Tag Archives: diesel

Diesel Rail Cars, HO Scale, Layout Design, Layouts, Modelling, Operations, Paper/e-Paper, Passenger, Scales, Switching, Switching

Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout (Part 7 – Op till you Drop)

1 Comment

Welcome to the final instalment of the Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout series. In this post, we’ll run through the game using the layout as the game board, the train sets as the pieces and using the cards offered in the last post as the modifiers and randomisers for the game. Let’s begin.

Setting Up

If you have not already read through the series, I suggest that you do so, You really need to have the background and knowledge of the previous posts to make the most sense of this. Still, it’s your electrons, so let’s get started on operating the layout as Rob Chant has envisioned for Aaron.

Please keep in mind that the following four steps (which are all paperwork related) can be done well before your next operating session once you have your train sets built, and the paperwork bundled together (as I posted in part 4). Now you see why I say you need to read all the previous parts to simplify this final post.

Step 1 – Set up your train sets

As we’ve already discussed a train set consists of a locomotive, a cab car and one or more trailer cars. This is the smallest (whole piece) in the game. Each train set needs to be stabled on the layout. Where it is doesn’t matter, it must be on the modelled section of the layout to matter at the start of the operating session.

Step 2 – Set up your train set paperwork

Using a train set holder (see part 4 for more information), that contains the basic set data, match your locomotive cards, cab car cards and trailer car cards to the locomotive and cars in each train set. Once this is completed you can now determine the state of the train set before the start of the running day in step 3 below.

Step 3 – Using dice for randomness

Each train set has to be cleared before leaving the yard for the mainline. This requires a dice roll (I’ve referenced this in Part 4) which I’ve decided can be a 6-sided dice. Keep in mind that if you’ve skipped the previous parts, what we’re doing is looking for switching opportunities (that is operations) within and without the yard. The dice assists in allowing chance to determine what train set is fit to run out of the yard, and what needs servicing or maintenance.

Step 4 – Consulting the card packs

With the die cast for each train set you now work through the results of the die roll to see whether the train set runs out as expected (which should be the bulk of outcomes), or maintenance on a loco, car or set is required.

Where a loco, car or set requires servicing, you consult the specified card set and follow the advice thereon. (Part 5 contains the downloads that allow you to print the cards in PDF format)

Minor delay cards mean just that. A set may not be clean and ready to run out. Or lights might not be functioning on a car in the train set. Sometimes no fault is found by our maintenance and train staff (represented by the die roll). I’ve skewed almost 43% of the cards toward this outcome because it is quite common that while a fault is reported by the train crew during use, maintenance staff either clear it on first touch or the fault has cleared by the time they get to it.

Medium delay cards work in the same manner, as do the major delay cards. The difference with these two card packs is that they provide for switching operations of “spare” cars and locos between sets, and require in some cases that cars and locos be moved to a higher level maintenance centre (for resolution of the problems) and thus you now have switching moves to complete.

Step 5 – Generating a switchlist

I suggest using a switch list as it allows me to enjoy the switching without the headache of remembering what goes where (click this link for an example I built using Excel in a new tab). You can keep it super simple and write everything you need to do using a pad of paper and a pen or pencil. Whatever floats your boat.

Once you understand what you need to do from the switchlist, it is time to get playing (or switching if you prefer). Among the things that you may need to do to train sets on the layout could include:

  • Moving train sets to service tracks,
  • Cutting locomotives off train sets and replacing them with another loco, or
  • Cutting a car, or cars out of a train set and moving them to maintenance tracks, before cutting a replacement car or cars into the train set, and clearing it for service (to staging),
  • Moving trains sets from service tracks to storage tracks when ready for service,
  • Building trains to be moved to upstream maintenance centres, and finally
  • Moving trains (of cars, of locos, or mixed consists) off the layout to those service centres.

After your first operating session, you will also be receiving cars and locos back after they’ve been fixed by the upstream maintenance centres (staging). These will require switching to either storage roads or into train set consists. And so the operations will go from there onward.

Final Thoughts

For small layouts built around maintenance centres, the hope of long term use and enjoyment at home or for exhibition use requires an easy means to make the layout work for you. Through the use of switching activities, randomness and an adversary (as mentioned in a previous post)  you may find that you have more than enough to keep your interest using my method here.

I hope that you’ve found this series of benefit to you and your layout. Perhaps you can adapt what I’ve described to your own use and situation. Perhaps you can use it as is. If it gets you thinking about how you can use a system like this to improve your small layout operation then I’m a happy man. Let me know in the comments or on Facebook (link at the bottom of the page) how you have put it to use.

Till next post.

Resources

Where to buy stuff:

Australia:

Overseas:

  • Head your Office Depot (or similar retailer)

The series so far:

Staying in Contact

Interested in keeping in touch or discussing posts, pages and ideas?  You can do that in several ways:

Advertisement
Class 1, Layout Design, Layouts, Modelling, Operations, Operations, Paper/e-Paper, Passenger, Prototype, Small, Switching, Web

Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout (Part 6 – Service Patterns & Impacts)

3 Comments

Before we dive into playing the game, I need to make sure I’ve not proceeded on assumed knowledge. That is, assuming that what I  know – you know. Let’s follow that thought down the rabbit hole.

