I think

there are a lot of people like you.  That was what I was for most of my life, and still am for the most part.  I do enjoy switching now, but have only been a part of one official operating session.  For now, I just putter around switching cars at three spots on my little switching layout.

I really do miss not having a continuous run to just let the trains run and railfan.  I suspect there are lots of railfans over operations guys out there, or people that simply like to build models for photography or trying to achieve a level of realism with their models in looks, not operations.  Nothing wrong with that.  It's a big tent hobby.  

I'm kinda like you Randy.I

I'm kinda like you Randy.

I primarily like the scene and seeing the train running through it especially at ground level to see the details go by even the undercarriage of cars. The funnest aspect of the hobby for me is creating and setting the scene. I could sit for hours watching a train go around and around a room. I sure do miss that, as I only have a switching layout now until I get a bigger room some day. For now I scenic it and will make some structures.

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/28481?page=28

"the process of backing up an

It might depend on your exposure to real trains. I spent a lot of childhood years at the local SP yard watching them switch so I enjoy recreating that in miniature. ......DaveB 

I love a good tail chaser...

and if I had the room, that's exactly what I would build.

Ops without purpose

The key to making ops more interesting is a well defined purpose ... in other words a plot, something at stake.

Otherwise, without a plot it's like watching a movie where all that's happening is you're watching some actors emote. Big deal. Who cares? That's not interesting.

But add a plot, a clear purpose, with something that needs to be achived, and with something at stake ... and things get interesting real fast. That's what's wrong with how ops is often presented -- it's plotless, purposeless ... there's nothing at stake. It's just random equipment movement. And of course, that gets very boring quickly.

To make ops more interesting, you need give it a rich setting and story. Ops with a well-defined purpose, with a goal that needs to be achieved and obstacles to overcome -- now like any good movie, that's engaging ops!

I am also finding ops with the newer sound decoders, having a lot of accel /decel in the loco, and braking functions greatly adds to the realism and challenge. Now, I have to keep the speed down so I can more easily brake and stop on a dime. If I get going too fast, it's much harder to stop exactly where I want. The sound in the loco(s) helps me judge more easily how I'm doing as I run the loco(s). Hearing the brake squeal as I roll to a stop is just too cool.

Operations

Is really just "role playing" with trains.  Not everyone likes to play "pretend"; perhaps thinking it is childish?  However, for many, I'd make the claim that they prefer that over the "modeling" as they often just get the track down and perhaps some very basic scenery to help "locate" the models and then go into operations, leaving the "modeling" for later ...

I am truly fortunate then. I

I am truly fortunate then. I actually like the ops side of things weather it has the purpose or not. Not putting down either aspect. Sometimes I will switch the entire yard into different tracks and consists. I also like watching them run. I find that very relaxing much like watching an aquarium, or a fire. I am sure there are many ways to enjoy the hobby and if only some of them appeal to you do the ones you like nothing wrong with that.

I really enjoy the trains that run with out a wobble or derailment. I will spend a good bit of time tuning rolling stock to make it so.

As far as choosing one aspect over another I will always opt for the ability to do both as the mood strikes me. Spotting cars in exactly the right spots and moving them at the proper speeds is very rewarding. Proper handling of a long train over grades and curves and through turnouts is also extremely enjoyable. Just turning them on and watching them run around the layout is great fun and I will do that quite often, many times while doing another task. That way while taking a break from something I can look up and watch the trains roll by and after they pass go back to what is on the table in front of me.

@Randy

I think you speak for most model railroaders -- up to a point.

There is a small minority for whom ops is the raison d'etre of a layout. Model railroading makes no sense to them otherwise.

There is a large majority for whom ops is nice to have, but not necessary for enjoyment of a layout. I fit into that category. I'm just as content switching a cut of cars as I am watching a train roll through the scenery.

Then there's another small minority who eschew the idea of ops all together, find the entire idea restricting with too much role-playing, like Dungeon & Dragons or the Society for Creative Anachronism (TT/TO ops for the latter) on rails.

I see their point. After all, these are just expensive toys. And it does occur to me that some of the uber-ops types are trying to live out their fantasy of railroading via these expensive toys, having never gotten or taken the opportunity to work for a railroad.

As Skiloff (Dave) says, it's a big, roomy tent and there is no best -- nor better -- way.

Gotta love it!

I sure do. There are so many ways to enjoy this hobby. My interests have changed over the years and I had a light bulb moment recently that has resulted in tearing up a fairly large section of my layout and re-designing the area based on esthetic potential instead of the running of trains. Other than testing the track on sidings after installation I realized I never ran a locomotive up them again......ever. Duh!

