How long should you operate

[coachmann]

The shed is my time-machine. DCC sound does it for me and ensures that every movement takes place in real time, and so odd moments in the shed can easily eat up two hours in no time at all.

Edited April 13, 2018 by coachmann

[Clive Mortimore]

Is that the wooden hill that goes to Bedfordshire :-)

I was born in Bedfordshire and lived there until work took me away, never have found that wooden hill to get back there.

[t-b-g]

Just come back in from a most enjoyable 3 hour session on Buckingham. Two friends round, good company, much good natter and a most enjoyable evening, which flew by once again.

[LNER4479]

If the layout is interesting enough from an operational point of view I can just keep going, and going, and going ...

 

When I was nobbut a lad, my father and I used to have legendary operating sessions on his layout that had a full 24 hour timetable, running to real time. We'd start mid-morning, keep running through lunchtime (sandwiches were delivered to the railway room), throughout the afternoon, through tea time (hot meal served to the room), i'd nip out during a lull to change into my jim-jams then do a further hour before bedtime. In that time we'd done about 10 hours continuous operating, taking the timetable through 10 hours of operation. It wasn't a model - we were running a railway.

[tomparryharry]

We built a 5-3-3 (Ultramarine Works) and people were shocked how long you can operate an inglenook for without getting board. Each sequence would last for 10-15 minuets. There are 40,320 different combinations possible with just one loco and eight wagons so it would take 10,080 hours to complete every combination presuming it took 10 minuets or 840 12 hour days.

 

I would practice with it at home for hours before exhibitions, drove the wife up the wall. I have been very sneaky as I have built on into our latest exhibition layout (Lowick). Most people can't see it. It allows me to just have the centre boards up at home but more importantly it allows the other operator to have a break as you can spend a good 30 minutes shunting. I think I have shunted the sidings for about 3 hours without a break. Ironically the more you shunt the easier it seams to get. 

 

I have a feeling that practice will be starting again shortly as we are at the Bristol show in 3 weeks and the NEC in November.

 

Marc

Streetley is a standard 5-3-3 inglenook. You can get about 40,300 permutations with this, and you can run a solution in about 3-4 minutes. I take a different rake of wagons, and a different locomotive every year. I keep meaning to get a 24 wagon puzzle together, which is (I need to check) some 20+ million solutions. I'm still trying to get a TOPS style readout, but I haven't managed that just yet.

 

Operating can in reality take any amount of time really: It's your enjoyment, so enjoy!

 

Cheers,

 

Ian.

[tomparryharry]

Just come back in from a most enjoyable 3 hour session on Buckingham. Two friends round, good company, much good natter and a most enjoyable evening, which flew by once again.

In essence, that's what it's all about. Nice.

[DCB]

Streetley is a standard 5-3-3 inglenook. You can get about 40,300 permutations with this, and you can run a solution in about 3-4 minutes. I take a different rake of wagons, and a different locomotive every year. I keep meaning to get a 24 wagon puzzle together, which is (I need to check) some 20+ million solutions. I'm still trying to get a TOPS style readout, but I haven't managed that just yet.

 

Operating can in reality take any amount of time really: It's your enjoyment, so enjoy!

 

Cheers,

 

Ian.

I think if I had a 5-3-3 inglenook I would automate it and go and read a book, I seldom get more than an hour to operate and a big chunk is usually spent setting up the hidden sidings for arrivals and rearranging trains for departure, a consequence of often operating singe handed a layout intended for three operators.  My loft layout was/is intended for interrupted operation with each train returning to a storage road after each circuit of the layout and then able to depart either clockwise or anticlockwise so by and large the timetable can be left off and picked up again at any point, maybe left at 9 a.m and restarted at 3.30 pm model time.  I just want to watch trains and relax or do some sensible shunting, pull the empties out, push the fulls in or vice versa.  If I want to do a puzzle I prefer Box World.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

The older I get, the more easily distracted I become and move onto something else.

 

Now about the price of fish...............

[BR60103]

On Lostock Junction, we average about 10-12 operators. 5 of us operate Windermere; the others do the rest of Britain.

We have taken the timetable down to about 5 actual minutes between train movements at Windermere. A session, representing a full day, takes 90 minutes, 60 minutes lunch, then another 90 minutes. 

That seems to work for our collection of retirees.

[The Johnster]

I find about 5 minutes of dead time between moves which otherwise take place in real time is about right.  The WTT I have devised assumes 15 minutes to clear the single track section to the junction, so there is a minimum of half an hour between departures and the next arrival, but there is a cold store and timber yard at the junction, shunting of which by the pickup occupies the section, as do some moves at Cwmdimbath itself.  The colliery, accessed by ground frame released by electric token, is about a quarter of a mile into the section on a steep gradient so that coal trains and empties must come up to the terminus to run around as specified in the Cardiff Valleys Sectional Appendix.

 

So, while a 30 minute dead time period is compressed into 5 for operating purposes, shunting moves must clear the section and stand aside to allow access to the platform road within 15 real minutes of operation at speeds as prototypical as I can manage allowing for coupling and the shunter walking about the place, as I cannot shunt into the section while an approaching train is occupying it.

 

All part of the fun, and my approach is that I am not operating a model, but running a real railway in 1950s South Wales, real but small...

 

Small, not far away...

Edited April 14, 2018 by The Johnster

[Phil Bullock]

Anyone ever run a 24 hour timetable in real time?

