operations in N scale?

[superchief]

Just outside of Houston, Texas...we have a round robin group that rotates out of Tulsa, OK / Dallas, TX and Houston, TX and is here this year on Nov 2/3/4, so I am putting on a shake down session early October and a yearly open House on Oct 20th! Gordon

[rogergperkins]

My impression is that operation is really the true aspect of modelling railroading.
Those of us who have home layouts and run trains are not really modeling the railroad industry if we
do not model the operation processes of a transportation industry.

My layout is not setup for operation in that sense. In fact, I am still finding that I need to define the purpose of functions of the yards and sidings.

 I would like very much to observe an operating session on an n-scale layout in the Peoria, IL area.

[Nato]

           The OP Sessions on my Modest Size,(I do mean Modest Size) layout conist of the Branchline, really a seperate railroad with interchange yard feeding trafic from industries and picking up cars to be delivered from East & Westbound roundy-roundmainline trains that have access to a decient size yard and engine service/roundhouse complex. It is assumed that some trains continue on off layout (I have no staging ,W-a-a-a!). The standard car card system ,yellow cards with waybills are used.My invited crews are usually four persons plus my self. A session is about two hours, ends when the branch train has made a complete round trip and exchanged cars with mainliners.Not all industries are switched at each session. Crews usually consist of a yard switcher operator,sometimes a helper to pick uncouple cars, mainline train operators who take so many laps around after starting in"Gavin Yard" then dropping and picking up cars at the branchline interchange yard,and returning to Gavin to tie up their train which is then sorted onto arrival or departure tracks. Sometimes a passenger train circles around stopping at the three mainline stations on the layout to add interest before returning to the main passenger station which is part of Gavin Yard area. Layout uses no "Fast Clock",is wirless radio DC throttles. Only trouble last season some bleed over from one main line to the other (Red to Yellow),causing one train on one line to become a runaway train. The CVP DC gear is aging,I hope fault found and fixed before this season. I know go DCC,I have quite a few DCC lokies now, and a Wirless radio "Pro Cab"  DCC throttle I use on the WNS Layout at shows.RC model boating season ends sometime late october early November,then it is OP Session season.                   Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.

[mrp]

                I am a regular at Marcus’s CR&E, and he is at my layout as well. I agree with his comments about keeping the crew consistent. People that only show up once a year have to be retrained each session. Building up a regular crew can take several years, and the process never really stops.

   Of the layouts that I operate on, only 2 use a fast clock for much.
                I use a 3:1 ratio, though the clock is only used for granting locals time and track authority. The actual timetable is sequential. One other layout runs TT&TO. I don’t know the ratio he uses, bit we do use a real timetable /schedule

   Like Mark Dance, I use stickers for waybills, with the main drawback being restaging time and appearance. However, they are very fast, and my yards would collapse with car cards. Also, as I have gotten older, not having to deal with reading car numbers is a big plus!

   My pool of regular operators is about 3/4 N scale and 1/4 HO. We have about as many operating N scale layouts as HO, something that is uncommon. As Marcus mentioned, we have had to dial things down a bit to prevent operator burnout. From an operating perspective, I don’t see any real difference between the indoor scales, though I have trouble adjusting to clearances in HO.
 
Michael Pennie