Origen/destination

Consider shelving or other temporary storage offline

You mentioned no online staging, but something you may want to consider if it is possible is staging pull outs.  If this is something that for the most part you would be handling your own cars physically putting them onto a section of track going to a mirror to represent a connecting line to the outside world.

This by the way for those that have more cars then they have room for home based layouts.  Clubs are probably not to receptive to this because many members will be a little weary of butter fingers when accidents do happen.  If you trust that you can be careful with your own equipment this can bring a very strong operation.

Storage does not have to be fixed, it can be portable.  I wouldn't recommend this approach for a bridge operation, but to compliment what Chris has suggested to give your layout a short line connection to the prototype.

You can use your own power local, or use the connecting railroads power for the transfer.  Staging does not have to be anything more than a single track if that is all you've got to play with.  If you don't have enough length remember an extension with a width of 4 inches is plenty.

Cars can also be placed in plastic containers.  You will need to use a mold or similar set up to keep the cars in place so that they don't shift around when moving the container or shelf.

Thanks

Sean

destinations

A Terminal and Transfer RR

Thanks so much. That clarifies a things for me. My layout's concept is a Terminal & Transfer RR.

I have no way to post my track plan but it's basically a twice around with a West Bound run up to an upper (my city's) industrial yard and a turning wye.  The trains originate (so far) in the classification yard where there is a t.t. and runs up to the city to the wye for a return to the classification yard.

The East Bound trains are only able to loop around twice and then re-enter the class. yard.

My major universal industry is a Port Terminal Bldg. My 3 interchange tracks ony accept 2 to 4 cars as they are in the train room's corners.

I do ship industry to industry and my main "concept" for the roundy round was to have a through train or two swap blocks of reefers, etc. in the classification yard. Locals could also be built from them.

Last, the roundy round trains can pick up interchange cars be they throughs or locals, but only 2 to 4 cars max.

Chris you mentioned everything in your terminal r.r. example returning to interchange. I can do that but will mostly ship to the port  terminal building.  

Does my layout's description fit your example closely enough? 

Sean, by staging pull outs do you mean physically pulling cars from a yard or interchange track on the layout as one operates in the session?  I've heard this described as a "live interchange" if I'm understanding your term correctly?

Dave, thanks. Very succinct and something I can put into my Ops packet for other beginners.

My buddy and I are very grateful that MRH has lead the way with an Ops forum.  I read a lot of articles and am an OpSig member but you break things down in a really helpful manner.

Thanks.

A bit more info. regarding my layout...

Additional info: My concept also includes a Terminal RR (Black River Terminal and Transfer RR) in a pooled/joint partnership with other roads. The city yard is operated along with the passenger terminal by the Milwaukee Rd.

The classification yard is jointy operated by NP, GN and UP as a result of a 1940s merger/agreement.

I plan on running 4 to 8 car (shorty) passenger  cars from the classification yard (this is where I'd love to have staging) up to the city mostly on through trains. Locals will take mixed trains.  It's bugging me that I can't get  the passenger trains off the layout but the "live interchange" (pulling cars off of an on layout track) might have to do.

Ok, enough "wordy-ness". Just wanted to be sure to give you all the most complete info. I could as I greatly appreciate your time and effort to guide us along.

Jim

Interchange/Staging

Interchange can be considered staging.  Its the route off the layout which is basically what staging is.

Nothing says staging has to be a yard, it can be spread out over several tracks scattered around the layout.

When you say "mixed trains" do you mean a "mixed train" (freight with passengers cars) or a mixed/general freight train.

Since you are running passenger trains out of the class yard, maybe you could put in one track that is your "passenger main" that you park your passenger trains, that becomes the staging track.  Putting a passenger platform next to the track would make it a stop to explain why the train is sitting there.

 Jim --  Picture it this

Jim --

Picture it this way: a waybill represents a destination and a load ("MTY" can be considered a load). So a 4-cycle waybill represents 4 journeys.

