Freds post got me intrested in this. Im toying with the idea of setting up the KMRR for some operations. I want to keep the basic loop I have so I can just relaxe and let the trains run. Fred mentioned it can be done without spending much. Thats important because track prices are crazy right now. I have no software for making up a track plan of the KMRR but here is a basic overall shot. I have one siding leading to a mine (left side of picture) another siding in the back (top right of picture) Since this is new to me I would love to see what kind of plans you guys can come up for operations. I want to keep the backwoods feal as well. I have more then enough space but remember money is the issue (but can have future expansions) Lets see what ideas are out their.

Shawn -

No reason you can’t do a simple operation as-is without spending a cent.

First, you have a source of traffic - the mine. All you need to do is designate your other siding as the destination industry for whatever the mine produces. If the distance between the two is too short, you can always extend the run time by going around the loop a few times before reaching the destination.

You’ll have no yard or interchange, but thats OK. Many use off-line storage like an interchange.

Start by staging some “Empties” at the industry and some “Loads” at the mine. Put an engine/caboose on the track and go get the empties. Take them to the mine and exchange for the loads at the mine. Then take the loads back to the industry. Go around the loop a few times and do it again

Of course, this will get kind of boring after a few times, so you will want to add some more industries to add some interest, and when you can afford it, a yard to make up trains in.

You don’t need car cards or software. If you want to run more than one car type Ric Golding invented a simple dice game for his Timesaver that determines what cars make up a train. Then they get exchanged at the industry that uses that type. You could play the dice operating game with the sidings you have. Hoppers go to the mine, box cares and tanks (or whatever you choose) to the other industry. Just spot some cars at the sidings before you start to give you some work to do.

I’m sure Ric will be happy to share his game with you, or point you to a thread where he explains it.

I ran my own version of Ric’s Dice Game on my old indoor loop with only a few sidings for several years and had a ball doing it.

Another thing you can add along the main to create a third industry is a LCL (less than car load) dock. Any kind of load can be picked up or left at the dock. Mine needs machinery, ohter industry on the other siding ships out product. A short spur or passing siding that holds just on eor two cars can keep from blocking the mainline.

To increase the apparent length of the run, on an old layout I had, the first time past a “town” it had one name, second time another. Same thing with some industries. Kept the layout size moderate, but add operations without too much additional “work”

Shawn,

“Operations” is just running the trains with a pre-planned purpose. A simple plan of performing this is exchanging like cars for like cars. Flat car for flat car and box car for box car. The idea with the dice is real simple. Decide what type of cars go to what siding or what location. Then decide how many cars you want to move, for example say 3. For this you roll 3 dice. The numbers that come up are the cars you carry in your train manifest that time. You can see us performing this simple ops session at the ECLSTS each Spring.

Here is the legend we use for what gets chosen.

1. No Car
2. Tank Car
3. Hopper or Gondola
4. Flat Car
5. Passenger Car, Caboose, or Misc.
6. Box Car *

• Back in the beginning of this, I had number 1 as Box Car and number 6 as “No Car”. I was reminded on 1/19/2003 by Alan Miller that “6’s” were always Box Cars and it has been that way ever since.

We use RailOps for our bi-annual OPs Sessions, but for a simple session with our grandchildren, this works every time. Your results may vary. Share your thoughts or questions, publicly or privately - the idea is to have fun.

Thanks. This is good information to know. I did not even know that my current layout can do operations or at least never thought about it. I may add a few more siddings to make it more intresting. I am mainly doing this in hopes to have operating sessions as well as for the kids. It seems kids have to be doing something rather then just watch the trains go in circles. .

Shawn,
I also like having a loop to run on. When the kids pop by the railroad, they want to see a train running…not an operating session. So, I’ve included a loop on my layout, but when I’m operating, I run point to point.

One of the problems you are going to face is that your sidings APPEAR to face away from each other. I really can’t tell from the picture.

Thus, if you take a car from the mine, you don’t have a way to drop it off at the other siding.

