train – Page 5 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

July 15, 2022

On Sheet – The Right Car for the Right Job

orry I was out – I was recovering from surgery (and no, it wasn’t brain removal). Anyway, last time we talked about using tabs-on-cars as a method of getting a car to a specific industry. This time, let’s make it even simpler – let’s assume that we’ll just switch by car type alone and not worry about reading those teeny tiny numbers or placing tabs on our roofwalks. Most model railroads do this in one shape or form. For example, if you go to a layout with a coal mine, you probably will just shove all the hoppers under the […]

July 23, 2022

On Sheet – On Sheet? What?

few days ago someone asked me why I call this blog “On Sheet” in the first place. Fair question. Let’s take a break from ways to get our tiny boxcars to our tiny industries and chat about how railroads work. Or worked, as in past tense. You might have a small station on your railroad, one with a bay window and a semaphore signal out front. You might have assumed that that signal is to make trains stop and go. So did I until I bumped into Steve King and he got me into the religion of Time Table and […]

August 12, 2022

On Sheet – IDing the Perp

ne of those problems you might face on your first op session is where everything is, industry-wise. Sure, your waybills/switchlists/tabs might dictate that a car be dropped at Amalgamated Antimatter but it’s one of a dozen industries on your pike. How do your newbie crews find it? Well, there are many ways you can do this, all of them with pros and cons. Written Instructions: Sure, you can provide documentation for your operations, but generally one operator in ten will read them (and that’s only if he’s bored). Obvious Building Functionality: A fuel distributor and a stock pen are pretty […]

September 5, 2022

OpsLog – WVN – 9/3/2022

‘m in my hard wooden chair in a West Virginia Northern caboose, my coffee sloshing about my green company cup as I ride the rough rails down from Clifton Forge to Harris, a line of WVN green boxes banging along. I hear the head-end throw an uneasy four-note whistle as we reach the engine house grade crossing just outside of town. The engineer in the iron seat up front is a newbie. But it’s not what you would expect, not some gnarled tobacco-spitting local boy made good, no. It’s my wife. JB came along with me to run on the […]

September 11, 2022

OpsLog – Tusk Hill (AKA TBL) – 09/10/2022

ell, this is one for the books. Train-buddy Kyle (who has English sympathies) chatted with me after our last Tuscarora Branch Line and proposed an interesting idea. He loves interlocking, especially English interlocking (to go with all his English trains). And while all I’ve got is Yankee interlocking, we decided to give a try to running my layout with English rolling stock and engines. So we set up a run with a four-person crew and gave it a whirl. First off, Kyle’s equipment ran pretty flawless. We’re talking quality stuff. So those little steam engines, they could handle […]

September 23, 2022

On Sheet – Sliver Linings

n our last On Sheet, I just hung out with you all and laughed about some of the funny things I’ve heard during operations. Well, a lot of people liked it and some people discussed aspects of it, but I did get one contact that said that it actually was counter-productive, and that that person might not be so keen to operate if that’s what it was about. Ouch! Classic backfire! So let’s take a step back, way back, and define model train operations. How about this? Model Train Operations are the biggest, greatest co-operative game there is! And that’s […]

September 30, 2022

On Sheet – Room for Improvements

ne thing about model railroad operations – you don’t have to get it right on the first try. Nobody can say exactly how something is going to work until they do it. When managing a model pike, you’ll find yourself changing things, cutting in turnouts or altering your schedule. You set something up, maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. If the latter is true, you try something different. In my Tuscarora Branch Line, I thought I wanted to run a train order board so that special orders could be “hooped up” (i.e. physically passed) to the engineers. For this, you […]

October 9, 2022

OpsLog – P&WV – 10/7/2022

‘m going to tread carefully on this blog post. So, like, What the fug? Tom Wilson opened up his layout for guests of the 2022 National Model Railroad Association Convention. He’d even contacted me a month before and asked if I could dispatch (don’t toss me in the briar patch, right?). With advanced signup and money on the barrel head (I forget how much I paid) we filled up the roster, a crew of nine. It was going to be a great time. I got there early, had a look at some of his new scenery, then went into the […]

October 28, 2022

On Sheet – The Great P&LE Strike!

n our last blog posting, we talked about simulating things that aren’t really there (specifically facing-point locks and various assorted paperworks). The thing is, operations can be more than the trains and the waybills. They can be expanded to include anything you can imagine. Like a violent labor altercation. I mentioned at the end of that On Sheet how you could simulate union dues with your operators (by passing a coffee can around). That got me to thinking about an actual strike I was involved in on a friend’s railroad. My buddy Ed (who passed away a few years back) […]

November 5, 2022

OpsLog – P&WV – 11/4/2022

kay, so we got to run on the Pittsburgh and West Virginia today, a sort of retirees session held in the middle of a Friday when all the good people of the world are working hard (at the car wash or other places of employment). The good thing here was that, unlike our last disappointing session when over half those signing up didn’t bother to show (and our plucky dispatcher found himself in the cab, running trains and watching for headlights), we had a full crew. One guy couldn’t make it but luckily called host Tom Wilson in time for […]