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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)

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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:

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

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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)

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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)

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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:

Layout Design, Layouts, Modelling, Operations, Small, Switching, This Site, Web

Part 4 is close: I’m hacking CC & Waybills

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I had hoped to have Part 4 of the Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout (Ops System) completed by the end of October.  Unfortunately, I’ve had to go back a few steps to make things a little simpler. And that takes time.

Hacking Car Cards & Waybills

I’ve been gaming, using a mockup of the operating system. To figure out all of the wrinkles, and the unexpected outcomes, so that you don’t have to. No gaming system is perfect, but I’d like to try and make things work as simply as possible, with the widest scope of operations for a layout like Aaron’s or any maintenance type layout: locomotive, freight or passenger, tram or trolley.

And right now I’m in the process of hacking apart the waybills side of things to make it work. I plan to have the entire post finished on November 8th. Right now the 4th part is quite long. But I’ll get there in the end.

My wife suggested that I publish the whole thing as an e-book. And that may be the best format to cover off all of the topics. I’d be interested to know what you think about that idea! She’s a smart cookie, she is!

To add a little interest, I dropped the resources from part 4 into this post. Take a moment to look around. It will help you in your understanding of the final post.

Till the next post.

Andrew

Resources

Setting Up Car Cards for Operation:

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

The Operations on a Maintenance Centre Layout 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 3 – Game Theory)

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This is the third post of the continuing series on Operations for Maintenance Centre Layouts. In part 1, we looked at the types of passenger facilities I’m familiar with. In part 2, we looked at how we can use the prototype’s methods to develop an operations plan that suits a small layout.

In this post I wanted to address two questions about small layout operations: firstly is model railroad operations a game, and if so, how can we keep the game interesting for the longer term?

Railroad operations is a game?

From my first introduction to model railroad/railway operations (railops), I noticed a lot in common between it and the Role-Playing Games (RPGs) and board games with which I was familiar. Bear in mind that I’m addressing railops in a general sense (both freight and passenger operation), not just as it applies to Aaron’s excellent layout and Rob Chant’s design, as there is much in common to apply to both styles of operation.

I want to give a quick side by side comparison (they’re really one below the other) of the parts of your ‘average’ board game and a small layout.

The board game has A small layout has
counters or player pieces Cars and Locos
a board on which the counters move The layout board
rules that describe how the counters can move Rules
a means to add some randomness (usually dice, or a spinner) a means to add some randomness (car cards/waybills, the timetable, the ops plan, the list goes on)
a starting point and an end goal to close out the game a starting point and an end goal (switching cars into spots according to the ops plan), which when complete, ends the game

Once you see the commonalities, I’ve found there’s no going back.

Countering boredom with randomness

On Facebook, back in November of 2020 a post from Paul Boehlert got my attention. I didn’t want to reproduce the post in its entirety, so I’ve cut it down to the following.

“A couple of days ago, a member asked the group how we keep interest high on a small switching layout. The following is a short description of a scheme my son and I worked out. It makes each session a bit unpredictable and adds variety, which helps maintain interest.”

“My adult son is a skilled and talented games designer and has been around model railroading all his life. When I asked him what he would do to make operation more interesting and varied on a small layout, his reply was immediate: I needed to generate some randomness, and I needed an adversary.”

Paul went on to describe how he used one of his son’s 12 sided gaming dice to assist with introducing random events into the operations gameplay. His initial focus was on the weather, due to the setting (location) of his layout. Multiple roles of the dice allow him to determine the time of year, and the level of ferocity of the weather.

As he points out, the weather is not the only adversary. The interactive nature of the railroad right of way with cars, trucks, other railroads, shippers and receivers, trees, power lines and the poles they use (just to name a few) means that lots of events can and do on occasion happen that interfere with the railroad doing its stated job of moving stuff. Technology can be a problem, no matter the time period you model. Steam engines sometimes wouldn’t fire correctly lowering their tractive effort and slowing them down. Diesel locomotives have mechanical, electrical and electronics issues that need to be rectified either on the road or in the shed before being able to complete their shift. Cars become bad-ordered due to mechanical faults, accident or loading/unloading damage, or vandalism which all have effects on the operation out on the line.

Paul’s solution was to make “a list of random events, and roll the 12-sided die one more time when things get a bit too predictable. If you want lots of random possibilities, gaming dice come with up to 100 sides.”

No two days are the same in the railroad industry. Each day presents different challenges, and there is always something that is not working the way it should. It affects what you can achieve and how you can achieve it.

At work often nature is our adversary. For example every time it rains we have problems with random detector loops. These pick up transponder signals. They are sealed, but they misbehave whenever there’s a lot of rain. But never the same one each time. Or high winds bring down trees along the rail corridor, blocking lines until maintenance crews can get out and cut the trees and clear the line.

There are general technical issues that occur, point/turnout motor failures for example are unfortunately common at the moment. Each of these requires spare parts and in the COVID world of 2021, those parts are not always available. So it’s back to the 19th century we have to go, manually throwing over the switch blades (points) until the spare parts arrive. Electronics are slow for the same reason at the moment with computer chips being in short supply due to COVID-19s effect on the supply chain in China. From design to fabrication, land and sea transport, we have slowdowns that are affecting rail suppliers worldwide.