Understanding Service Patterns

Passenger operations (from a depot perspective) are not regularly discussed in the modelling media, which is a crying shame. And rarely does anyone write about modern-day commuter operations in-depth in a way that would help modellers understand the operation. And that’s an even bigger shame because there is a whole realm of modelling operations that modellers are missing out on.

In this post, I want to start discussing how things are where I work, from a higher level operations point of view. In this pre-game post I’ll be covering three major topics:

  1. service patterns, covering the different times and traffic patterns during
    • morning run-out,
    • morning peak,
    • inter-peak,
    • afternoon peak,
    • evening,
    • evening run-in, and
    • overnight services
  2. how operations staff (drivers, conductors, etc) report and deal with issues, and
  3. how service patterns affect the maintenance side of operations (locally and upstream).

Once we’ve covered this the situation cards and overall game-play will make a lot more sense. And most importantly we’ll all be on the same page (or card).

Understanding Service Patterns

If you can get them, commuter system timetables tell us a lot about how a system operates. Primarily they give us the number of how many services run at certain times of the day, known as headway. Headway is the time between passenger services. Non-peak services operate with greater headways than do those services running during peak times. In our case (at work) we have the following general time frames. It should be noted that from Sunday through Thursday we do not run services throughout the night. These are exclusively for Friday and Saturday nights when the party animals come out (well they do now after two years of COVID-19). Services local to you will likely be different in their operating patterns, so a little research will be needed to understand how your prototype operates.

How our timetables are set out

Our timetables are built around four distinct service day patterns:

  1. Monday to Thursday,
  2. Friday,
  3. Saturday, and
  4. Sunday

Each requires a different operating pattern and time spread. For our operators (we have a driver-only operation), day’s start one day and finish in the morning of the following day. So you’ll note that times exceed what would be considered normal 24:00 hours. 25:00 hours means 01:00 the following morning and so on.

Services for operators run in only two directions: UP or DOWN.

In your jurisdiction, they may be EAST and WEST, or NORTH and SOUTH or another combination of these. In the UK (where we took our ideas from) services are also UP and DOWN.

Let’s dive in and understand what each one means for you as a modeller.

Morning run-out (05:00 – 07:00)

With no services running overnight the early morning period is about getting services out from the depot to do two things:

  1. getting the first service from the depot to the end of each line served such that they are ready to run the first full (end-to-end) service, and
  2. establishing the pre-peak morning headways.

Starting headways are 20-minutes, and are down to 10-minutes by 07:00.

Morning peak (07:00 – 10:00)

From the end of the pre-peak period services begin to surge out of the depot. Headways come down from 10 minutes to as little as 5 minutes. After about 10:00 AM those 5-minute headways begin to extend. With sets coming in off the road and back to the depot our headways double during the morning from 5, to 7, to 8, and finally to 10-minute headways. By the end of the morning peak, only half of those peak services are running. The rest are parked up and snoozing back in the depot.

Inter-peak (10:00 – 16:30)

The inter-peak period keeps the same 10-minute headways that were established during the end of the morning peak. This is usually the most settled period of the day with a little upward blip as people go about their shopping and move around the city for work.

Afternoon peak (16:30 – 19:00)

The afternoon peak is the same as the morning peak, with the exception that people are generally going home instead of coming to work. Train sets that were sitting at the depots begin to surge out once again. Usually cutting in between other services, and so cutting headways from their 10-minute or longer inter-peak times to as little as 5 minutes again. Just as it was in the morning, services begin to lengthen headways toward the end of the evening peak. With the services running in toward depots from their furthest station, some running in-service, others running as out of service express movements. Usually, by the 19:00 hour mark, we are out to 12-minute headways.

Early to Late Evening (19:00 – 22:00)

The bulk of peak services have gone from the rails by 19:00 hours, not all, however. Services continue to run into the depot, at a slower pace than earlier, until almost doubling the headway from 12 to 20-minute headways by 22:00 hours.

Night to Final Run-In (22:00 – 25:00)

Services from the beginning of this period to its end remain at or near the 20-minute headway set earlier in the evening. In general, our last two or three services from each end are run-in services and cover a little more than half the stops (since our depot is roughly in the middle of the lines we service). By just after 25:00 hours all train sets are back in the depot and the cleaning staff are going to work, cleaning internally and also sanding our sets overnight. This ensures that they are ready to go for the morning services only four hours later.

Weekend (Saturday & Sunday) Services

In general, Saturday services run an hour longer than normal and come into the depot at around the 26:00 hour mark.

Headways begin at 20 minutes in the morning, dropping to 10-minute headways throughout the day until evening when the timetable moves out to 20-minute headways until the last service at around the 26:00 hour mark on Saturdays. Sunday services have similar headways with the last service finishing at our depot around the 25:00 hour mark.

Overnight (Friday & Saturday) Services

Friday and Saturday all-night services are only on one line for our depot. This is fairly common through most depots in our network. These are primary lines with the highest patronage and assist in getting the night-owls home after their big night out.

