Success factors

In tying to get my head around the various issues that make successful enterprise-level model railroading different from more casual model railroading, I've lately been thinking that it boils down to four major factors:

• People factors
• Reliability
• Maintainability (which may really be a subset of Reliability)
• Clear vision and expectations

Of these, I feel that People Factors ultimately drive the other three. Once you build something that requires a large number of people to participate in order for a model railroad to run the way you want it to, you need to pay attention to how you attract enough people to come over and run it. If your crews find the railroad unpleasant to operate on, or frustrating when they try to figure out what they are supposed to do, they won't come back. Fortunately, Reliability and Clear Expectations are comparatively easy things to work on or correct.

While I say that Reliability is easy to correct, that doesn't mean that it doesn't require effort. In fact it is the most time-consuming. But at least it has the most easily defined standard for success. Things either work well mechanically and electrically, or they don't, and that is a big factor in whether crews enjoy operating on your railroad. Maintainability feeds directly into Reliability.

Which Reliability compromises a layout owner is willing to accept are one set of things. What visiting crews are willing to accept can be quite another.

It's hard to play if nobody wants to come over and play your game.

Enterprise grade...

Dear MRHers,

I've gone on-record here on MRH previously stating that the rigours of touring/"exhibition" layouts mean that most every element of their design, build, and operation needs to considered and executed at levels far-exceeding the "typical" home model RR. (IE "Enterprise Grade" for the sake of this discussion).

Interestingly, such layouts can span the range from multi-100s-of-feet mainline modulars (Free-mo, et al),
thru various-size "sectionals" (Red Stag, et al),
down to single-lump micros...

...and yet, the mission-critical, "One time, First time, Every time" nature of paying-public shows demand the same levels of performance from all...

...and it's just a helluva lot more fun to attend and operate at an exhibition as a layout-owner/crewmember/operator when everything just works... 

There is also the minor complication that while each "show layout" may well be concieved, created, and tested to "bulletproof" confidence-levels in isolation,
at the very Moment-of-Truth when "It just Has To Work" (IE exhibition Doors-open, public is walking in),

there could be 10's of individual layouts
(totalling potentially 100s of simultaneous operators/throttles and 1000s of individual locos in motion),
all attempting to "Just work" in very close physical/electrical/radio proximity,

presenting the very-definition of a "uncontrolled, hostile operating environment"...

...and much of the aforementioned underpinnings, vital to a reliable presentation, 
are singularly invisible to the passing crowd,
for whom the simple visual of "trains moving thru scale scenes" is both the expectation,
and an oh-soo-easily-self-sabotaged result...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Fascinating topic

As one who has been lucky enough to participate in the Operations Road Show at a couple of national events, the value of such experiences has been central to my enjoyment of the hobby. In particular, the masterful way in which novices were made to feel welcome and encouraged to learn inspired me to undertake the "learning layout" in my middle school classroom. 

Although designed for twenty operators (my normal class size), Covid-related cohort size restrictions have me adjusting the operating plan to target groups of twelve. 

But the driving parameter is the eager innocence of the participants, and the most vivid reality to me is the dramatic impact of genial, easygoing hosts. On the rare occasions that I've been able to coordinate operating sessions that include members of my local "squad" of veteran model railroad operators (as opposed to the usual "just me" situation), the richness and bidirectional benefits of the interactions are simply sublime. 

I appreciate Fritz' emphasis on People Factors. 

Jeff Allen

Unique Subsets

I believe that Prof Klyzlr has opened a whole new can of worms with exhibition layouts with a bunch of considerations that "Basement Fillers" don't need to contemplate.  These would include:

1. Fast set up/takedown

2. Transportability  "Hangar Rash" is usually inevitable when moving a layout how do you design to minimise that effect.

3. Environmental factors.  How does your layout cope with large temperature /humidity changes.  

4. Crowded radio spectrum.  2000 plus cell phones in close proximity and multiple wifi networks in a confined space.  Ironically our Wifi/ Duplex controlled layout has never had a problem with this.

5.  Accurate 4 axis alignment first time every time.

6. Simple, reliable and quick wiring connections across modules

and so the list goes on...