On your layout, the yard can be the connection to the rest of the world.

Journey 1: To industry A in your city, empty. Where the car starts is immaterial - it can e.g. start in the yard, "having previously arrived" from some off-layout origin. You crew gets the car in the yard, delivers it to industry A. CC+WB is left in the box for that track/industry/town, still showing destination Industry A

Before some later session (could be next session, could be three sessions later, whatever), you in some way decide that the car has been loaded, so you flip the waybill to journey 2.

Journey 2: To an off-layout destination, loaded with something from industry A. Your crew arrives in your town, looks through CC+WBs in the box, sees that this car is billed to somewhere else. Car gets pulled, you bring along CC+WB, and take the car back to your yard. If you have a separate interchange track, your car can then be taken to your interchange track  and left there, with the CC+WB combo left in the box on the interchange track. Or your handling of the car on this journey can end in the yard, with the car being switched into a cut of cars which "will be picked up tonight" by another train heading towards the place it is destined for.

Before the next session, you flip the WB to journey 3.

Journey 3: To industry B in your city, loaded with "unobtainum" (or whatever). Again, the car starts it journey on the layout (where you left it at the end of journey 2), gets picked up, and ends up at industry B.

Before some later session, you flip the WB to journey 4 in the box for Industry B.

Journey 4: To an off-layout destination, empty. The destination does not need to be the same as in journey 2, and can be in some totally different direction. Say journey 2 was to Bath Iron Works in Maine, loaded with ship parts, while journey 4 goes empty to a warehouse in Des Moines, IA. You pick the car at industry B and takes it to wherever the journey ends on your layout - interchange/yard/whatever.

You can at the end of the session where journey 4 ended decide whether to make out or switch the waybill for that car, or whether to start over again with journey 1 for the car, or whether to pick the car up, put it away, and put some new car (with it's attendant CC and some waybill) on the layout.

You can also decide to use a 2-cycle waybill instead of a 4-cycle waybill, if you feel that this car is getting moved too frequently on the layout.

Smile,
 Stein

SMVRR

After chores

After chores, (Honeydo list) I'll digest and respond further.

I want experienced operators to feel comfortable on my layout. Although we both read a lot and have ops experiences on other well established layouts, we've never had complete guidance and instruction as owners get called away mid-question, etc. or are not natural teachers-like you guys.

Thanks again

Jim

Don't overlook 0-5-0 interchanges

Maybe it was mentioned under a different name but I didn't see the old "0-5-0" interchange concept. Very simple, you just run a spur off the front of the layout and truncate it.  Leave enough room for however many cars you want to spot there. Then between op sessions, you just use your 0-5-0 switcher ( your hand) to remove cars going to distant points and replace them with cars coming back on layout. These cars can come and go from a drawer or shelf or whatever. Very easy to implement even if you don't have room for a traditional staging yard.

Michael

That last message was the point

I was away this weekend, so I'm just getting caught up

Michael's post was exactly what I was getting at as far as a staging with drawers.  

Thanks

Sean

Terminal railroad everything to interchange?

era

One thing just to add if I understand correctly you mentioned the 1940's in what the classification yard runs.  I may have misunderstood this.

But era actually could play a serious factor in anything before the interstate highway system was put in place.  Depending on the location as well anything before the 60's was more economical to run medium range shipments (those outside the city grid or town) by rail.

This could give you the provision of running more shipments to and from each other.  Even some bigger cities would do this as they also received more rail service.  

The longer range has always been railroad dominated, though certainly has competition from trucks most big carriers today will take advantage of IM services.

Today anything that can ship within a days worth (600 miles approximately on the hours of service for the trucking industry) are dominated by truck with the exception of bulk movements.  Of course there are exceptions.  Anything over this amount becomes more of a level playing field depending on the railroad networks involved.  Merging has helped many bridge operations move faster.

