have 'on duty' times for my freights and I've done some planning trying to avoid congestion at yards & sidings. But the freights don't appear on the passenger timetable - only First Class trains are scheduled all the way.

BurleyJim asked:

QuoteAs 'crew caller' are you taking on the role of Dispatcher? Have you set up any O.S. check-in locations? Sounds like you are having a good time with it.

I'm the closest thing to a Dispatcher the Eastern has. Freights get the moral equivalent of a Clearance Form A at origin but not Train Orders. Freights run per the train card and have to clear First Class. On a railroad where you can see three of the four stations from any point, this has sufficed. I'd try Train Orders and a Dispatcher's Phone if my crew wanted, but to date few, if any are interested in following those aspects of the prototype. Maybe if I only tried to cover 6 timetable hours in each session?

9-Sep-2021: I was rebuilding my threads on the then-new RR-Line software.

As it turned out, I had no operating sessions in Fall 2019, and then came the virus. So after more than two years I'm getting organized for two sessions as part of the NER Mill City 21 convention Columbus Day weekend. I may try to get an experienced crew for a warmup beforehand, but I have lots of other work to fill the next four weeks.

11-Oct-2021: Action Report, Two Mill City 21 op sessions: Everyone survived being masked throughout, weather allowed open window ventilation.

#15 had 6 operators with me as Crew Caller, Towerman etc. Most had considerable experience, a couple much less. Nobody had tried to run freight mixed with 14 passenger trains in 3 real hours. Bexley Yard was relatively hard work, particularly when something distracted me and I didn't get the 2nd Lynn Goat started on time. A few misroutes because it wasn't obvious what to do when a car arrives at its 'blocking code' (look at Destination and Consignee). I told the operators not to worry about the Humpyard levers breaking but that might have led to less care about the machinery behind them - a couple of connections pulled apart at inconvenient times. I stopped the clock for a while. One operator arrived late, and some had to leave early, so we only ran 0001 to 1030.

My punch list includes reprinting weighbills whose laser printing isn't wearing well and rebalancing off-line destinations (way too many cars via South Boston). I was up late fixing the turnouts and mixing re-staging with running the freights that hadn't been completed.

#16 today only had 4 operators originally, one told me he wouldn't make it, another didn't. So I managed the layout while the other two ran most of the morning freight trains. I have one more to run before I re-stage.

I believe everyone had fun, don't know if I'll get more feedback. Once I'm ready again, I'll try to get another one in before Thanksgiving.

desertdrover (Louis) commented:

QuoteSounds like it was a lot of fun, operations sounds like a real railroad operations with, all the going on's and maintenance issues.

21-Oct-20121: Last weekend I ran the trains that didn't run during the 2nd operating session, then re-staged. But I'm still thinking about the congestion problems that cropped up: Too many cars headed for Newburyport, Bexley customer spurs and South Boston. I think all of them follow from three things:

First, across several op sessions, I didn't cut off switching jobs at the scheduled quitting time. That resulted in cars arriving after the switcher went off duty getting classified and sent out, rather than sitting there till the next train to their destination (either next op session or the one after that).

Second, 95 cars on the layout might be a few too many. There are currently 75 spots . There's no shortage of room in the yards but balancing staging requires careful card turning.

Third, I need to re-balance some destinations. I can fix some of this by selecting which cars come off the layout, some more by swapping cars on the layout for cars presently in storage boxes. Going through all 9 weighbill spreadsheets is more work, but there are some with flaking ink due to insufficient fuser heat and one card that's just wrong.

I'll see if I can get an op session together for the first weekend in November. It should be more relaxing for me with most or all the operators knowing the layout.

Pete replied:

QuoteSounds like Progress nonetheless, James! Keep going! Please keep us up to date on how things are running.... Some of Us are on the rotation here for 17 November, which will be the first "real" Op Session in two years, and the second one overall. The Superintendent has a lot to learn, and the railroad needs some additional TLC before things will run smoothly. Have found a few unwanted and unnecessary motive power issues recently too....
OTOH, my twelve year-old grandson, operating with his 14 y.o. brother, found the source of an "occasional," and unpredictable derailment inside the bottom back curve of one of the helices back in August, and that issue was remedied shortly after they left. Life is Good!

7-Nov-2021: Op Session #17 is history. Five operators who'd operated here before, one was elsewhere on business; We didn't run much of the passenger schedule. And there was a lot of conversation before we actually started the clock, so we only ran noon - 7:30 PM. Some operators were a bit rusty after a year or more away from car cards and timetables but everyone had a good time. No photos because things kept coming up. Nothing too serious: a couple of turnouts acting up, a couple of DCC firmware crashes, car routing questions etc.