Running on 30-minute headways from 01:00 through 05:00 hours (from which time regular services take over) these services remain out on the network until around 07:00 hours and then return to the depot for cleaning and servicing.

Public Holidays

Public Holidays are treated as Saturday timetables. The differences are that all services end one hour earlier and that there are no all-night services.

How operators deal with on-road issues

For our operations’ staff all technical and mechanical (train set) issues are reported in one of two ways:

  1. To the depot starters (before leaving the depot) during crew preparation and testing, or
  2. To the Operations Centre or OC (after leaving the depot).

In situation one, the set is failed by the crew, a replacement set is assigned to the crew, and the testing regime begins again. Once the set is tested and found fit for service it leaves the depot. Failed sets are assigned to the maintenance staff for rectification and eventually released for service.

In situation two, faults on any set become a problem for the OC. They assist in troubleshooting and fault clearance. If the fault cannot be cleared, but the set is movable, we get to the next platform, alight all passengers, and the train set is returned out of service to the depot for further attention.

Major issues require higher levels of assistance, and it is here that the heavy trucks and technical support crews come into play. They provide the first response mechanical and technical support to get sets moveable and recovered to a safe, off the mainline, location. Often these incidents cause delays (from normally timetabled services), diversions and or short running (where services are rerouted or run a shorter shuttle service) to the platform nearest the failed set. In some instances another train set is brought up to propel or pull the failed set to a safe location for stabling, or to get it back to the depot.

How service patterns affect maintenance staff

Our primary maintenance crew are scheduled for day shifts. This is when the most mechanical and technical service happens. You’ll need to do some research as I’m sure that your prototype will do things differently.

Late evening to overnight (our maintenance staff work 12-hour shifts) see our roving crews going to outlying depots to perform maintenance work on reported failed sets to prepare them for service the next day.
Generally, the maintenance staff do the most work during day shift hours. This is because the depot is generally empty, so moving train sets, and single cars around is much easier, Something to think on when you are planning your own operations. After hours with train sets coming backing into the depot, switching/shunting space rapidly runs out. Evening work is relegated to those maintenance shed roads, already filled with cars and sets switched/shunted their from earlier in the day, or assigned to one of the said tracks when the crew car it in at the end of their run. We find little switching/shunting is done for maintenance after hours.

Takeaway

I hope that I’ve been able to give you a high-level overview of the operations with which I am familiar. It is important (I feel) that you understand how things work before we dig into the game. Context is key in my mind so understanding how things work gives you the context for getting the most from the gameplay.

I promised that this post would be published last weekend, for which I apologise. Life does get in the way and my life is not exempt from little issues that cause big delays. Roster changes and family stuff has to take precedence. So thanks for being as kind and understanding as you are.

I’ve begun working on the final post in this series (playing the game) and I aim to have that completed in the next week or so. So keep an eye out for that.

Till next time

Andrew

Resources

This series so far:

Staying in Contact

Interested in keeping in touch or discussing posts, pages and ideas?  You can do that in several ways by:

    • Commenting on this post (I read and answer each one)
    • Sending me a note using our About page (email)
    • Connecting with us on Facebook at Andrew’s Trains
Layout Design, Layouts, Modelling, Operations, Small, Switching, Web

Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout (Part 5 – Downloads)

5 Comments

In my last post – Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout (Part 4 – Setting Up) – I promised you a set of downloads for the operation of a layout similar to Aaron Riley’s Metra Layout. Here they are.

Notes on the downloads

The downloads I’ve provided allow you to begin operating a passenger running depot layout, like Aaron Riley’s, using locomotive, passenger car and situation cards. We’ve been working toward this over the previous four posts. Now it’s time to download and get printing.

1 – Word Files

The passenger car and locomotive cards are in MS Word (*.docx) format. I’ve used the document header and footer to add two texts:

  1. “<Name of Your RR>”, and
  2. “Railroad Footer Here”

Both of these can be modified or deleted by double-clicking on the text. Then over-typing with the name of your layout or railroad, and a form footer text if you so desire.

2 – Excel File (database)

The database file is a multitab Excel file  (*.xlsx).

All you need to do is remove my test data and input your own into the spreadsheet.

3 – Creating the cards

You have options here. You can:

  1. print a bunch of blank passenger car and locomotive cards, and hand-write or type in (if you own a typewriter) the details.
  2. link to the supplied MS Excel file, or one of your own, and
    • from within MS Word, add the specific spreadsheet tab as a data source,
    • add the merge fields in the spaces provided on the cards (the names on the cards are the same as the merge field name for simplicity), and
    • complete a mail merge, and
      • export to a new document, save it as a PDF and print to Index Cards, or
      • Print directly to an installed PDF printer (such as Bullzip for Windows).

How you proceed will depend on what you have available to you.

Please note that if you are using software other than the MS products mentioned I have no idea how they work, but I assume they are similar in set-up.

4 – Situation Cards

I’ve pre-printed the situation cards for you in PDF format to standard 3.5″ x 5″ index cards.

