I’ve been messing with “Operations” on an outdoor railroad environment for about 10 years now. This has caused many starts, false starts and restarts. Some good friends have really helped me form my theories. I have talked with Dave Goodson on this subject and have a copy of his train orders. I have also talked with Fr. Fred and have visited his layout, twice, to operate and see his example of how this works. There has been a lot of conversation, between myself and Doug Matheson about what might work and Doug has come to the KVRwy twice to discuss this further and to have some fun. I’ve read everything I can get my hands on about Operations from Chubb’s and Koester’s books to online articles, old magazine articles and seminars by many well recognized “Operatorsâ€.
I began messing with RailOps over two years ago and showed it to Doug at Fred’s in 2004. Doug picked up that ball and has created a great scenario for the IPP&WRR with RailOps. After much discussion about car movements with Doug using RailOps and trying to keep a FUN environment for new and experienced operators on the KVRwy. We have decided, that at this time, RailOPs is for a different type of operations than what we want to do in the valley.
A little history of what had been tried on the KVRwy garden railroad before RailOps is probably required. The major ops on the KVRwy is the running of rail busses and short tourist trains on a scheduled route with many stops. The premises has always been to have busses start out from locations and as tourist traffic builds through the day the complexity of the problem increase, but as the day wears on, it slowly goes back to a sleepy rig making its way through the valley alone and the tourist enjoying the sites and being gently rocked back home. Eastbound traffic has right of way over westbound and the scheduled “Mixed Daily†has right of way over the tourist traffic, which is all represented as an “Extraâ€. This is not a concrete rule, because since all of the regular crews are shareholders in the railroad, nobody wants to piss off the tourist that is willing to come spend his money. These “Extras†hardly fit the bill of what RailOps accomplishes. The orders and routes are almost always the same and only need to be updated to reflect changes to the railroad.
So the main value of RailOps is freight car forwarding and computerized random picking of freight cars, instead of using a car card system. When I started this, I made up the car cards and found that it was a level of paperwork that instead of telling us what to do was being used to follow the car moves and added a part of the hobby that became work instead of enjoyment. Besides you couldn’t leave the cards outside. Wind blows them all over the place. There aren’t always holders along the railroad to hold the cards. I had “Operators†take the cards home in their pockets and that resulted in another beauracratic inventory to make sure you had all the cars after every session. A small branch line like the KVRwy does not have that many cars and many of them move as kernels (a RailOp term) or a group with all oil cars going to one location from the interchange and all coal cars going between two locations and the interchange. Much like the larger railroads, these cars are in captive service and move as a group or a series of moves governed by siding length. Once again, the train order became something that didn’t really need to be handled by a computerized program and basically don’t change from session to session.
Oil Extra Westbound – take all oil cars from Owl’s Bend to Acorn Oil. Train length is limited to 7 cars including the caboose.
Coal Extra Eastbound – all empty coal cars to Owl’s Bend from Fiddle.
So car assignment becomes small. I got the idea at a seminar at the 2001 NMRA convention offered by Bruce Chubb’s, to exchange like cars for like cars. Set out a box car, and pick up a box car. There is no distinction of an empty or full car if you can’t see the load. For logging flats or coal cars, it’s a different story. So the Bachmann removable coal loads and logs for the lumber special give a reason and a location to all the to’s and from’s. Empties of coal to the Chance Coal Processing Plant at Owl’s Bend and loads to Fiddle for interchange.
So it gets down to a simple way to choose a consist for the “Mixed Dailyâ€. The only scheduled train on the line. Short Line and Branch Line Railroads exists for a special need. It is either the result of old trackage that was abandoned by the big guys, because of not enough traffic for justification, or a line created to get the big line by some local shippers. Industry and variety are usually limited to one or two specific industries. Or new traffic has learned the advantage to shipping on rail that is already being used by another industry and may be cheaper shipping than by truck.
The purpose of RailOps is to assign car forwarding and destination. If you had a big HO layout with a couple hundred cars in drawers, it certainly makes sense. I’ve also seen it used with good results on the OVGRS’s layout where they operate every week and they want the cars to start today with where the cars were last Saturday, so there is a continuity and continuation. If they didn’t have the software they would be back to hand inventorying with written notes each week and lots of paperwork, now relieved by computer files that keep track of that for them.
But on the KVRwy, the cars are at the interchange at Fiddle or at the mines and j. Allen Industrial Park at Owl’s Bend. Once again, I found myself trying to catch up with the paperwork and computer files after the fact, because the train orders were simple.
To create the consist for the “Mixed Dailyâ€, I went back to my old way of rolling the bones. The dice created a mystery to what we are doing. It adds fun and the unknown, in an established environment. Your train order decides how many cars will be in the train and that’s how many dice you roll. For the “Mixed Dailyâ€, it is usually six. The roll of the dice determines what you are carrying.
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No Car
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Tank Car – oil, diesel fuel, water, chemical
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Hopper – coal or rock or Gondola
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Flat Car
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Passenger Car or Miscellaneous
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Box Car or Reefer
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No Car – gives you an empty space on your consist, creates variety in length and allows you to pick up empties along the route.
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Tank Car –
Oil tank car to “Acorn Oilâ€
Water tank car to “Sweetwater Pump Houseâ€
Chemical tank car to “KV Water†-
Hopper –
Coal hopper to “Cemetery Ridge Coal Mineâ€
Rock hopper to “Southern Illinois Rock Quarryâ€
Gondola to “Consolidated Ballast Company.†-
Flat Car – all industry locations, you choose.
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Passenger Car or Miscellaneous
Passenger car with marking lamps eliminates or replaces the need for a caboose
(so the crew can ride in comfort),
Miscellaneous goes to Owl’s Bend through the Southern Jct. Interchange. -
Box Cars – go to “Owl’s Bend - J. Allen Industrial Park†via “Southern Jct. Interchangeâ€, “KV Water Team Trackâ€, “Beagle Jct. Supply†or “Lighthouse Supply†– you choose.
Reefers to “KV Waterâ€
To assist with determining where cars go, industry locations should have placards that describe what kind of freight cars can be dropped off or picked up from that location. Once again like cars are exchanged with like cars (box car for box car)
A “Maintenance of Way – Extra†is run at the beginning of an Ops Session to pre - place rolling stock at the outside locations.
A “Maintenance of Way – Sweeper†is run at the end of an “Ops Session†to pick up any rolling stock that is not secured.
I realize many of you must struggle with understanding my descriptions, because you have not been to or seen a description of the entire KVRwy. Our website will assist with some of the explanation. www.KVRwy.com
But like everything else, it’s a work in progress. Opinions and discussion, please.