One thing I think I have to address: of about 45 cars moved, I found at least 15 mis-routes as I started to clean up. My layout is just an oval, but there are five different ways freight cars can enter and leave the 'stage', each representing a different routing. I suppose I could just let it be; eventually it ought to straighten itself out. But with 1/3 mis-routes and only a few sessions a year, that will take a very long time. Plus, all my real RR paychecks came from service planning, and my 1954 Terminal Division Make-Up of Trains book makes it clear that good service was a goal then.

I put considerable time into my car cards: I researched plausible values for Contents, Shipper, Origin, Consignee, Destination, and Route. There are also alphabetic codes for the on-line destination and area within the destination. But I am beginning to wonder if I am assuming too much about people's vision. The spreadsheets I started from were developed for a Boston-area club, and had color codes in addition to the text fields. They got in the way when I only had a B&W printer, but now I could try restoring them. I suppose if "Put each color together, Green goes in the Casco, Orange in the Narragansett..." gets the results I want, I can accept that...

Between the holidays and a bunch of model events, the next op session probably will be after January, so I have time to think before I touch up and re-print.

Pete commented:

QuoteI think the important part here is the "Good time was had by All" aspect of things. Most of the stuff I see and hear about resuming Op Sessions is related to the joy of gathering again and the "Let's see if it still runs and we know where to find stuff" aspects of getting going again. We're going through that process around here, and are enjoying the camaraderie, perhaps more so than the actual operating!
Your color codes issues might be able to be resolved with a pack of Sharpie colored markers from a stationer, which would eliminate the need to reprint everything. A stripe across the top of the card should do it....
In any case, I'm glad that #17 worked... I'm up for #2 here (after twenty-one months) next week, so the clock is running!

Michael_Hohn commented:

QuoteWhen I see you have a new post on this thread, I often wait until I can relax and read it through at leisure, taking time to cogitate upon what you've written.
As Pete said, having fun is the main idea. But beyond that simple goal, those of us who put together op sessions like to see them work out.
So, what was the nature of the misdirections? From what you've written, it sounds like people didn't understand how to route cars so that they reached their destination.
I've seen color-coded hints on car cards as to routes cars should take, but I've never worked on a layout that did that. I'm sure it's easy but hard to fully grasp in theory (at least for me.) Maybe it takes a little experience to work smoothly. I like Pete's suggestion; it was certainly the way it was done before we all had color printers.
Maybe you should do some switching runs to put cars in the right places. It might help you figure out the problems

9-Nov-2021: Pete, I printed my spreadsheet weighbills on green cardstock, so I need to experiment with markers, highlighters etc. I know if I keep the current bills, I can't code Maine Central/Rigby Yard in Portland as the mnemonic "Pine Tree Green". I'm not so sure about "Warm Orange" for New Haven/South Boston routes either. Another thing is some operators are colorblind - one Mill City guest reminded me of this; he didn't find my signals very useful.

Mike, when an op session doesn't run till noon/midnight, I switch the remainder of the day in the process of re-staging. I mentioned wondering how many of my operators can read all the text on my bills. But underlying that is wondering how many of them appreciate or even care about the routes, cargoes and priorities. Employees from the 50s and 60s were often pretty familiar with what they were moving and for whom; Trainmasters and Freight Agents were both involved with getting and keeping business. I've studied it, and I enjoy working with what I printed. But I have a feeling I should keep my layout open to people closer to the "run some trains, switch some cars" end of the spectrum. If I do add colors, there won't be more than 5, and they'll only appear on weighbill faces that move cars 'offstage'.

Michael_Hohn replied:

QuoteOne simple "car forwarding" scheme I've seen is to give engineers instructions like "drop two boxcars at location X, pick up 2 boxcars." etc.
Yes, familiarity with routes and customers helps on model railroads just as it does on the real ones

Pete replied:

QuoteThe green card issue will indeed monkey with my Sharpie stripes process, but the colors could be applied to dot stickers or a cut piece of paper taped to the car cards. As to the signals and the colorblind, again, I'm thinking I'll need some fascia-mounted position light signal repeaters.... YMMV.

Please keep the comments coming! We all learn from this stuff!