In my tests they’ve printed perfectly on my printer (a black and white Fuki Xerox laser) without issue. My printer will not duplex print the index cards, which is a pain, but something I can live with.

Some legalese I have to mention

1 – No Warranty implied

  1. These MS Word and Excel files are provided “as is”.
  2. No support is offered, nor is any warranty implied by providing them to you.

2 – Ownership

  1. Word and Excel Files
    • The content and design of the word files are released openly.
    • The spreadsheet similarly is provided openly.
    • No copyright is implied, although attribution would be nice if you modify and share the files
  2. Situation Card PDFs
    • The content of the situation cards are copyright Ian Andrew Martin © 2021
    • You are granted a personal use license to use for personal use only
    • They may not be reproduced for sale, whether whole or in part without entering into an arrangement with me, their author.

3 – File Safety

  1. All files were virus-free when uploaded.
  2. I strongly urge you to run local checks after download to make sure that they still are.
  3. Please note that I take no responsibility for loss or damage to your system from downloading the files provided. You should be running the appropriate AV software and you should check the individual files with that software before opening the files locally on your PC.

The download

I tried creating a single ZIP file, but WordPress doesn’t allow that. So instead I’ve added individual file links for you to download.

  1. Andrew’s HVL Passenger & Locomotive Card Database
  2. Index Card (3×5 inch)_Locomotive Card_Andrew Martin_Published (V 1.0)
  3. Index Card (3×5 inch)_Passenger Car Card_Andrew Martin_Published (V 1.0)
  4. Index Card (3×5 inch)_Situation Card_Andrew Martin_Published (V 1.0)

In the next post

Next time, before we dive into playing the game, I need to make sure I’ve not proceeded on assumed knowledge. That is, something I know, and think you know. So I’ll be discussing how things work where I am from a higher level operations point of view.

I’ll be covering the service patterns, (morning run-out, morning peak, inter-peak, afternoon peak, evening, evening run-in, and overnight services) and how these patterns affect operations for operations staff (drivers, conductors, etc) and on the maintenance side (mechanics, etc.). Once you understand this I think the situation cards and the overall game-play will make a lot more sense. And most importantly we’ll be working from the same understanding.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the series so far, I know I have. Till the next post.

Andrew

Resources

This series so far:

Staying in Contact

Interested in keeping in touch or discussing posts, pages and ideas?  You can do that in several ways by:

    • Commenting on this post (I read and answer each one)
    • Sending me a note using our About page (email)
    • Connecting with us on Facebook at Andrew’s Trains
Layout Design, Layouts, Modelling, Operations, Small, Switching, Web

Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout (Part 4 – Setting Up)

6 Comments

This is the fourth post in a series on designing operations for a small maintenance centre layout. It started with a post on Aaron Riley’s Metra service centre layout.  That layout crystallised a lot of my thinking on how I wanted to operate an upcoming layout design for a maintenance centre. In this post I’ll be taking what’s been covered over the last three posts to build a simple and reliable passenger-focused operations system to suit a running depot; that is, a layout that is focused on getting train sets out the gate and onto timetabled services. If you’ve not read the previous posts, I suggest you do so before tackling this one; I promise it will help. (They’re all linked in the resources section below.)

Ops for a passenger maintenance centre

For the small layout builder and operator, the operating system should allow you to focus on switching, not on paperwork unless that is your thing. Ideally, the K.I.S.S. principle should be your design goal. I am not anti-paperwork, far from it. On a layout, it can assist you to ensure that everything gets serviced and checked on a regular basis. Whatever system you use or devise should meet your needs.

For layouts such as Aaron has built from a Rob Chant design, your operating system has to focus on generating train sets to service the timetable. This means turning out train sets for service at the start of the working day or after the inter-peak period (the time between the end of the morning peak and the beginning of the afternoon/evening peak) to meet the timetable. This means that you have to take into account things such as fixing minor faults, swapping out cars and locomotives to get sets up and running, sending those same cars and locomotives upstream to the higher-level maintenance centres when required for heavier maintenance tasks, receiving them back and creating sets with them upon their return, and finally the internal and external cleaning (presentation) tasks that are required for passenger equipment.

To add uncertainty and an adversary, as discussed in the last post, we need to create situations that require activities to resolve them. There is no way to totally get away from paper to get the system up and running. You can of course go freeform – which is fine. After all, it’s your layout and you do it your way. Since I’m aiming to provide a realistic, easy to set up and use, operating system I’m designating the train set, described in a previous post as “a locomotive and a number of passenger cars” as the object that we are working with. I’ve designed the system based on Aaron’s Metra layout. This system will work for loco-hauled push-pull sets, diesel multiple units (railcars), electric multiple units and trams or trolleys. No matter the number of vehicles per consist, it will work.

The minimum paperwork you’ll need

The three (3) must-have items for our operating system are:

  1. train set holders (these group cars and locomotives),
  2. car and locomotive cards (allow switching to take place), and
  3. situation cards (providing randomness and the adversary)

You can also use switch lists to make keeping track of multi-day operating sessions easier. I find that on small layouts especially, where my operating sessions are short and spread over multiple days (I prefer to operate more often each month, for 30-45 minutes each time), so a switch list allows me to keep track of what switching I have done, and what switching I still need to do, for the session to be complete.