Doesn't sound too unusual but the kicker is I'm pulling out powered tracks that go to "industries" and replacing them with unpowered tracks that go absolutely nowhere. The revamped section will reflect the area that I railfan and allows me to model more literally instead of trying to force in unrealistic components for the sake of running trains. The layout will still have a powered loop (so we're not talking total diorama) but as a whole, decisions will be made based on aesthetics. That's what I enjoy most and my recent "epiphany" freed me up to do what I like and not be concerned about my layout making any sense in the traditional way. Nothing revolutionary, just following the path that gives me the most joy.

So Randy, you are far from alone. BTW, our backgrounds are very similar, in fact they sound almost identical ........might have something to do with it.

I fall into the operations

I fall into the operations group. I enjoy researching an industry to determine the pattern of goods moving in and out, then assembling the necessary equipment to simulate that on the railroad.

I also enjoy the working with the control systems, electronics, etc.

I do find scenery and model building relaxing, but any scenery I may add to the layout is for visitors. Other than some basic structures my imagination can provide anything else.

When I returned to model railroading it was difficult to find track due to some problems with manufacture. The only thing I could find was Kato Unitrack. This turned out to be a blessing. I had a small switching layout up and running in about a week. It's been the basis of everything I've done since.

Joe F has mentioned that operations articles are usually the least popular.  I think that's because it's much easier to write about building a model than the actions necessary for operations. Now that YouTube is providing the basis for good operations videos more people are being exposed to the ins and outs and the fun of the many different types of operations. My guess operations will become a much larger part of the hobby.

gs 

PS - this doesn't mean I don't enjoy the excellent scenic efforts of others. I certainly appreciate them. Every member of our club seems to have a different specialty and that makes us all much better as a group.

One to One scale ops

Since I presently work on the railroad as a locomotive engineer, and have for the last 25 years, realistic ops complete with switch lists, waybills, TT&TO, etc, hold no fascination for me at all, that would make what is an enjoyable hobby turn into the drudgery that is work on a daily basis. That is also why I have absolutely no interest in modeling the modern era, and stick to the steam to diesel transition era, even though it occurred almost ten years before I was born in 1963. Every permanent layout plan I design includes continuous running over long stretches of track for a railfan type of model railroad. I do try to make the Soo Line models of the railroad as accurate as possible for the places I model, and the type of locomotives modeled, but use some artistic license on the freelanced Moe Line, that does not need to have prototypically correct locomotive types and structures, and can use the less expensive generic locomotive models like the Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0, and Cornerstone structures that won't have to be kit bashed.

It's not that easy to get an op session set up even with many friends in my local club who would want to operate on my future layout, so I envision that for solo operation, I could set up a couple of through freight trains running on the main track, unattended in the same direction, and I could operate the local way freight train in the opposite direction, and attempt to do the pick ups and set outs at various industries along the way, while having to use the sidings to stay out of the way of the other trains, and complete the local work. I still would not want car cards or lists, just swap out the loaded box cars for empty ones, loaded tank cars for empty ones, etc. That to me would be a fun solo operation, and when there are more people available to operate, more trains could be added along with the opposing local and yard and industry switch engines. That's as far as I would to take the operations, and it would still remain mostly a railfan type of layout. Jim

I understand both sides of

I've always liked both, depending on my mood

Sometimes I like the challenge of solving a switching task, giving the mind some exercise.  And then sometimes, by brain hurts so I just want to pull up a chair and watch the trains go by at the crossing...

While my current space limits me to a small switching layout, I find I'm enjoying it immensely.  I think the key is to not make the track plan overly complex with lots of switch-backs and multi-multi-multi-industry spots.  If it's too complex, after a while my brain starts to hurt, or I loathe the thought of starting a session knowing it will eventually require more thought energy than I'm willing to expend.  Same thing with the paperwork.  It took a bit of work to get JMRI setup and working, but now all I need to do is press a few buttons and it spits out paperwork.  No shuffling cards or between-session maintenance.

Model railroading is much like the theatre. You have the stage and set, the off-set staging, the actors and props, and the script. It's just a matter of your personal preference on how involved you want to get in the play, or if you like to sit back with a tub of popcorn and watch the show.

Craig

Which is which

Not sure of what the difference is between a "railroad modeler" and "model railroader" vis a vis operations. 

I would have to say that I am in the operations camp since I just finished a wonderful operations weekend in Kansas City, operating on 4 really cool layouts (2 N scale and 2 HO, eras from the 1950's to the 1980's, DC and 3 different DCC system, locales from Montana to Missouri to Oklahoma to Pennsylvania, TT&TO, CTC, DTC, and TWC).  The participants in the weekend came from were from 5 different states.

Do you think you could get 20 of your friends from a 300 mile radius to come to your city, stay for 2 nights, and visit a half dozen layouts if all you did was watch trains run around the layouts?  There is a social aspect of ​"formal"  operation that isn't there with just running, "railfan" operation.