 

P

 

[tomparryharry]

I think if I had a 5-3-3 inglenook I would automate it and go and read a book, I seldom get more than an hour to operate and a big chunk is usually spent setting up the hidden sidings for arrivals and rearranging trains for departure, a consequence of often operating singe handed a layout intended for three operators.  My loft layout was/is intended for interrupted operation with each train returning to a storage road after each circuit of the layout and then able to depart either clockwise or anticlockwise so by and large the timetable can be left off and picked up again at any point, maybe left at 9 a.m and restarted at 3.30 pm model time.  I just want to watch trains and relax or do some sensible shunting, pull the empties out, push the fulls in or vice versa.  If I want to do a puzzle I prefer Box World.

 

I'm slightly off-topic here, but here goes.

 

I run the inglenook about twice-3 times a year. I'll try out new locomotives & wagon rake, just to make sure it works, and to shake it down, and any care & maintenance. Also, I need to ensure I keep on top of the game! At home, it's an hour or 3, remembering that an interactive show will be 8 hours or so. The logical conclusion is to enlarge the operation. As you will know, adding a wagon or 4 will increase the solutions exponentially.

 

However, it's sometimes the company one keeps.... Tempus Fugit.

 

Cheers,

 

Ian.

[Dunsignalling]

Anyone ever run a 24 hour timetable in real time?

 

P

 

 

Only in four hour chunks.

 

Without "editing out" the quiet spells, there's too much thumb twiddling time to make it interesting unless you have modelled somewhere like Clapham Junction.

 

John

Edited April 14, 2018 by Dunsignalling

[60091]

Anyone ever run a 24 hour timetable in real time?

 

P

 

 

Many years ago I had a small 00 layout which was operated by following a card sequence - 45-50 cards covering the movements on the layout for 1 day. These moves were timed beginning (IIRC) at 6am with the arrival of a sleeper service and ended at about 11 30pm with an 03 shunting parcels vans. A normal operating session would usually be 1hr+, working through the cards from where the previous session ended. However, only once I made the decision to run the layout in real time. Out of bed 5 45am and then kept a close eye on my watch for the next 17 hours visiting the railway room when the next timed move/s were due. Good fun but never repeated! 

 

Alan

Edited April 14, 2018 by 60091

[Barry O]

How long is a piece of string?

If you are enjoying operating and no repairs are required the odd loo break, mugatea and food can mean an 8 hour session without any problem

 

Baz

[F-UnitMad]

Anyone ever run a 24 hour timetable in real time?

 

P

 

Yes.

 

My Short Line operates a once-a-day, as-required service. Very prototypical, I'll have you know, & the rails are quiet for realisticly long lengths of time.

[Chris M]

On a warm sunny day an operating session can last pretty much from breakfast to dinner. Admittedly operation is nothing more than a selection of trains to run round and round while I do a bit of gardening and then sit in the sun while taking on cool fluid. In the afternoon I often hear the trains but don’t see them as I am inspecting the inside of my eyelids.

[davetheroad]

I am time constrained by the capacity of the batteries in my radio controlled locos so I design the radio/battery installation to allow for a loco pulling a train for up to 20 minutes with a 2 hour 40 minutes 'idle' time. so it is a 3 hour session. With 12-15 locos operating and me driving them I find 3 hours is not enough but experience shows that 1 to 2 hours is the practical limit anyway what with other stuff getting in the way such as fiddling in the fiddle yard and the desire for tea and pee. Space constraints mean one end of the fiddle yard has the lift out access - aargh. 

 

one to two hours it is

[newbryford]

On a warm sunny day an operating session can last pretty much from breakfast to dinner.

 

So that's about 4 hours, then another few hours from dinner to tea and a couple more before supper and bedtime.

 

  

 

Cheers,

Mick

[Andrew P]

My main Layout is Kings Moreton, and is a Roundy. If I have friends around, (and YES, before you ask I have TWO),   we can spend all evening and run many Trains around many times.

 

If I'm running my O Gauge Shunting Layout, Pen Y Bont, on my own, and working to a card system I can lose a couple of hours or more and not realise it.

 

In answer to the OP = it all depends on the type and size of your Layout, a BLT will be totally different to a roundy roundy like Little Bytham, and so it should, they would be built for totally different reasons.

[tomparryharry]

duplicated post deleted.

Edited October 15, 2018 by tomparryharry

[Torper]

Until I get bored.  With my small layout, that's about 15 minutes.  But that's probably beause I'm more interested in making than operating.

 

DT

[JJGraphics]

I have built a BLT with a traverser fiddle yard, DCC with sound and a variety of locos and stock from different periods from late fifties until just after the end of steam. The layout is indoors in my study so temperature and humidity does not influence my operating at any time of the year.

 

I tend to operate mostly in the morning on three or four days a week whilst SWMBO is off doing other things, but also sometimes in the evening when its dark and can operate with the layout lit and the room lights down. I set up a "period" by putting steam or green diesels (or both) and some appropriate stock onto the layout and operate for an hour or a little less, bringing on trains, running round and shunting the goods yard, and so on until I have had enough. When my Grandson is around, the operating sessions tend to be around fifteen to twenty minutes but go on sporadically all day . . .

 

Sometimes I will power the layout up and leave the sound on one or two locos going as "background" whilst I am doing something else.

 

John

[Brian Hawkins]

Simple one for me, every morning for a couple of hours until the pub opens.

[brianusa]

I can safely say I have never operated a train for any length of time. I have gone into the train room, switched on the layout and watch what was on the main make a couple more rounds.  For a change perhaps run a goods train as well.  Then perhaps run a train on the Up line and another the opposite way around on  the Down line, this may only last minutes or into hours.  Shunting takes place when I feel so inclined.  May not seem much, but these short sessions can give a lot of instant pleasure.

 

Brian.