Setting up the operating system

Let’s start by looking at what you’ll need to generate your train sets, car and locomotive cards, and your situation cards.

Supplies you’ll need

To get the system up and going you’re going to need the following materials or something similar that works for you.

Bulldog clips
Fold-back clips
Magnetic bulldog clips
  • Bulldog or fold back clips – to create train sets you’ll need something that allows for the easy addition and removal of car, loco and situation cards. The first two can be hung on cup hooks, nails or screw heads, the last is fancier, they are magnetic which is cool but not required.
  • Index cards (or pre-printed car and locomotive cards) – the 3″ x 5″ ( 127 x 76mm) index card is ideal for a low-cost approach to starting in car cards. Available J Burrows Blank Index Cardsin packs of 100 (at least here in Australia) they can be used whole or cut in half to make your car, locomotive and situation cards. If you have the option (I don’t) I’d suggest using white for cars, blue for locomotives, and red (really pink) for situation cards.
  • A multi-sided dice of your choice; this gives us our randomness.  Any dice with 6 or more sides should do. If you have gaming dice on hand try a 12 or 20 sided one (you’ll just need to adjust the levels of randomness below depending on the number of faces of the dice).
  • Bill Boxes – these are used to hold individual car and locomotive cards. You’ll need one box or holder for each of your maintenance Bill Boxes (5 holder version)tracks. The ones shown here have 5 holders, you can get 3 holder versions or make your own simply enough to whatever size you need. Alternatively, use bull clips or fold-back clips hanging on a nail or screw head.

Setting up your ‘Train Sets’

How many train sets you have on your layout is a matter of linear space. That is, each train set requires so much linear length. The total linear storage capacity of your layout sidings, divided by the set’s linear length gives you the number of sets you can have at ‘maximum’ capacity (in whole numbers). In Aaron’s case, I’m guessing the most train sets he can stable on his layout would be between 5 and 7. With each of the bi-level sets containing  3 cars (1 cab car + 2 trailer cars) and a locomotive (click the image below).

Gallery Type Bi-Level Passenger Car for METRA, delivered by Nippon Sharyo of Japan, from 2002-2008 (Image Credit: Nippon Sharyo, LTD)

Once you know how many train sets your layout can handle at maximum capacity (think overnight storage), you need to create a ‘train set’ by using a bulldog or fold-back clip for each one. Each clip should have a sticky label, or a Printed (Dymo style) label applied denoting the set A Dymo Label Makernumber; for example Set 094, or Set 103.  The numbering of train sets depends on the railroad. I’ve looked for information about the set numbers used by Metra sets but could find no information about that on any of the railfan or official sites. Being that this is your layout, you get to decide what each set number will be.

Pick a numbering scheme, starting with a number and then randomly assigning numbers to your set, unless you know what the set numbers are. In which case I’d be interested in knowing them.

Setting up car & locomotive cards

Car and Locomotive cards represent (in paper form) the passenger cars and the locomotives available on your layout. They allow you to:

  • track the whereabouts of passenger cars and locomotives while on and off the layout (in staging), and
  • provide a means to assign cars and locomotives to train sets

The cards give basic information about each passenger car and locomotive. How much information you put on each card is up to you. I suggest that the following is the minimum information you provide for passenger cars:

  • Railroad Name (Metra in Aaron’s case)
  • Car Class (Bi-Level) Commuter Car
  • Car Type (Cab, or Trailer)
  • Car Number
  • Any additional information that you want to put on your car cards

For locomotives, the following should be the minimum information you provide:

  • Number: (example 100)
  • Railroad: (Metra in Aaron’s case)
  • Builder: (example EMD)
  • Model: (example F40PH-3)
  • DCC Address: (if applicable)
  • Notes: additional information that you want to put on your car cards

Later this week I’ll share my Index card sized Car and Locomotive Cards (in Word format) for those of you interested in printing your own. I’ll post when I have a link available for them. The need a little clean up from the rough versions I’ve been using. Those shown in the images above are available from Micromark. I’ll link to them in the resources section below.

Situation Dice or  Dice and Cards

A dice, or a dice and situation cards, provide the uncertainty and the adversary in our operations game. I see the system working in two ways: using a single dice to determine the train set readiness, or using the dice and situation cards to do the same.

Dice Only

On your roll of the six-sided dice a:

  1. means the set is good to go into service
  2. means the set requires cleaning before release
  3. means the set or locomotive requires sanding/refuelling (your choice which one and where it goes on the layout)
  4. a car or locomotive requires (local) minor maintenance (you choose which it is and where it goes on the layout)
  5. a car requires upstream (off-layout) maintenance  (you choose which one in the train set and where it goes on the layout)
  6. a locomotive requires upstream (off-layout) maintenance

Dice and Situation Cards

Using dice, and situation cards you get more uncertainty, but more direction on how to direct cars and locomotives for service. Here’s how I see that system working.