Well we have had visitors

Well we have had visitors from further than 300 miles come to run trains with us although we have not gotten to formal operating sessions yet. And I do agree that there are social aspects to the hobby both for ops and for rail fanning and that they are a bit different. It seems there might just be different groups that go to each one, think of all the folks that show up for open houses that are coordinated with a train show. All they do is show up and watch them run.

My group is not against ops we are actually doing things to try and embrace them as we think that is another great aspect of the hobby. We are of the big tent mind set and want to have our cake and eat it too.

I am in Jim's camp. I worked

I am in Jim's camp.

I worked for the railroad many years so while I enjoy some operation I don't want to end up doing what I did for a job as it's a hobby. I run my small railroad like I did on a couple of short lines. No complicated trackwork or silly switching puzzles and I really haven't got around to opening the Micro Mark box of miniature waybills/car cards so they aren't in use yet. In fact on one line I operated the switch list/interchange/train list were simple copies of a form I made up during start up from a yellow legal pad. Not much to it. Car initial, number, ld/mty, ( (origin/destination), shipper/consignee, contents and spotting info.. Worked like a charm.

I just start up the SW 1500, grab the caboose and handle a few cars, switching industries in town at Monticello and out at the industrial park a couple of miles east. The railroad museum generally, only runs weekends so it's not in my way and I always try to meet my interchange partner railroad so we can do a "head light" meet handing off cars to each other.  After an hour or so I see stuff that needs attending to like a hard switch to throw or rough crossing which needs repair so after handling interchange I put the caboose and engine away in the house and tie up to do other things.

As far as watching passing trains outside of the museum's steam excursions and photo freights there's always the daily/nightly Amtrak run and a Class 1 through freight or two which pass the junction.

That's enough railroad for me these days.

Barry

Well put, Craig. Brings to

Well put, Craig. Brings to mind that it depends on my mood also. I'm going to take a look at your blog, as you mentioned the key is to not to make the track plan overly complex, which is something I've attempted with my latest layout.

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/28481?page=28

I'm a model railfanner, too!

I have not up until now had any interest in ops. I'm not even a modeler. I'm a ready-to-run, pre-built kinda guy. I don't like building things and have a huge pile of unbuilt kits to prove it. I do very much enjoy creating scenery and weathering my trains, however.

I like Rick Sutton's ideas—this kind of out-of-the-box thinking holds the possibility of opening up a whole new area of creativity for all of us. I also have a ton of pro audio/music gear. In fact, I'm going to try to find my circa-1990 Alesis Midiverb II rackmount unit, and hook it up to my Kato SoundBox for some neat effects (I have two surround-sound amplifiers hooked up to my layout: one for the Kato SoundBox, and the other for a Fantasonics ambient-sounds CD).

But, I'm open to change: I was playing with a new (new to me) 2009-issue Kato BNSF red war-bonnet GE C44-9W N-scale loco tonight (below), running a long tank-car consist and was admiring its slow-speed adeptness. I had an errant Athearn tank car continually de-couple, so I was "playing ops" to re-connect the car. It was kind of fun.

 

Sometime later this year, I hope to add a 3' x 10' yard-extension (I don't currently have a yard or any staging, or any turnouts yet for that matter). I recently bought a bunch of Kato Chicago Metra passenger cars, and on the protoype, they use BNSF GP38-2s to push the Metra cars around the yard. Not even knowing this, I had previously acquired two new Walthers' BNSF "wedge" GP38-2s I got on sale, exactly as pictured below! So now I do actually anticipate having some fun playing ops with the Geeps and the Metra cars in the coming months!

My take

I designed my layout primarily so I could railfan two trains in continuous running. I was later pleasantly surprised to discover that, by pure chance, it is actually pretty well suited for simple operations. Acting on that newfound knowledge, I really enjoyed assigning industries and deciding on their respective car needs. It was fun analyzing siding capacities, and determining car routings. I also had a good time creating my own card cards and waybills and setting up pockets for them around the layout.

I've had a few operating sessions with my system. It actually works. What I found, though, is that it took a lot of thinking organizing my trains and solving all of the little switching puzzles associated with shuffling cars around to make dropoffs and pickups, taking more brain power than I was willing to expend (that gauge is usually pretty low after long days at the office). After a while it would feel more like work than relaxing fun. That's not why I'm in the hobby.

So my operations-ready layout is still used mostly for railfanning.

Jim

I'm all about that ops...

"I'm all about that ops, 'bout that ops. No scenery."  To paraphrase Meghan Trainor's song. 

Ops is the only reason I do the hobby. Scenery exists merely to make ops more enjoyable. 

Randy

Big tent

I don't know how big a "majority" it is.  I think there are a lot of people who have no idea what operations are and have never tried it, or look at descriptions and say" that's too complicated" (its not) or are afraid they will make a mistake (even the most experienced operators make mistakes).