When we designed and built our current "exhibition layout" we went from a 16 module nightmare that took 4 - 6 hours to set up to a larger layout that can have trains running within 1 hour after arrival at the venue.

 "Once you build something

I think this is something anyone contemplating a large multi operator  layout needs to consider right from the start. If there are not enough people near by who want to operate on the layout then it will be a frustrating and fruitless endeavour.  Since a large layout takes a lot of time to build it would make sense to line up the crew members at the beginning and let them help build the thing. This would give them familiarity with the layout plus a sense of shared responsibility in the outcome. If I couldn't line up a suitable crew I'd certainly have second thoughts about proceeding with such a project. I wouldn't worry as much about the right ( enterprise quality) gear as I'd worry about finding the right (quality and quantity)people. ....DaveB

Operating layouts vs. Modular

I think there are really two different discussions here. Large private operating layouts or clubs being one, and then large modular setups being another.

Free-Mo provides a nearly unique challenge from a DCC perspective, due to having a bunch of different people, often not part of a formal club, all coming together to build a layout, with many ignoring the guidelines put forth by NTrak and NorCalF. NTrak is challenging, often due to the sheer size (having built the largest known DCC system ever in 2008), but those are often groups of clubs, with each club set up together, and a fairly organized hierarchical system for DCC. Were a large NTrak layout set up again, it would have a DCC system far in excess of the size of the one set up in 2008, even if the layout weren't as large.

Most show/modular layouts aren't actually that difficult to get set up, it's just that many are very labor intensive, due to not being designed for quick setup/teardown. Many layouts take more than a day to get up and running, due in part to needing things like joiner tracks or rails installed, and having heavy designs. The ratio of modules to members is also a factor, a layout with 1.2 modules per member is going to go up a heck of a lot faster than a layout with 4 modules per member. Construction also matters, some of the modular layout systems are not designed to be lightweight at all, some even use 2x4 legs with extensive bracing. They're well built, but not fast or easy to set up. Most modular layouts aren't that complicated electrically. Free-Mo and NTrak are largely the outliers. Even with the more complicated (from a wiring perspective) NCE equipment, many modular layouts have a cabinet that rolls in, plugs into the yard with a huge wiring harness, a radio tower that goes up above it, and everything pretty much just turns on. The very largest club/group layouts often have several sets of equipment, but even then, the DCC part of it just isn't that hard, as it's all owned and maintained by one or two members of a single organization, and is pretty much plug and play.

S&SSNC takes this to a whole different level, with modules that basically just roll across the floor and snap together, no joiner rails or tracks, and a DCC table that contains the entire DCC system with the exception of the circuit breakers, including four boosters, a command station, radio tower, and PC interface for WiThrottle. They don't use a wired cab bus unless they can't use radio at a venue, and they use heavy gauge cables to distribute the DCC power throughout a layout up to 140x140 in size. However, they have built their modules from day one with ease and speed of setup in mind, so not all their techniques could be retrofitted to other layouts.

Large club or home layouts have more of a human factor involved, since they're usually operating with a prototypical operating scheme, and you have to get people to want to come and operate on it, as opposed to coming for a show to display their own module(s).

What Fritz has done with Operations Roadshow is almost singularly unique, in that I don't know of any other operations-based large sectional layouts that travel. Most show layouts aren't designed for operations, but even the ones that (sort of) are, consist of many different modules from various individuals, and are generally never set up the same way twice. There are some small sectional display layouts, but they are generally set up as roundy-round layouts.

Crew

It depends on your layout design. Does it require a crew of a dozen people to make it work? Layouts simulating mainline traffic with a dispatcher or station operators would come to mind. Or could some of it be run sequentially, like a large industrial district with jobs serving various industries? The latter would be easier to adapt to smaller crews, or could be operated alone.

Personally, my goal to build a layout with enough switching to use 1/3 to 1/2 of the throttles I own. That's getting harder though, as I keep collecting more throttles.  Seriously though, it would be nice to be able to keep a couple of operators busy, but my operating scheme, with modern industrial switching would be easy to run sequentially with a single operator.

Exhibition layouts - Reliability

I wholeheartedly agree with the Prof that exhibition model railroads of any size need to apply the same reliability standards as large home or club layouts. Proper performance for the audience or participants.