On your roll of the six-sided dice, a:

  • 1 – means no issues and the train set is ready for service.
  • 2 – means a minor delay for a car (choose from “car” minor delay cards)
  • 3 – means a minor delay for a locomotive (choose from “loco” minor delay cards)
  • 4 – means a mid-level delay for a car (choose from mid-level “car” delay cards)
  • 5 – means a mid-level delay for a locomotive (choose from mid-level “loco” delay cards)
  • 6 – means a major delay for a car or locomotive (choose from major delay cards)

I’ve listed what I think is a realistic number of car cards for each of the packs described here. You can change these as you see fit, and by experience.

The Card Packs

The “Passenger Car” minor delay pack contains the following 40 cards:

  • 5 x Set Cleaning required – 1 hour delay
  • 3 x Set Sanding required – 2 hour delay
  • 17 x No fault found – cleared for service
  • 3 x Minor Maintenance on car 1/2/3 – 1 hour(s) required
  • 3 x Minor Maintenance on car 1/2/3 – 2 hour(s) required
  • 3 x Minor Maintenance on car 1/2/3 – 4 hour(s) required
  • 3 x Minor Maintenance on car 1/2/3 – 8 hour(s) parts required
  • 3 x Minor Maintenance on car 1/2/3 – 16 hour(s) parts required

The “Locomotive” minor delay card pack contains the following 40 cards:

  • 5 x Minor Maintenance Locomotive (Fuel) – 1 Hour(s) required
  • 5 x Minor Maintenance Locomotive (Sand) – 1 Hour(s) required
  • 18 x No fault found – cleared for service
  • 5 x Minor Maintenance on Locomotive – 1 Hour(s) required
  • 3 x Minor Maintenance on Locomotive – 2 Hour(s) required
  • 2 x Minor Maintenance on Locomotive – 4 Hour(s) required
  • 1 x Minor Maintenance on Locomotive – 8 Hour(s) required
  • 1 x Minor Maintenance on Locomotive – 16 Hour(s) required

The combined “Car and Loco” mid-level delay card pack contains the following 50 cards:

  • 15 x Mid-level fault cleared – draw card from “Car Minor Maintenance cards)
  • 15 x Mid-level fault cleared – draw card from “Loco Minor Maintenance cards)
  • 5 x Mid-Level Maintenance on car 1/2/3 – 1 day(s) required
  • 3 x Mid-Level Maintenance on car 1/2/3 – Send upstream 3 day(s) required
  • 2 x Mid-Level Maintenance on car 1/2/3 – Send upstream 5 day(s) required
  • 5 x Mid-Level Maintenance on Locomotive – 1 day(s) required
  • 3 x Mid-Level Maintenance on Locomotive – Send upstream 3 day(s) required
  • 2 x Mid-Level Maintenance on Locomotive – Send upstream 5 day(s) required

The combined “Car and Loco” major delay card pack contains the following 30 cards

  • 10 x Major fault cleared – draw card from mid-level “car” maintenance cards
  • 10 x Major fault cleared – draw card from mid-level “loco” maintenance cards
  • 3 x Major Maintenance on car 1/2/3 – 14 day(s) required
  • 1 x Major Maintenance on car 1/2/3 – 21 day(s) required
  • 1 x Major Overhaul on car 1/2/3 – Send Upstream – 42 day(s) required
  • 3 x Major Maintenance on Locomotive – Send upstream – 14 day(s) required
  • 1 x Major Maintenance on Locomotive – Send upstream – 21 day(s) required
  • 1 x Major Overhaul on Locomotive – Send Upstream – 42 day(s) required

You’ll notice that there are a lot of cards that clear a fault level and direct you back to the previous lower maintenance level. This is quite common in the rail industry. What is reported as a major fault, can often be cleared by the local maintenance team (who’re pretty smart people), which then only requires a mid-level or minor repair to get a car or loco back on the road.

Winding up the post

With the basics of the system in place, and a fair bit of printing to do if you go that route, you can add improvements as you desire:

  • A second roll of the dice for example would allow you to pick the destination track for on-layout maintenance, where that is not stated (such as sanding and refuelling).
  • You could add additional cards which specify which maintenance is to be done, and which track the car or loco is to be sent to.

I’ve kept the system simple initially, to allow growth by the user as they become more familiar with it. And for me, as I develop this for my own purpose.

I think that’s enough for now. I’ve been writing two posts at once this weekend. I’ve had to strip this one down from the monster it was and build the new one up with all of the bits I didn’t keep in this one. Plus cleaning up all of my own car cards, loco cards and freight car cards which I’ll share some time, later on, this week.

What’s in the next post?

This post got away from me. It was so long I was getting lost while writing it.

As I wrote earlier, I’ll put up a late-week post for the word document resources to print car, locomotive and situation cards. Then you can download and print your cards. Next time I’ll walk you through a running session as I would do it on Aaron’s Metra layout.