WNBranch (Dave Husman) commented:

QuoteRegarding "TT&TO" operation on double track, in most cases they operated two main tracks as "double track" (an actual operating method in the rules) where the tracks were signaled for operation in one direction on each track, the signal indications superseded the superiority of trains an the signals authorized the trains to move. The only time you needed train orders were if you operated against the flow of traffic on the "wrong" main. A lot of places had center sidings and either a message (not a train order) or a train order was used to tell the trains to take siding and let another train pass.
Do you have a picture of your car cards? That might help in understanding why the routing was an issue.
Sometime people just don't pay attention, sometimes they get lost, sometimes the documentation isn't as obvious as we would like to think it is.
In the three major terminals I put a little green tab in the pockets of the cars I want spotted that session. The one exception is that at the steel mills, the switcher has a message to spot so many empty gons to each loading track in the various mills. I leave it up to the switcher to choose the empty gons based on what's available. In one of my last sessions, the switcher didn't spot any empties to any mills because none of the empties had a green spot tag in them.
They got the part about the spot tag but missed the empties even though they had written instructions telling them how many empties to spot in each track.
Sigh.

14-Nov-2021: Mike, an N scale layout in my area uses printed train work lists. The owner's directions are much as you describe: "At Mattawamkeag, pick up all covered hoppers, leave all wood chip cars" etc. That's fun, but I wanted to tell a more detailed story on my own layout.

Pete, you could do your 'position light repeaters' with 4 LEDs in a pseudo-semaphore arrangement (like a PRR position-light dwarf).

Dave, the B&M made a lot of use of 'Proceed on signal indication with Form A' (Clearance Card) on direction-of-travel double track. I started out with Micro-Mark weighbills, typed. But I wanted to be able to change things without re-typing all four faces. And I wanted more information, like the blocking, than I could fit with the typewriter. My cards are 2" wide by 3 1/8 high, roughly the same as MicroMark's. I am thinking about a spot of paint next to 'Waybill' to avoid re-printing.

IMGP4926_v1.JPG

WNBranch (Dave Husman) replied:

QuoteYou said you wanted to include "blocking". In the waybill example shown above, what tells me what the blocking is? For example if I was on a train with that car and waybill, on move one I would set the car out at West Lynn. On move two I would take it to Bexley and that's all the further I would take it on that move.
I also use a color code with the blocking instructions. I also had used colored paper for empty car waybills (prototypical) but instead went to standard manila paper so I could use colored stripes on the waybill. I have a poster on the wall with the blocking/color code and the text block names. Each yardmaster has a train building sheet that shows how trains are supposed to be blocked. If you are interested I can post pictures of them.
For my "yard blocks" I have different block names in the same color code. For example, the major terminal at the south end is Wilmington. The color for Wilmington is yellow. I have several switching areas in Wilmington: Maryland Ave. (MD), Dela. River Extension (DRE), Harlan & Hollingsworth Shipyards (H&H), the car float to Carney's Point, NJ (Float), 6th Ave (6th) and the PRR interchange (PRR). For all of those the stripe will be yellow, but the block code will be "Wilm" plus the area code, as in Wilm-MD, Wilm-DRE, Wilm-H&H, Wilm-Float, Wilm-6th and Wilm-PRR. The crews everywhere but Wilmington know to send those cars to Wilmington because of the yellow stripe and "Wilm-..." prefix. Once they are at Wilmington the Wilmington yard crews can then use the detail block (-DRE, -H&,H, -MD, etc) to figure out which area in the terminal they will be going. Has been pretty successful so far.

15-Nov-2021: Yes, the 'W' at the top left duplicates the 'To:' line, the word 'West Lynn' or 'Bexley' is the yard that handles the 'To:' destination. I added the W and N forthose having difficulty with small print, I am thinking about colors because the larger letters weren't helping.

I am trying to squeeze a lot into a limited quantity of staging, so I do all the bill flipping between sessions. I'll also try annotating a picture of a bill and printing out copies 4x life size.

Michael_Hohn replied:

QuoteYes, I find that simple op scene a little too simple for my taste. Really, it's only appropriate for very inexperienced operators or a very low-key session.
I prefer the sense of getting work done.
Maybe cut-down colored price stickers would work rather than colored markers. Or has that been suggested? I suppose they might peel off but that's not been my experience. They can be the devil to remove. On the other hand, that would be a lot of little stickers to put on waybills

WNBranch (Dave Husman) replied:

