Something to think about - can you really operate a one turnout layout?

[dave1905]

 

Do people really not operate their layouts as much as he says?

 

Interesting question. His methods are designed for a small one person layout. So if only the owner is operating the layout, how would anybody else know? 8-)

 

I have operated on two layouts that were trying to use the detail type operation. Both were set in a contemporary era. Coincidence?

 

The layouts in my area run in the 3-6 person range up to the 15-20 person range.Most try to have an operating session once every couple months. In a couple weeks I will go to an ops weekend, Run Extra St Louis, in St Louis, MO where 75 plus or minus modelers will operate on several layouts, each person runs on 4 layouts over a Friday-Saturday-Sunday. Ironically I was also invited that same Saturday to another Op Session in Kansas City on a layout that uses about 8-10 people. Last week we had the first planning session for OS Omaha that will be basically the same thing as the St Louis festivity only in Omaha. There are a half dozen or so large operating weekends every year.

[trisonic]

I'd like to have a go at operating on one of the super layouts just to say I've tried it. Mr. Koestler lives about 30 miles from me - I haven't plucked up the courage to give him a call.....

 

I think everyone has their own comfort factor for their own layouts and I don't go as extreme as Lance the other way either....

Fact is as I get older I'm more interested in diorama's and the RPM type thing (if only someone would explain exactly what it means) I take it to mean modelling an example of rolling stock to the exact details of how it is (but they are always changing).

 

Best, Pete.

[signalmaintainer]

Ironically I was also invited that same Saturday to another Op Session in Kansas City on a layout that uses about 8-10 people.

Typically there is at least one operating session in the Kansas City area each weekend; I've been there and participated often enough over the past few years to know so. And sometimes there are two -- one on Saturday after breakfast at a greasy spoon in the Bottoms and another on Sunday night.

 

Lots of really nice layouts in the KC area, with an emphasis on operation.

[Prof Klyzlr]

I was at Colton Yard the other night - a yard switcher set of SD40-2/SD40-2/SD38-2 pulled a couple of hundred cars under Pepper Avenue bridge, waited a few minutes, then pushed them all back again. In the flesh, it was interesting and thrilling. I can't imagine the same thing on model railroad being anything other than tedious. I was trying to think through what made it interesting in the flesh, and concluded that it was the noise and spectacle. Banging couplers as the slack is taken up, cars creaking, brakes squeaking, turbos howling, and of course the warm California night. None of those elements are modelable, ...

 

 

Dear Dr G-F,

 

Um, respectfully many of those stated "elements" (I can confidently say the aural ones at least) _are_ very-much modellable right now. It may require some serious analysis as to the particular "perspective" that appeals to you (inc _Scale_ perspective), and some specific sound and atmos-related layout design work which will be significantly counter-intuitive to many. However, if various museums, high-grade amusement parks, and many many "themed venues" worldwide can emulate the "full-scale-thump" of an industrial process in "scale", then it's entirely possible...

 

IIRC you were last playing with G scale SG gear in an attempt to get a more "near full-scale" feel from your models, yes? If so, you've got some significant advantages in your favour, as compared to smaller-scale modellers... keep your eyes on the work by the guys @ Pricom.com and on the LayoutSound YahooGroup...

 

Worst comes to worst, and you're really hankering for a "in-cab" aural/operations experience without actually having to get a job with BNSF, UP, or CSX, (NOTE that this perspective is _not_ the same as the "standing on an overpass over a classification yardthroat"), then there's always "V scale" (MSTS, Auran Trainz, etc). IIRC Auran even supports "Bass Shaker" exciters which gamers have been mounting their fave "gaming chairs" such that they could "feel every hit" as each car's coupler slack comes out and pulls on the loco...

 

Just saying, it's do-able...

 

Happy Modelling,

Aim to Improve,

Prof Klyzlr

[F-UnitMad]

The Prof's post above about gaming chairs reminds me of a recent Kalmbach publication (not sure which, sorry) where a modeller has a genuine F9 cab and nose section in his basement in the middle of his Empire. I don't think it acts as a Simulator yet, but with that sort of room (not to mention cash) to play with, it'd be a logical next step..!!!

 

I can understand the comment about Professional Railroaders not really liking to operate a model layout to the sort of degree Lance and others do - I cannot possibly imagine how tedious for me it would be if someone had a Radio-Control model Truck, and wanted me to imagine applying the 5th-wheel dog clip, couple the air lines, release the trailer park brake, fit the rear number plate etc etc before being allowed to, essentially, have a "PLAY"..!!!!

[Talltim]

There was a (fiction) article at least 30 years ago in one of the UK mags where the operators turned up for a session, each got in a simulator cab and drove the trains around the layout with the views outside related from miniature cameras in the locos

[HeavyDuty]

The Prof's post above about gaming chairs reminds me of a recent Kalmbach publication (not sure which, sorry) where a modeller has a genuine F9 cab and nose section in his basement in the middle of his Empire. I don't think it acts as a Simulator yet, but with that sort of room (not to mention cash) to play with, it'd be a logical next step..!!!

