This is created from the handout at the Finger Lakes Live Steamers for the first 1” Ride On Operations.
It was written up by Ken Cameron, a club member and enthusiasts for operations in any scale. I am copying just what he wrote. I thought it might give some great ideas for others trying to figure out operations, not matter what scale.
He writes –
Ok, I currently have indentified 4 different switching areas, 14 different industries, and a total of 37 car spots!! I made up signs and names for those that others haven’t claimed. Some are funny, so I’m hoping better come up some better names (and build buildings). We are limited since I think we only have around 15 or 20 cars for all those sidings (the rest being riding cars needed for crew).
What follows are my best guess for what we should do first. I expect we will learn things each time we do this and refine things. But we need some sort of starting point. If you know of anybody else who is likely to come (anytime)for operations please pass this along. I don’t know of other emails to send to right now.
For anyone bringing cars we’ve found that 10lbs. per truck is minimum for our spring switches. 15lbs. is even safer for the weight. We will be using the “loop to loop” pattern leaving the main yard to the south. That will take you down and under the bridge before looping over it. All the mainline switches will be set for the “route A”, which is what we’ve been using for the last year or so. Any turnouts must be returned to the mainline when done switching.
A train will be the loco, engineer riding car (if needed), some number of “revenue” cars, and another riding car for the conductor/switchman. It is up to the pair to decide if the two ride in the front or one in the front and one at the rear.
What I am planning for our first try (model railroad day and one day of our meet next month) is the following:
- We will use car cards to track the car. They will either ride with the train or be placed in the blue boxes at each switching area when delivered.
- Generic waybills will be used without regard to car type. So any waybill can be used with any car. Later we’ll get better.
- We will place about a third of our available cars at the different industries to start things.
- To make up a train, you will get up to 4 cars for delivery. We then shuffle the available waybills and put the one in each car card. That selects where they will be delivered.
- When you get to a switching area you will pick up the same number of cars you are dropping off (if available) If you are coming up short for pickups, but see somewhere that has two cars, take one of them. So you might be stopping somewhere and just picking up a car.
- You will place the car card/waybill of any cars being dropped off in the BACK of the blue box and pick from the FRONT of the blue box for cars you are picking up. This means you might be dropping at one business but picking up from another. It also means the car you are picking up might be behind a car just dropped off, so you have to shuffle.
- If you pick up/drop a car on the other side of the switching area (town) you may do a run around. Or if it is in a town you will pass through later on your run, take the card for the car you will later pick up.
- When you get back to the main yard we will remove those waybills and return them to the back of the pack and pull waybills from the front to put in the car cars. Then this set of cars are ready for the yard to sort them.
- Cars will be sorted in to “mainline” or “industrial area”. This is because the industry area only fits one train at a time. I figure two trains can be working around the mainline at the same time for those 3 areas.
- We may have a “passenger” train to give rides to others who don’t want to play with the operations. They won’t have a schedule, but you should try to let them pass by while you are finishing your switching. So you may have to run them down the “other track” to get past or whatever solution you can come up with.
- We may have “through trains”. These are people who don’t want to play operations. So you may let them by, but at your convenience. So you may finish your switching and then let them pass.
- The main yard near the club house will have tracks designated as follows:
Track 1 – main through track southbound and water stop. Will be used for switching cars in / out for a train.
Track 2 – alternate for Track 1.
Track 3 & 4 – north end for classification. We will have bricks on the track in the middle of the yard to stop cars from rolling out the south end. One track will be for cars going to the mainline and the other for cars going to the industrial area. The left over space at the south ends of Tracks 3 $ 4 are additional parking, but provide your own brakes, so you don’t roll out!!
Track 5 – northbound through track. NEVER for parking. - Parking for trains not running are the far end of the ballast track and the turntable tracks.
- If somebody has a set of cars that need storage(not being used for operations), we have two choices. One is taking one or more tracks of industries out of operations ( and removing any waybills for those spots) and parking them there. The other would be the far end of the ballast track. But that is also the switching lead for the yard when making up trains.
- We may have a switcher working the main yard or just do it by hand depending on what is available.
- To prevent delays, we can also just pick through the waybill pack to make up a “mainline” or “industrial” train if we aren’t switching in the main yard.
- If you get back to the yard and figure out you don’t have the matching car cards, go take a loop around the layout and get the right ones in the box and the right ones in your hand. PLEASE DON’T walk off with any!!!
- Sequence of towns/Industries: CROUCH – Bushnell Grain, Loadabull Stockyard. CAMERON INDUSTRIAL - Steve’s Gas, Team track, Watts brewing, Sawdust Manufacturing, Stewart Milling, HOT Energy, Seasum Holding. WHITTUM (southbound) – Stinky Septic. SMITH – Interchange, Despatch Wharehouse, Knead Dough. WHITTUM (northbound) – Cowles Lumber - Log Yard