Till then I’ll remain yours kindly;

Andrew

Resources

Where to buy stuff:

Australia:

Overseas:

  • Head to your Office Depot (or similar big-box retailer)
  • Find a local stationer (they might have quite the range)
  • Micromark’s Car Cards system is quite extensive and you can find out about that here

Setting Up Car Cards for Operation:

Model Railroader series – Basics of car cards and waybills for model railroad operation

The Operations SIG:

Find out more about Metra on Wikipedia

This series so far:

Staying in Contact

Interested in keeping in touch or discussing posts, pages and ideas?  You can do that in several ways:

Modelling, Site seeing, Site Updates, Sites of interest, Weathering, Web

Site seeing – January 15 – the too dirty may not be dirty enough edition

Leave a comment

In the past I’ve seen a lot of weathering done that I said was too heavy, unrealistic. Something that you’d never see in the wild. Today I reviewed one of Adrian Nicholls photos on his photostream on flickr.

Dirty Diesel Season. 66 301 at Kingmoor TMD.Image courtesy Adrian Nicholls – via flickr

I take it all back. Adrian says on the site: “66 301 catches the late afternoon sunshine at Carlisle Kingmoor TMD after its 21 hour diagram on train 3J11 the North West RHTT circuit, (17.15 to 14.05). The loco has just been fuelled and is waiting while the water jetter generator and rear loco (66 427) are dealt with. It will then do the whole circuit again hence the accumulation of filth on the locomotive as there is little depot down time on this circuit for cleaning. Never a very pleasant time of the year to deal with locos in such a condition as what every you touch is covered in filth off the track and a drivers railway uniform can soon resemble a fitters overalls if you are not careful.”

I guess you really have to model from the prototype. I would never have thought of making a locomotive this filthy. But there you have it.

Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web, YouTube

Site seeing – March 26th (the “Have a great Easter” edition)

Leave a comment

While tooling around the Shortline Modellers’ site I mentioned in my post of March 24th I found a video that I wanted to share with you. Onto to todays site.

Site 1: Painting diesel locomotive trucks

I find it amazing that when you need something the most it so often appears out of the mist, landing at your feet, as if sent by the gods direct from Olympus itself. Watch on as Shortline Modellers’ Shawn Branstetter goes through what he did to paint, weather and masterfully finish the diesel locomotive truck in this video.

I hope that he keeps on posting videos like this. If some of the articles I’ve only scanned so far are near as good, this site will become a modeller’s resource for many of us.

Like this post and comment if you find it useful or would like further information; if you’ve not already subscribed to keep up to date you can do so now using the link at the top of the post.

1:48 (US O Scale 1/4"), Modelling, O Scale, Proto 48, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web

Site seeing – February 26 – diesel parts arrived edition

Leave a comment

For those of you who’ve been following the blog for a while you may know that I am rebuilding two Weaver GP38-2s. In the process of rebuilding I had come to the conclusion, due to the difficulty of getting parts help from several of the USA suppliers, that I would have to build a lot of O scale parts. Then Lo and Behold – American Scale Model Professional Services comes on the scene on eBay; more in a second.

Site 1: American Scale Model Professional Services (eBay Store – page 2)

So here’s what I bought:

GladHands

When I saw these little babies on Flea Bay I thought all my Christmas’ has come at once. Because these parts were going to be a Royal Pain in Diaz to manufacture. I can do it, but with dragging feet, toes in the dust and all, I just “din wanna”.

Not only are they better than I thought they’d be in the flesh, they appear to be far better than I’d hoped.

In addition the shipping costs were pretty good and the service was outstanding. Ordered the 8th of February they arrived the 24th February. I got gouged by the fallen Australian dollar – but that was not the owner Bill’s fault. I blame the bloody Chinese economy for that! I’m going to keep Bill’s details in my diary and contact him again when I need more parts. Hear that Bill? Done in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator voice – I’ll be back.

And yes, those are decals in there. I’ll be putting on the magnifier and taking a look at these later on. Later gator.

1:43.5 (7mm Scale), Modelling, O Scale

O Scale switcher – the longest project in modelling history

Leave a comment

In the beginning…

A long time ago, in a modelling landscape far, far away… there was a UK Model Trains magazine (I cannot remember the issue) that described the conversion of the Atlas O scale Plymouth switcher; the aim being to turn it into an industrial UK shunter.

If my memory serves me well it would have been about 1982 or there about. In short order I found myself owning four of these locomotives, and set about modelling the shunter as I’d seen it a couple of years previously. Having said all of this the title of this article now becomes important because I am about to finish the project that I started sometime back in the early to mid 1980s, in the mid 2010s. Yep – that’s 30 years.

That ‘Model Trains’ magazine article suggested either:

  1. Keeping the cab height the same as it was on the original model and raising the buffer beam height to allow for buffers etc. or
  2. Raising the entire cab by about a scale foot and raising the height of the footplate at the same time to allow for buffers to be mounted on the end of the frame.

I chose the second option as I wanted a snappy looking locomotive and not something half thought out that I’d never be happy with. So with magazine, (I have the copy somewhere and I’ll update the article details when I have them) plasticard, liquid glue, files and a sense of adventure I started working on the model.

I left the length of the loco as it was, and raised the body height with a conveniently wide piece of plasticard stock to get the height visually right. In reality that was the easy part as you’re just adding that to the bottom of the body.