If this is the case, you need a run around siding somewhere - so you can get the cars on the other side of the locomotive. Or, if you have a second locomotive, you can use it to pull the cars off of the train.

Or, you can just run one train, and just work the one siding. It’s pretty simple to set up some moves in your mind. Drop off boxcar 1 at the siding, but first you have to move the hopper that’s already there. Then you have to put the hopper back after the boxcar gets spotted. Make a couple of laps, and pick up the hopper, and leave a flat car.

As you play with it, you’ll get some ideas of what you might want to add for sidings. A neat trick might be to add a passing siding, but also use that as a LCL spot. That way, if you have to run around the train, you’ll also have to move any cars that are spotted.

Alternately, you can come down to Virginia and play. Or come to Ottawa in July.

Shawn said:
I am mainly doing this in hopes to have operating sessions as well as for the kids. It seems kids have to be doing something rather then just watch the trains go in circles. .

Shawn, You are just not old enough to have hit your "second childhood" yet. Not to worry, you'll get there soon enough :) Ralph

Here’s a simple set up I made for my 0n30 switching layout:

(http://rgsgardenrailroad.com/0n30lyt.jpg)

I borrowed this switch list idea from Bart Salmons and modified it to fit the Salida yard. Since all the industries are contained here and I’m too lazy to change the numbers on the cars, it won’t matter which car is set out as long as it matches the type car on the switch list.

(http://rgsgardenrailroad.com/SW01.gif)

I have a blank piece of card stock I lay over the switch list and just move it one day when I’m done with whatever day I’m switching. For example: On Monday the meat packing co. should have 2 stock cars on the siding. The stock yard is empty…etc. On Tuesday, the meat packing company siding is empty, so you pull the 2 stock cars from that siding and take them with you. Since the stock yard is still empty, the stock cars go to the fiddle yard which acts as an interchange to be picked up by the next local freight. And so on down the list for that day. When that day is done, you move to the next day. For this layout it takes about 2 hours to do the whole week. On your layout, a mine siding can have a diverse set of cars on it. Gons and boxcars for loads out, boxcars, flatcars and reefers for loads in…etc. Even a tank car sitting there for water…or a passenger car being used as a bunk car or cafeteria car for the workers. On friday nite you pick up the passenger car and take the miners into town for the weekend…

Shawn, There are many amusement parks around the country that run “Operations” of hauling passengers on a loop of track. It is real “Operations” and operate to specific rules. Here are a few more pictures of Ken’s “Operations Sheet”, that (I think) supports his description of how it works.

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090401%20J%20036.jpg)

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090401%20J%20037.jpg)

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090401%20J%20038.jpg)

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090401%20J%20039.jpg)

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090401%20J%20040.jpg)

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090401%20J%20041.jpg)

Thanks Ric. I didn’t have that many pix of it. Didn’t realize you did either… As a further explanation, the bottom 2 lines on the switch list determine where the eventually destination of the cars will be once they leave the fiddle yard. Since those 2 destinations don’t actually exist on the layout, they’re usually picked up there by an arriving train and set off for the local switcher to pick up. All it does is add a little more interest to it.

(http://www.trainweb.org/rgs/0n30_04.jpg)

Definitely high tech! :lol:

Bruce Chandler said:
Shawn, I also like having a loop to run on. When the kids pop by the railroad, they want to see a train running...not an operating session. So, I've included a loop on my layout, but when I'm operating, I run point to point.

One of the problems you are going to face is that your sidings APPEAR to face away from each other. I really can’t tell from the picture.

Thus, if you take a car from the mine, you don’t have a way to drop it off at the other siding.

If this is the case, you need a run around siding somewhere - so you can get the cars on the other side of the locomotive. Or, if you have a second locomotive, you can use it to pull the cars off of the train.

Or, you can just run one train, and just work the one siding. It’s pretty simple to set up some moves in your mind. Drop off boxcar 1 at the siding, but first you have to move the hopper that’s already there. Then you have to put the hopper back after the boxcar gets spotted. Make a couple of laps, and pick up the hopper, and leave a flat car.