Sorry I went off on a loop there, bottom line is you may have more justification to have shipments within your network on earlier eras.  Adding in an interchange or staging to whatever available tracks with portable instead of online storage automatically creates these as live interchanges.  As long as you can fit a train on it, it's live.

Thanks

Sean

I have room for one staging yard

But I still plan to implement an 0-5-0 interchange somewhere. It's just a good excuse to bring cars on and off the layout. I don't want to hijack the original intent of the thread, I have hard time understanding how the car card/waybill system can work on a small room sized layout as well, but what I really don't understand is if it can work on a mining/logging type layout where there is predominately one commodity and type of car to haul it in.

Michael

CC&WB on a small layout

I don't understand your concern for a small layout.  Maybe you could expand that concept.

Regardless of the size of the layout, the purpose of "operations" is to move the cars around, to give the cars destinations to give a purpose to the movement of the cars.

So whether you write those destinations on a list or write them on a waybill, it doesn't matter, its the same thing operationally.

The benefit of CC&WB is that it allows you to change the billing of any one car to multiple destinations without having to rewrite information over and over.  Just swap out the waybill and the car can go someplace else.  As the layout gets smaller and the options of places to send the car gets smaller, the chore of rewriting stuff becomes smaller to the point its not a big deal or other, simpler, methods (tag on car) become very viable.

It can work on a logging mining layout too.  Anyplace you are going to give a specific destination to a specific car, CC&WB can work.  Now if you only have a one origin, a mine and only one destination a stamp mill, and all the railroad does is haul one commodity from only one place to only one other place, then really having ANY car forwarding system of any type isn't necessary.  It would probably be deadly boring too.

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you all. My buddy and I practiced running some through trains today and I was wondering about how best to handle trafffic to and from the very short (2 car capacity) interchange tracks. I'd

I'd like to extend the amount of work/time but not sure how to proceed. These cars can't sit on the interchange tracks for very long without being picked up by a sweeper or local or other through trains without tying up the only ways (presently) of getting cars "off the layout".  "Pretend" swaps of empties or loads in some kind of captive service (coal hoppers, etc.) seems most logical.

I guess my "real " question would be how often to pick up interchange cars after they've been dropped off? It would be realistic to have them sit there awhile or pretend they've been replaced by similar cars from the foreign RR but due to the small layout size and short interchange tracks, it seems the interchange pick ups/drop offs would have to be constant though out a session.

Not sure I'm maiking myself clear but if these short interchanges are most of my on layout staging, would I use just about EVERY local or through or extra train to pick these cars up to constantly clear the interchange tracks for new cars?  Do things need to be THAT constant/ongoing all of the session?

In response to the "mixed trains" question, I meant freight/passenger mixed.

Thanks guys.  We are getting practiced enough to get an overall feel for the layout's ops possibilities now.

How often

How often depends on how many cars you are trying to push through the interchanges. 

If the interchange only holds 2 cars you want to move 12 cars on the layout then you need to switch the track 6 times.  Simple math.

If you are asking how often would a real railroad switch an interchange, the answer is generally once a day.  Especially for a really minor interchange. Most industries get switched only once a day, a lot on line of road get switched every other day and those on small branches maybe once or twice a week.

Dave, thanks. I guess I WAS

Dave, thanks. I guess I WAS asking how often protoypes would switch an interchange track... I guess practice running some scenarios for each type of train (locals, turns, throughs, extras, etc.) will make things evident as to how much is "too much/too often" and how much is too little/too late and bogs things down.

I've decided to figure out a way to have at least one "live staging" track (0-5-0) and think I've found a place to make that possible. I may even be able to get 3-4 tracks under there, but will have to change my mind about how much of the mainline I want to block from view under the layout. (Kind of a 2nd/lower deck on what is else wise a single level layout.

I think I'm going to ultimately want more than two or three very short interchange tracks to make future passenger/head end business and future schedules work.

Thanks for the clarifications. My friend and I ARE applying the advice given here by each of you on our layouts and it's helped to make thing more cohesive.