The modular club I helped form in the late 1980s realized this. We established our standards so that we could make use of the modular format to do things that most people couldn't do at home- we had 54" radius mainline curves and number 8 or greater turnouts on the mainlines. We designed it so we could run very long trains and trains that would have had clearance problems on many home layouts. Our standards were pretty much beyond state-of-the-art for 1989. Over the years, others (notably the Sipping & Switching Society) have exceeded what we did with that layout, and more.

We supported that with stringent construction and wiring standards and it paid off.

The Operations Road Show layout built on those expectations, but that is another post in itself.

Jeff

Jeff-

I can't tell you how touched I am to hear that the ORS project helped to inspire your school model railroad project. I will be sure to pass that along to the rest of the team. Now that we have settled back to a more stationary existence with the railroad, a few of us have been looking back at what impact we may have had with it while it was on the road.

This definitely goes into the "plus" column.

Thank you.

Crewing large model railroads

DaveB and Alex bring up a question that is key to the success of a home- or club-based large model railroad- do you have the crews available to run it the way you want to?

When we started up the Operations Road Show project in 1998, the core team was a sub-set of our larger modular club. We started the project with a core group of five who had been to some really good prototypical operating sessions on a regular basis and had a clear vision of what we wanted. Two questions that concerned us, going in, were "which members of the larger group would find this interesting enough to come and run with us?" and "Can we crew this at all when it is at home?" We anticipated needing a dozen people as a good number for a home-based session.

After testing some operating ideas on the existing "display" layout, we knew that not everybody in the club would want to come and play our game when we built a new model railroad. Our estimate of just who in the club would or wouldn't wasn't very accurate, but we did have some join us over on the "ops" side. We also had the advantage of knowing a number of other modelers who were unaffiliated with any other club and who we'd run with when a local surgeon ran a large model railroad in the 1980s and 1990s. We had significant success recruiting there.

But we also had a fall-back of sorts knowing a network of people who would travel to operate on a model railroad that showed any notion of operating in some sort of prototypical manner. This group, stretching across the band from Detroit to Chicago and a bit south, had people who would drive several hours for what they felt would be a good operating session. Population density and being in the right place with respect to freeways was on our side, here.

Word has gotten around that we are open to newcomers and that while we try to be rigorous about prototype rules, we know that everyone has a learning curve, and this isn't their day job after all. We come to have fun, for our particular definition of "fun". From my usual position back in the Fiddle Yard, I can get my best impression of how well a session is going by the amount of good-natured laughter I hear coming across the room.

There is a lot more to this, since recruitment can be a pretty involved topic, but my day job must start now.

+1 for exhibitions

Dear MRHers, 

Exhibition layouts are equally impacted by this question, arguably more-so given:

- Operating the layout at an event may require significant "on the road" and "shared accomodation" co-existence of crewmembers 24-hrs/day for 2/3/4 days at a stretch
(Interpersonal relations between crew members can make or break a show weekend....)

- The "Op crew makeup" can be critical, selection of crewmembers whose "area of model RRing expertise" nicely dovetail together help maintain and assure "the layout can survive whatever may happen"...

- The "Op crew makeup" also covers roles including

"Crowd Interaction/layout-frontsperson" (aka the "Face", for those who remember the A-Team),

"Backstage crew (keep the show rolling, inc "incident response" and "break/fix" on-the-fly)",

"Layout Knowledgebase Guru (deep-dive knowledge of both the "theme"/prototype shown, and the model-design/build techniques used to achieve the desired results)

"Team logistics (care and feeding of the crew)"

"Layout logistics (loading and road-captain)"

"Layout relations (working with the Exhibition Hosting organisation, taking future show bookings, etc)"

More in-alignment with what I guess most people would consider "op the way you expect the layout to be op'd",
I've canvassed my show-crew for their thoughts on various animations, methods of operation, and user-intrefacing before. Often these discussions act as really-useful "brain storming" and "sanity checking" of the design as I see it in-my-minds-eye...