As you play with it, you’ll get some ideas of what you might want to add for sidings. A neat trick might be to add a passing siding, but also use that as a LCL spot. That way, if you have to run around the train, you’ll also have to move any cars that are spotted.

Bruce your right my sidings do fast away but I can always add another siding or two. So far everyone gave me some great info to start with. Now I have to start playing around and see what industries I want etc…

Alternately, you can come down to Virginia and play. Or come to Ottawa in July.

Shawn, my first version of the Tuscarora Railroad was a very tiny affair, at 9’ x 20’. I had two spurs and a rather diminutive passing siding on it (two car capacity).

(http://home.comcast.net/~kcstrong/trr/pics/construction/Trackplan.jpg)

Its construction and operational premise is described here: http://home.comcast.net/~kcstrong/trr/Construction/Construction.html I found it surprising how much operation one could include within that setup. No, the trains weren’t long, but it still took me 30 minutes or so to switch everything out. You don’t need a lot of switches to make for some very interesting switching, you only need to place them in challenging ways. Here’s a diagram of Shade Gap on my current railroad.

(http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/eastbroadtop/TRRConstruction/ShadeGapMap.gif)

The tannery’s especially fun to switch out, since you’ve got to pull the bark cars off the spur to to the box cars on the loading dock. The presence of a freight car at the loading platform means you’ve got to clear out the passing siding to use it as a runaround, too. There’s less trackage in terms of sidings than there is at Neeleyton or Blacklog, but it’s a much harder location to switch out. Not every siding is swapped out every time through, but often the cars do have to be moved and respotted in place to complete the other switching operations. Later, K

Kevin,
Your “Shade Gap Track Plan” has all the basics. A “run around track”. A “trailing point industry” and a “facing point industry”. The “Tannery Bark Spur” has the only length requirement, other than a length long enough to allow a car to sit on the spur while the train passes on the mainline. The “Tannery Bark Spur” must be long enough to hold the car or cars that need to be spotted there, plus it must also be long enough to hold the motive power, plus the car that needs to be shoved to the “Coal Tipple”.

Isn’t your “Shade Gap Track Plan” part of the track plan that has the “interchange track” over to Rock Hill Furnace and Orbisonia? That’s a great simple track plan for “Operations”.

Once again, its the idea of running trains with a purpose that allows it to be called an “Ops Session”.

Kevin Strong said:
Shawn, my first version of the Tuscarora Railroad was a very tiny affair, at 9’ x 20’. I had two spurs and a rather diminutive passing siding on it (two car capacity).

(http://home.comcast.net/~kcstrong/trr/pics/construction/Trackplan.jpg)

Its construction and operational premise is described here: http://home.comcast.net/~kcstrong/trr/Construction/Construction.html I found it surprising how much operation one could include within that setup. No, the trains weren’t long, but it still took me 30 minutes or so to switch everything out. You don’t need a lot of switches to make for some very interesting switching, you only need to place them in challenging ways. Here’s a diagram of Shade Gap on my current railroad.

(http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/eastbroadtop/TRRConstruction/ShadeGapMap.gif)

The tannery’s especially fun to switch out, since you’ve got to pull the bark cars off the spur to to the box cars on the loading dock. The presence of a freight car at the loading platform means you’ve got to clear out the passing siding to use it as a runaround, too. There’s less trackage in terms of sidings than there is at Neeleyton or Blacklog, but it’s a much harder location to switch out. Not every siding is swapped out every time through, but often the cars do have to be moved and respotted in place to complete the other switching operations. Later, K

K-I like that track plan. I can easily incorperate something very similar to mine. I would like to draw a track plan for the KMRR the current setup and then the sidings. Is there any good free sites I can draw my plans up. I would like to comeup with a few and get everyones opinion.

No sites that I know of for free track planning.
Atlas has some free track planning software, but no “G” scale library.
If anyone knows of a free track planning program that does include “G” scale, I would be interested too.
Ralph