I enjoy looking at a well done layout.  Its fun to look at trains going through nice scenery.  Its fun looking a highly detailed cars.  Neither is required for operation by the way.

Part of the difference is I can watch a layout for 10-15 minutes.  Very cool.  But in an operating session pople are doing things with the layout (interacting rather than just watching) for hours.  Most op sessions are 2 1/2 to 3 hours long.  I have about 1/3 of my layout built.  I have roughed in scenery for about 2/3 of that.  I have about 3 ft of finished scenery.  If you want to watch trains at my place, in about 20 minutes I could run every car and engine I have by you.  Or if you want to operate I can keep 4 or 5 guys busy for about 2'40"

That's really the difference.  "Railfanning" a layout is about watching, operation is about participation and interaction.  Operation is a team event, railfanning is a solo event.  Railfanning is a spectator sport, operations is a participation sport.

All TT&TO is is a way to keep trains from running into each other.  If you have single track (which most people have), operate trains in both directions (which most people do) and want to have more than one train running at a time (which most people do), you need some way to keep trains from running into each other.  There are many ways of doing that.  TT&TO is ONE.  If you don't want to adhere strictly to an era, theme or location, great, there are lots of ways you can control things.  On the other hand, if you have gone to all the trouble to have consisent engines, equipment and scenery, being consistent in the method you use to keep trains from running into each other makes sense.  If you are running multiple trains on single track with conventional DC power and rotary power switches for the cabs, surprise you are essentially using "Direct Traffic Control" (DTC).  By putting a few signs on the fascia at the rotary switches naming the blocks, you could be operating "prototypically" and probably make it easier for the operators.

I often am amazed that people resist being prototypical, even when being prototypical is actually as easy or even easier than making up stuff yourself.  This past weekend, I operated on four completely different layouts, each with different control and operating systems, in different eras, in locales stretching from Montana to Pittsburgh.  But I was able to understand how to operate on each layout.  Why?  Because they used methods based on prototypical operations, there was a common "language" and understanding that was portable.  Some people are intimidated or turned off by operations because they don't understand the "language"".

Maybe, maybe not.  I don't think most modelers want to work for a railroad, they just like trains.  I don't think most golfers golf because they really wanted to be a pro golfer when they grew up.  On the other hand there are often a lot of current or ex-railroaders who like operations.  Most of the op sessions that have gone to that have more than maybe ten operators have at least two prototype railroaders (or ex-railroaders) participating (me plus somebody else).  Since Omaha has a major presence with two railroads, we have a lot of current or ex-railroaders at our op sessions.  A typical op session might have people who worked at everything from clerks to AVP's in it.

True. What's best is what works for you.  There are always two different questions, what did the prototype do and what should I do on my layout.  More likely than not, they will have different answers.  Just realize that if somebody asks a technical question about TT&TO, I will give them a technical answer on TT&TO, that doesn't mean I'm demanding they do that, or they are "wrong" if they do some different, or that there might be a different answer in a different context (different railroad or era).  All that means is they asked a question and I gave an answer.  

Ops Shmops

I recently had my first exposure to operations. I enjoyed it so I picked up Koester's book and immediately got lost. Man, I spent enough years in corporate life worrying about paperwork, I don't need more of that in my life. That said, I enjoyed moving the cars in a realistic way, making drop offs and pickups and solving some switching difficulties. However, I will use a much simplified system when (if?) I get the layout built. I glaze over when someone starts talking about TT/TO ops or whatever it's called. Just give me a simple switchlist and I'm happy. For this reason I am seriously contemplating the new OPSig book. Not sure I need all that instruction for what I want to do. 

Simplified ops

Terminology

First I have to reiterate that it's all good. In fact, it's great, but I feel that the comparison of railfanning vs operator types of layouts can be misleading. That comparison can be interpreted as passive vs active as a primary factor. Of course it is a factor but this highly immersive hobby has an infinite variety of approaches that bring pleasure...the big tent philosophy.

As a model railroader that admittedly has a non-op approach to the hobby I want to clarify that my (and I know many others) primary source of pleasure does not come from a passive viewing of a layout. For us it is a hobby of building a miniature world centered on railroads that involves us in many creative activities that run the gamut from woodworking (in my case woodbutchering!) to photography and all the processes between. I think that our publisher has called that type of model railroader a "builder". That's a good description. We often tear up sections of our layouts for rebuilds or even the entire layout in order to start over with new ideas. Ops people also do that but for different reasons.

OK, even I realize that this post is turning into a ramble. It's all been said before. Just wanted to get some things off my chest.

We all are informing each other and the hobby as a whole with our different approaches. The more approaches...the more people...the better the hobby. Viva la differance! 

Love 'ya all,

 Rick