...but equally it can torpedo ideas which I think would materially enhance the overall presentation...
EG when I floated the idea of an animated Logging-winch (High-lead yarder) scene on "Nine Mile",
the response from the crew was universal, and clearly unambiguous...

"...sounds like a great idea, but if it requires any degree of babysitting or molly-coldling,
then fully understand that the animation will only be operable when you,
(IE me, the designer/builder of said animation),
are on-stand to run it..."

While I thought I'd designed and built it rugged and "automatic enough" that it would not need babysitting or molly-coldling, (Inc a "slap to stop" emergency button),

that response from my crew really set me back on my heels a bit,
prompted me to go back-to-the-drawing-board, and make extra-sure that all of my design and assumptions would hold-up like I initially thought...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

PS before anyone gets the idea that "ops at exhibitions are all just circle-work and automated shuttle-routes",
it's entirely possible to build and run an exhibition layout to actual zero-time-compression prototype train running, arguably the most notable local example was the HO scale 30+ foot-long "Beyond Bulliac".
This layout was not afraid to pull a container train onscene, drape it accross the layout with both ends out-of-sight, and leave it parked there fouling the modelled grade-crossing
(with horrendous 8-bit "crossing bell" sound module incessantly dinging-away),
for over 90 real-time minutes,
"...because on the day being modelled, that's exactly what Superfreghter #nnn did..."

...how such "ultra prototypical operation", on a layout set at 54+" track-height,
was recieved by various demographic segments of the 3-day exhibition crowd is still debated to this day,

the hardcore "train people" who modelled the prototype-in-question lost their minds at the accuracy and emulation-of-prototype...

...the "general public" punters, esp the family-visitors, tended to miss the subtlety of the presentation,
and instead turned 180-degrees in the aisle to stay glued to the triple-gauge logging-layout I was crewing,,,
(with scale-speed, but many and constant train-movements visible at any given moment....   ).
 

Reliability - Controlling changes

One aspect of reliability is controlling changes so that they don't cause issues when the gang comes over to run, or when you'll be showing the railroad to the public. Basic reliable construction is critical, of course, and I'd like to talk about that later, but keeping changes and improvements from causing problems is top-of-mind for me at the moment.

We've all been there, making changes to a model railroad right up until the last possible minute- working on things until the guests are at the door, or until things need to be packed up to hit the road. My experience has been that you can generally get away with this, with care, on scenery matters not related to trackwork, but that on mechanical or electrical matters it is riskier since it limits your chances to test things out completely before "show time."

Some examples of failures I've seen along this line have included:

• Extending a handlaid yard track two inches to gain extra that extra bit of capacity. The catch was that it ended up with both rails spiked into metal screen supporting the scenery. This shorted out a section of the railroad when the power came on at the beginning of the next operating session. That one took a while to sort out. If I remember correctly, that was a case when they just shut down the railroad and sent everyone home. A few people had driven three hours to attend that operating session.
   
• Introducing a new module to a large display layout without having thoroughly tested out that the wiring was fully correct. Things ran just fine until a turnout was thrown to take a train off of the mainline, then a  mis-wired group of turnouts would short out the mainline bringing things to a sudden halt. But only when thrown in a certain configuration. At least for that one, we could continue running so long as we didn't throw the mainline turnout again during that set-up.
   
• The cement holding down new ballast was still wet enough to trigger a circuit breaker when a train entered the block. That one was a head-scratcher. This same issue also came up in a discussion of occupancy detection on the layoutcommandcontrol .io group this weekend, where Ken Cameron mentioned that it can take up to a week for some ballast adhesives to dry enough to lose conductivity between rails under some weather conditions.

Managing changes so that you have a chance to prove that they won't cause problems is a best practice, even if it is not one that we can always adhere to. It requires a good deal of discipline and even more planning. Especially if you want to change multiple things that could affect each other.

The short take-away is: don't make your guests/crews your quality testers at an operating session. It just frustrates them.

On the Operations Road Show layout, we made a point of not making major changes unless we had at least one home-based operating session remaining before we had to pack up to go to a convention. That gave us a chance to test things out and make corrections. There were a couple of scenery changes over the years that violated this rule, but they were minor- mostly mounting structures on ground surfaces that had been prepared for them, and were low-risk.