20150205_172152 20150205_172140 20150205_172108 20150205_171852

All images are Copyright Andrew Martin 2015 unless otherwise noted

In the four photos of the unmodified model note the squat nature of the body. The last photo shows the difference in height between the modified and original loco that the two 40 thou shims of plasticard give. It should be noted that the loco models that I have come with a textured surface on the footplate simulating a safety tread pattern. This was sanded down and removed prior to installing the higher floor.

Next I cleaned up the four pane windows and made them single pane. Finally I sanded down and covered over the buffing faces on the loco ends in preparation for the 3 link couplings and buffers. The only problem was that having put all of that work into the loco – it did not look right to me. It looked like a higher roofed American loco and not something that would have been made in or for an English railway, especially a Quarry railway which I’d always wanted to model (and still do). So it was back to the drawing board.

The second coming…

Unfortunately I only have photos from the second rebuild that I started in 1996 or there about and none from that first effort as it was back in the early 1980s and I don’t remember owning a camera at the time (being a poor electronics apprentice).

Before I begin any modelling project (I over think them to be honest) I do a lot of work on how the final model will look; This locomotive was no different. First was a working sketch that I scanned recently and cleaned up below. (Yes I store all my sketches of train models.)

Modified_Drawing_O_Scale_Switcher
Figure 1: Concept Drawing – Copyright Andrew Martin 2015

There are some differences between the concept sketch and the final model that I’ll be completing in the next week or two – overall I’ve come pretty close to what I wanted. I’ve not bothered with the end rails and chain nor the MU stand. As the quarry locomotives were generally run individually and not in MU service in the UK from what I can gather. Additionally I took about 10 mm off the rear end of the unit since I did not want the air tank or a balcony on that end with the new look.

The changes

20150205_171754
Photo 1: The extent of the surgery

If it’s blue, it’s not new. The bubbly mess of plastic in the cab end of the hood is what happens when you try and speed up curing of putty with an incandescent bulb. The stove pipe chimney was the result of that and not planned. However, I did add 5mm in the front of the hood to extend the hood forward and rebuilt the front top are of the hood too as the bulky light on the original just irked me too much to live with. The entire cab roof, and rear wall was sawn out, and a plasticard cab end and roof was put in its place. This sounds fairly straightforward, until you see the amount of work that actually went into designing and building the new cab end.

O_Scale_Switcher_In_Build2
Photo 2: Cab end plate, and ribbing waiting for the skin to go on

 

Photo 2 above shows the planning and work that went into the design of the new cab. When the skin (10 thou plasticard) went on it was measured and cut in one piece to ensure that there would be no visible seams on the face of the loco. This went off without a hitch and I learned a lot out of that exercise that has helped me in my model building since. Photo 3 below shows what the cab looks like after the skin has been cut and glued in place.

20150205_171716
Photo 3: The new cab end completed

 

Also in Photo 3 above you’ll note the

  • Oleo buffers (from House of O Gauge in the UK – now gone I believe). These are working buffers and work as well as they look.
  • The electrical conduit to the light is fine solder Super-Glued in place. The light is a square styrene section with a circular section cut into the square frame and then drilled out to accept an LED. This will go back into the cab and into the DCC board. I had thought about having a duel sealed beam set, but I liked the look of this better.
  • To remove the need for a rear facing horn, I cut a small slot into the top left of the cab for the horn. I’ve yet to place a horn placed on the front of the loco.
  • The three link couplings are also working with draw gear behind them on the front and the back. Finally the electrical junction box is a 1:48th MU cover glued on to the face.
  • Finally the window frames are all 20 thou and allow a 0.5mm overhang into the window space. I am hoping to get some microscope slide covers cut and put in place in all of the windows. Should that prove too bothersome I will cut out some Monitor protector plastic that I’ve saved from work and use that in its place. It will be secured in either case by Revel clear cement.
Photo 4: The front of the loco
Photo 4: The front of the loco_

It’s getting late, so I’ll just add a couple more photos. If you have questions let me know in the comments and I’ll answer them for you.

20150205_171618
Photo 5: A 3/4 view of the front of the loco

 

I’m not sure if I am going to leave the running gear showing like this or turn it into a tram loco. But the tram idea has me in its grip at the moment.

20150205_171154
Photo 6: Rear left 3/4 view showing the fuel filler and tank gauge

 

The fuel filler and gauge are from a 1:48 scale add on kit I’m using on my GP38-2 rebuilds.

Well – that’s it for now. Talk to you all later.

 

 

Site seeing, Sites of interest, Web

Site seeing – March 3

Leave a comment

I’ve said it before that I love the Internet – when I need information on a specific locomotive or car I can find it at a moments notice.

Site 1: The Diesel Detailer

One of the best US focused locomotive sites on the web. This site is especially useful for modellers (link here). There are boards for all levels of diesel modellers and those interested in improving their modelling.

There are boards for specific diesel manufacturers, Alco, EMD, etc. with more boards by generation also. So if you need a second generation (Dash-2) model there’s a board for that too.

When you get a chance take a look and let me know what you think.