We'll return the favor(s) one day when we're much more experienced, with beginners coming up behind us.

prototype interchange

A prototype interchange depends on the customers and amount of trains that they serve.  Generally the rule of thumb would be once every 24 hours (sometimes only Monday to Friday, but this changes as well).

The problem with an interchange is often there is a 24 hour lag.  Take this for example:

CN owns the track of an interchange called Southern Yard

Both CP and a local industry have running rights in the yard for interchange

The local interchange drops off loads and takes empties from the yard in the morning to early afternoon

CP runs their daily train to Southern Yard in the early to mid afternoon

CN runs their interchange in the late afternoon to early evening

Because the industry in the area receives empties this is not an issue.  Because their shipments are going to either CN and CP within hours.  CN and CP however have a lag because CP only runs once a day they basically receive new cars from CN hours after they left.

Now because this is CN track, I do believe at the very least a 2nd local runs in the late evening or early morning. They receive cars for CP from yesterday from Buffalo CSX & NS, and also Trillium which is local to the area.  CN then can benefit more of having access to the yard.

So in theory CP may have cars for them that have been sitting for about 20 hours (though because CN may service this twice it this wouldn't be all of the cars).

Interchanges near yards often can get serviced more often, and if they are in major cities.  But remote locations on low volume lines may tend to have to wait a little while longer.

Hope that helps

Sean

Fiddle yard staging.

My railroad is narrow gauge and all home cars. So everything will go to the transfer yard. But yards take  up a lot of room, so I have one off layout fiddle yard that represents my transfer yard, and where supposedly my engine house shops and car repair  areas are,so that I don't need to model those. So I can stack up several trains in their holders and re-stage easily and quickly.

Meanwhile I have two smaller working yards for working my trains  down the system. Each of them has a turntable, one just for local trains,water, and the end terminal yard has coal as well. There are also sidings for my nine various industries Now in my case this is a large lay out but I could see a fiddle yard as a staging  yard even for a  4X8 to give you one off the layout destination connecting your railroad to the outside world.

Found a Staging Solution After All

Hi guys. I've recently posted in Charlie's staging thread that I managed to install a 4 track through yard/staging yard after all. 

I wanted to be considerate and let you know that I valued your info. and feedback regarding Cycle 1 and 4's usage without staging. I studied and applied everyone's advice with some practice runs and realized that I was going to ultimately feel frustrated over time NOT having a staging area.

I learned a LOT that I can apply to other's Ops sessions should they not have staging so your time and effort was not wasted and should a vital turnout ever fail, I have other options (knowledge) now, to do some "workarounds".

I had to make (for me) a big compromise by placing this staging in front of the (to be sceniced) mainline/passing siding on the lower level (not a lower deck). I had strong ideas of what this area would look like and was very attached to the "plan" but having a sceniced/visible staging area (that will allow turning of trains via the other side of the aisle's turntable a viable option without fiddling everything, all the time.

My wife is rather pleased that my constant staring at the "available" real estate down the hallway just outside the train room has tapered off some  

Thanks again.

Jim

Return to Agent cards

I'm in the process of fine-tuning the car-cards on my layout now...and to avoid having a pile up of cars in one place on my layout while I zone in on the specific needs of each industry, I have created a "Return to Agent" card.

Basically, if I have a car that i need to get off of the layout, I place a card over the 4-cycle waybill that says the following:

For a home road car: "When Empty, return to agent, Canadian Northern Railway, Depot Harbour, ON."

For another car:"When Empty, return to agent Ontario Northland railway, North Bay, On."

This instruction indicates to the train crew that they should route that car to the nearest interchange or to the yard..and then I can put it into the staging area--which is 3 of those rolling plastic storage cases made by sterelite.

It's not perfect, since it only accounts for ety's  but it's a good "cheat" for getting cars back off the layout if you end up with a gaggle of cars at an industry...

Return to

Many printed cards, Micro Mark, and computer generated, have the "return to" information visible when there is no waybill with the card.

JMRI operations