QuoteYou have a LOT going on on that waybill. It could be that the answer isn't adding something but removing some things or moving the the critical things to the top and the same line.
Am I supposed to be following the letter in the box, am I supposed to be following the station on the 2nd line, am I supposed to be following the "To" line.
On move 1 they are consistent (all W Lynn), but on move two they aren't (2 are Newburyport, 1 is Bexley).
Here is an example of my car cards and waybills. They are "non-standard" because they represent a "car ticket" or memorandum waybill that was in use in my era. The blocking code and the color code are all on one line, the "Via" line. The "To" line is the final destination. I tell yardmasters and crews to block trains by the Via line. Whether they go by the color or the block code, there is only one line that they have to pay attention to if the car is not at its blocking destination:

WNBranchWeighbills.png

Trolley track consumed all my time and attention for a couple of years. But I did eventually reply:

16-May-2023: I see what you're saying, Dave. But a lot of the extra information I put on my weighbills is because I'm modeling real customers and consider the routings and commodities part of the history I'm trying to re-create.

My layout is basically an oval with one classification yard. The complexity that troubles some yardmasters is that cars "leaving" the modeled portion of the layout do so in one of four different trains. Today I finished adding color codes to all the weighbills. After I finish re-staging I'll see if I can get an op session in before the attic gets hot. Even if the friends who catch the Bexley Switcher job continue to misroute cars, the colors will make it simpler for me to square everything up between sessions.

WNBranch (Dave Husman) commented:

QuoteI'm modeling real industries and considering real routings too.
Just remember that a prototype waybill will not tell anybody which train a car goes on. Not on the waybill. There is a whole 'nother level of documentation that tells the crews and yardmasters which train a car will ride on. The waybill drives that decision, but there is another decision tree that the yardmasters use. That is blocking. You either need a secret decoder ring the yardmasters and switch crews car refer to to help decide or you need to put some sort of indicator on the waybill that tells them. I was in the operating department of a real railroad for 37 years and we never looked at waybills in real time operations. What drove our operations were the documentation that came from translating the waybill info into the railroad routing and blocking plan.
I use a block name or code with a colored stripe keyed to the block, and then a diagram of which trains carry which blocks. A friend of mine puts the first and last train id on the waybill (SDX L452). The train that brings the car out of staging is the SDX and the train that spots the car at industry is the L452.
A railroad car always has 3 destinations:
- The next destination, the next place that the railroad is going to take the car or train the car is going to ride.
- The system destination, the last place the car will go on the railroad it's on.
- The final destination, the place the car is ultimately going.
The three destinations ca all be the same or they can all be different. The final destination remains the same, the system destination changes if the route has multiple railroads and the next destination changes multiple times as the car moves across the railroad. The final and system destinations are on the waybill. The problem is that the next destination, the one the yardmasters and crews really care about, is not on the waybill. Unless the crews know the next destination, they will misroute the cars. You can add next destination info to the waybill (unprototypical) or you can develop documentation that the crews can use to translate the waybill into next destination info (slow, cumbersome and prone to error). Additionally the next destination will change as the car moves across the layout. The instructions/coding has to be
flexible enough inform all the crews that might touch the car.
Either way, the challenge to the proper routing of cars is to build a system that allows the yardmasters and crews to know what the next destination is and follow the car on it's trip across the railroad.

That was the last post on RR-Line. I still need to fully integrate what Dave Husman said with my operating scheme.

To bring things up to date: I had one HUB High Green operating session 3-May-2024 ( #18 ) with seven operators.

The next sessions were two 2025 HUB High Green May 3 ( #19 ) with 6 guests and May 4 ( #20 ) with 8 guests.  The punch list doesn't have many entries, but one is replacing a #8 commercial turnout I used in Bexley with handlaid: It's on cork roadbed and occasionally moves with the seasons enough to derail something or play difficult to throw.  The other is bigger: three Walthers #6 3-ways and two 1970s-vintage Shinohara-Lambert #6s in the Draw staging west throat are causing several kinds of trouble: power routing contacts on Shinohara points were flaky and the Walthers have both poor throw reliability and electrical issues.

Meanwhile the 1970s heel-thrown point turnouts in Bexley need little attention, and those I started building 20 years ago have needed none. The Draw throat will be a build-out-of-place project with the layout down for a week or more to swap the handlaid module in.  First I'll draw it to see how much space I gain by using curved turnouts.

Some of the comments reminded me of people who are no longer with us, or who didn't make the transition from Railroad-Line.  But reading this as a retrospective shows how the operating concept evolved and was debugged (both hardware and "software", procedures, etc.)  

dave

I re-read these old threads from time to time. It's useful to remind myself of how something evolved before I return to working on it.

Some of the operators shown aren't among us anymore too. But the wheel turns...

James,

Looks like everyone was very busy and having a great time as well.

Tom