When we talk about operations, we are talking about simulating real world railroad traffic on a miniature scale. There are two primary aspects to operations that we simulate:
- How do trains move across from one point to another on the railroad?
- How do we simulate moving goods and passengers between locations on (or off) the railroad?
When I visit railroads during open houses, I love seeing trains running through the various scenes on the layout, as do most visitors. However, I find that running trains in a circle tends to get boring over time. By adding an operations model to your railroad, you can increase your enjoyment of your layout, no matter how big it is.
These articles are designed to introduce operations in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step fashion. Operations can get highly complex but you can start out simply and work up to the level that you’re comfortable with. In this article, we’ll start by talking about traffic control on a layout.
Traffic Control
In the real world, trains don’t move without permission. How the engineer and conductor get this permission varies, and all of the methods can be used on a model railroad layout during an operating session. If you’re running a single train by yourself on your layout, this section may not be for you. The minute another operator is involved, you need to have some sort of traffic control system.Line of Sight
If you’re switching on a small layout where you and another operator are the only people on the layout, you simply need to coordinate with the other operator so that you don’t run into each other. You can add some realism to this. If you’re operating in the days before radio, you couldn’t just talk to each other. Even on a 4’ layout, that’s 348 feet in the real world, which is about the length of a football field. In this case, you can use hand signals to communicate with the other operator. I have been at operating sessions where hand signals were required between the engineer and conductor while switching cars, etc.These hand signals are taken from the Consolidated Code of Operating Rules, 1967 Edition, hosted by the GN-NP Archive at www.gn-npjointarchive.org. This common set of rules were adopted by all the major railroads in the US at the time and the signals are still the same today, even though we have radios now.
Verbal Orders
In this system, a train crew asks permission from the dispatcher to take their train through a particular section of track. Without that permission, your train can’t move on the mainline. Trains within yards can do whatever they need without asking the dispatcher permission, as long as they stay within the boundaries of the yard, known as the yard limits. There may also be trains doing switching within towns/cities/districts on the layout where they are off the mainline, those trains are also not affected.Verbal orders are also known as “Mother may I” operations, since you have to ask the dispatcher (you might not want to call them Mother, though) for permission to move. These are also the simplest to implement. You only need a few things:
A dispatcher who is accessible by voice, radio, or lineside telephone. Family radios are inexpensive and your guest operators probably have them already. If you use these, I’d recommend asking people to wear earpieces to cut down on the noise in the train room.
A diagram of the track plan and a way to mark where the trains are. This can be done on paper, a whiteboard, or some sort of magnet.
An engineer or conductor calls the dispatcher and asks for permission to move their train. The conversation might go something like this:
Engineer: UP 3546 (the lead engine number normally) to Dispatch.
Dispatch: Dispatcher, go ahead.
Engineer: UP 3546 requesting permission from <location> to <another location>.
Dispatch: (Dispatcher checks the board to ensure that the train can safely proceed) UP 3546 cleared from <location> to <another location>.
Engineer: UP 3546 cleared from <location> to <another location>. (Repeats the instruction for clarification)
Dispatch: Read back correct, dispatcher clear.
In the real world, there are a lot more rules on how the orders have to be recorded, numbered, etc. but we’re trying to keep this simple.
Timetable and Train Order
In the days before signals, there was no way to contact a train that was underway except by sending orders to the stations along the way. There were no lineside signals that indicated whether a track was clear or occupied ahead of you. As a result, train crews had to rely on their timetables and train orders (abbreviated TT&TO) issued by the dispatcher through the stations along the way.A timetable listed the trains that were scheduled to operate on a section of track. Each train was listed with its station stops, the arrival and departure time, and what priority the train got in relation to other trains. Passenger trains and other high priority trains got the highest priority, and every other train had to get out of the way. Other freight trains might be considered second or third class and be handled in that priority order.
For changes while the train was moving, the dispatcher would rely orders to station agents by telegraph or telephone. The station agent would record the orders on slips of paper and in a book, and then turn on a signal light indicating to the oncoming train that it needed to stop for orders. In some TT&TO layouts, the conductor is required to sign a book at the station. In cases where an oncoming train has to wait until another train has gone by, the oncoming train looks at the book to see if the other train has already passed.
TT&TO systems almost always use an accelerated clock, known as a fast clock, to simulate railroad time and allow trains (especially passenger trains) to run on a schedule. Since it won’t really take hours to get from point A to point B on a railroad, the fast clock speeds up time so that trains can still run on a schedule that might run at 3 or 4 times normal speed.
Modern timetables still exist, but they focus more on the routes that trains take, the rules and restrictions for sections of track, and so on. This is a link (at time of writing) to a Union Pacific timetable for around the Denver, Colorado area:
http://denversrailroads.com/Denver/Timetables/UP_Denver_TT4_11-16-09.pdf
Fast clocks are often used on modern railroads when passenger trains are worked into the operating scheme. The question is whether freight trains have to get out of the way or not. Amtrak, for instance, operates in lower priority to freight on the freight railroad tracks they use. You might choose to adopt the old school priority and make passenger trains still the highest priority traffic. Having to work around a passenger train that has to stay on schedule can add a degree of difficulty to your operations, if you choose.
There are entire books written on TT&TO operation, but I'll do an introductory article on this in the future, as well. If you're involved in the NMRA Achievement program, that program requires a timetable and train chart to be turn in as part of its requirements, even if you're not planning to use it on your layout.
Signals
Signals are similar to traffic lights that you're used to when driving or riding on highways, with a few minor variations. Railroads like Union Pacific and BNSF have a single dispatch center for the entire country, where a dispatcher is responsible for a section of the railroad. The dispatcher is watching where trains are going and where they need to go and lining tracks accordingly. The engineer follows the signals along the track and they’ll know whether they can go, slow down, stop, or switch tracks. No radio communication is required for the most part unless the train needs to do something special, like occupy the main while doing switching. There are many variations on what signals look like within the US and outside the US, but the meaning of the signals is reasonably easy to find.Model railroads with signals are fascinating to operate on, but putting functioning signals on the layout requires a lot of electronic hardware. If you want to build a completely automated system, the hardware has to know when trains are sitting on particular tracks, which direction the turnouts are thrown, and you need some sort of software to control the whole thing.
In the April 2017 issue of Model Railroader, Bruce Carpenter talks about his paper signal system. The dispatcher walks around during the operating session and puts up paper pictures of signals that the operators need to follow. Here’s a link to this article where you can download the templates:
http://mrr.trains.com/how-to/track-planning-operation/2017/02/paper-signal-templates-for-your-model-railroad
I eventually want to use signals on my layout, so I'll cover those in a future article.
This is excellent. Suggest adding a section for track warrants (written version of mother-may-I). Fellow OpSig member Brian Ford
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