Takeaway

Treating railops as a game, and using randomness and an adversary can make for better gameplay and longer-term interest.

Final thoughts

On small layouts, especially those with a small visible footprint, even with all the permutations mentioned above, can it, like Monopoly, Cluedo, or Trouble get too predictable?

Can boredom set in too early in the life of the layout? Is that why so many small layouts are sold on, torn down, rebuilt and replaced with yet another?

I’m interested in your thoughts on this.

Resources

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 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 the Andrew’s Trains page
Freight, Inglenook, Layout Design, Modelling, Site seeing, Site Updates, Small, SuperNook, Tuning Fork, Web

First mile, last mile railroading – what is it?

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So what is it?

First-mile/last-mile railroading, what modellers refer to as customer switching, is the customer end of railroading. That is the setting out and picking up cars from a customer’s premises on the railroad. This can be directly from a customer’s spur, a ramp at the local yard or a team track, off the local mainline.

It is the point at which the customer and the railroad meet. All railroad economics relies on it and always has.  While in the modern era the customer has gotten bigger to take advantage of intermodel and block trains, the underlying forces remain the same. Customer shipping goods. Railroads picking up goods and moving them to their destination. Destination (consignee) receiving and accepting goods.

So why is this important to me?

For you, the small layout builder/operator, the first-mile/last-mile end of the operation is the:

  • simplest to model,
  • easiest to operate, and
  • most interesting to work with for the longer term

Whether you use a ‘tuning fork’, inglenook, supernook, or another layout design element you enjoy, by focusing on the customer end of the operation you make the layout simpler to build, which means getting going faster. You can operate for 10 minutes, 30 minutes or for as long or short as you have the time for. And over the life of the layout (whether that is a few months, or a decade or more), operation varies day to day, session by session, from a well-designed customer operation so that no two sessions are ever the same.

If you’ve been following the blog for a while you’ll know that I enjoy watching Railfan Danny on Youtube. Danny has just released another video, this time a Q&A session. One of those questions was about first-mile/last-mile railroading. I hope you’ll watch the entire video, for those without the time, I’ve linked to the 7:11 mark to watch the section specific to today’s post.

Resources

  • Railfan Danny’s “Railroad Questions Winter 2021”

There are more switching videos over at Danny’s YouTube channel, just follow the link below to go to all the videos with ‘switching’ in the description:

Staying in Contact

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

Information, Liked off site, Operations, Prototype, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Switching, Web

Site Seeing – More on Grain at Kensington

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I’ve written previously on the Allied Mills facility at Kensington (inner Melbourne, Victoria, Australia). Marcus Wong I’ve discovered has a great blog post on his site about the facility that goes in-depth about what it is, what it does, and where it is headed.

Visit Marcus’ site

First off here’s the link to Marcus’ site

So visit there for an in-depth review of how things get from A-B.

Resources

Visit the previous post on our site:

Staying in Contact

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

Boxcars, Layout Design, Loads, Operations, Prototype, Site seeing, Sites of interest, Small, Switching, Switching, Web, YouTube

Site Seeing – The Little Critter that could edition

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It’s not often that you get to see internal (in-plant) company railway operations today. Thankfully “Saginaw Terminal Docks” (Facebook and YouTube) posted a video from Reid Machinery in Lansing, Mi showing how they use old freight cars to store valuable machinery on their site prior to sale.

Reid Machinery’s internal railroad

Reid Machinery Inc of Lansing Michigan have specialised in moving machinery, primarily in the forging industry, throughout North America since 1992. And while that may not seem like the most worthy thing to write about on the third Tuesday in July – I urge you to hang around a moment longer. You see they also hold their large (as in big – not lots of) inventory on and in their own railroad assets.

Yes – they have their own switching layout.

Thanks to Saginaw Terminal Docks we have a front row seat, and a cab ride on one of these switching moves. I asked him about connections to the rest of the world. He tells me that the in-plant line connects to the JAIL/Adrian & Blissfield on over a mile of old track through Lansing’s south side.

And this is so modellable…

YouTube video

Some of the things to watch out for in the video are:

  • The three person crew (Engineer, conductor, and digger – and yes it’s a guy with  a shovel)
  • Slow switching speeds
  • At around the 18 minute mark – opening the boxcar door with the forklift forks (we often model the result but the actual operation is rarely filmed)

So sit back, turn up the volume and enjoy the show.

Resources

Freight, Liked off site, Operations, Prototype, Site seeing, Switching, Web, YouTube

Site Seeing – Last mile switching on the Florida Central

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Danny Harmon spends a day out following a railfan friendly switch crew of the Florida Central as they switch customers around Orlando, Florida.

First Mile / Last Mile

This is where I believe that real railroading happens. It is where the customer meets the railroad. It’s also where modellers with small spaces, budgets and time allocation get the most bang for the buck when designing and building a layout. There’s a lot of great locations and close up detail shots of the crew working and the locations for inspiration.

Sit back, put on your headphones and enjoy the sights and sounds of a couple of vintage locomotives as the train crew prepare their train, run out to, and then switch, the customers spurs. (Clickable video below)

Make sure to like and subscribe to Danny’s channel. Recently he’s been doing a lot of switching videos. I hope he does a lot more to come. Supporting him might just get him to do more too.