 

I can understand the comment about Professional Railroaders not really liking to operate a model layout to the sort of degree Lance and others do - I cannot possibly imagine how tedious for me it would be if someone had a Radio-Control model Truck, and wanted me to imagine applying the 5th-wheel dog clip, couple the air lines, release the trailer park brake, fit the rear number plate etc etc before being allowed to, essentially, have a "PLAY"..!!!!

 

The professional railroaders I operate with are actually the biggest proponents of simulated tasks! I've learned a tremendous amount from them...

[alfsboy]

I had the privilege of operating the late Cliff Youngs D&RGW layout .Very large and very operable by UK standards .it was a real eye opener .To start switching a way freight and have a mainline express due any minute was great fun and an insight .I also had the dubious privilege of painting all his brass locos for him .A great project and I was told an honour to be trusted with them especially as after he got then running to his perfect standards I wasnt allowed to strip them again so had to brush and airbrush the weather the mechs whilst in situ,body on , was daunting .They turned out alright and he was happy with them .I never told him I stuck them in the oven to bake the scalecoat nice and hard .With a different choice of school he would have been my headmaster many years earlier .

Years ago in a US mag possibly Craftsman there was an interesting prototype article on a Frisco industrial lead that was just one long track with about 10 or so completely different small industries .I wonder of anyone remembers it or can find it ?.It would make a great model .

[signalmaintainer]

What Lance has proposed is right along the lines of the Layout Design Element concept which Tony Koester has been advocating for nearly two decades.

 

And yes, since the prototype CSX operates it, it follows then that a one-turnout layout can be operated and done so prototypically.

[Pacific231G]

I had the privilege of operating the late Cliff Young's D&RGW layout .Very large and very operable by UK standards .it was a real eye opener .To start switching a way freight and have a mainline express due any minute was great fun and an insight .

Cliff Young's original D&RGW, as featured in RM in 1966, was one of the layouts I was most impressed by as a teenage especially the emphasis on operation and I've still got his articles. During my first visit to America in 1970 as a student it led to me taking a break from the Greyhound bus and travelling through the Rockies from Grand Junction to Denver (both stations that featured on Cliff Young's first D&RGW layout) on the thrice weekly Rio Grande Zephyr. By then that was the road's only passenger train as they were still opted out of Amtrak. It was a fabulous run and I spent most of it in one of the Vista Domes.

 

Do you know if his second version which was Layout of the Month in the October 1973 RM was his final layout? I assume that's the one you operated. It was in a room specially built over his garage.

[dave1905]

As with many things model railroad, various concepts (LDE's, "dominoes", etc) change over time and are interpreted differently by different people, the "popular" concept may or may not match the creator's original one.

 

I have read many modeler's comments to imply that LDE's are sort of modular segments that you can string together to form a layout. You find a terminal LDE, combine it with a freight house and engine service track LDE, then add LDE's for each industry to assemble a layout. There have been proposals to publish books of "LDE's" for people to use to design their layouts.

 

Personally I think this misses the whole point. An LDE is a Layout Design Element. The idea as I remember Koester originally proposing it was that when you picked a prototype, you looked for the key signature elements of that prototype to include on the layout. So if the iconic image of a particular location was a depot with a covered bridge in the background, the LDE would be the deopt with the covered bridge in the background. The LDE's were the items that anchored the layout to a particular location, purpose and era. Basically exactly the opposite of the cafeteria style LDE book concept.

 

Similar was David Barrow's "domino" concept. It is similarly regarded as a modular track planning idea where you can have track modules you can rearrange at will. It you read the original articles, it actually started as a benchwork design that allowed flexibility of rearranging the layout benchwork configuration quickly and rapidly, and had relatively little to do with the trackwork itself.

 

Ideas, like children, once launched into the world tend to take on a life of their own.

[alfsboy]

Cliff Young's original D&RGW, as featured in RM in 1966, was one of the layouts I was most impressed by as a teenage especially the emphasis on operation and I've still got his articles. During my first visit to America in 1970 as a student it led to me taking a break from the Greyhound bus and travelling through the Rockies from Grand Junction to Denver (both stations that featured on Cliff Young's first D&RGW layout) on the thrice weekly Rio Grande Zephyr. By then that was the road's only passenger train as they were still opted out of Amtrak. It was a fabulous run and I spent most of it in one of the Vista Domes.

 

Do you know if his second version which was Layout of the Month in the October 1973 RM was his final layout? I assume that's the one you operated. It was in a room specially built over his garage.

It was indeed that later layout I visited. I didnt know there was an earlier version .It was superb.The main ran 3 times round the large room from memory ,gainig height each time so reaching a different location at each revolution and was masterpiece of design .He was very nervous giving me his brass locos to paint ,almost as much as I was painting them ,Bernie Victor arranged it as I painted their brass locos.,for my sins.