For the operation of our Rail Empire

[user=2006]Barry Miltenburg[/user] wrote:

Hope some people find this useful.  Its not the best system but it works for me and I guess that's what it's all about  :)

Very true Barry, whatever method uses & you are happy with it, who are we to say that you are wrong?

The  hobby is so varied in so many aspects, I doubt that there would be any model rail that is perfect for all of us modellers.

This is a really tough issue for modellers.  If you start to read into railway operation (a hobby subject in itself methinks) you realise that lots of things went/go on that are very difficult to replicate in miniature.  However, we can ensure that we get our trains looking right and that they run in the right way and for the right reasons.  Research is, of course, at the heart of this and we are blessed with many recent works that help.

In the steam era, the basic variations on passenger trains were driven by the day of the week hence my weekday-weekday-saturday-sunday sequence.  Given that my proposed storage sidings are at low level and access issues deny the ability to alter train formations, I will have weekday and Saturday expresses that are essentially the same train on different days - 6 coaches midweek, 8 on Saturday.  The same basic formation will have a couple of strengtheners added.

Whether or not I "pull a fast-one" and have 2 identical locomotives at the head of these two trains is debateable.  I think that it would be more llikely to see the same train with different locomotives if you were standing at the lineside.

I really admire the waybill method of running freight but as I am a one-man-band operator, I prefer the less authentic but visually acceptable rotating "blocks" system outlined in my video.

My advice to all who are interested in this field is to get hold of as many WTTs as you can for the sort of line you have - irrespective of the actual line - and carefully copy the flow of freight during the 24 hour day, the ratio of passenger to freight trains, the types of freight trains running and the flexibility that the railways gave themselves.  I have an SDJR WTT from 1920 that has at least 20 "when required" paths for excursion trains.

The system described at the start of this thread is designed to make operation realistic and we should all strive to achieve this.  The other side of operation - running the trains on the layout properly - is a separate gripe of mine. If I get grumpy sometime soon, I'll share it with you!!

During the design process for my Last Great Project, I pulled an operation sequence together as a check that the stations had the right capacity and that the storage sidings could hold all of the trains I wanted.  See the David Jenkinson books and magazine articles for his processes that drove layout design.

This thread has prompted me to revisit my earlier work and as a start point, I used a WTT for the S&DJR for October 1920.  Why that? - well its the sort of line I'm modelling (secondary line with busy traffic), and it just happens to be on my bookshelf.

I was amazed to find that my original "timetable" providing trains through the line with connections for my branch was nothing like the S&D timetable.  Clearly, the S&D provided services to match the traffic they knew they had, with a whole load of "when required" paths for Summer Saturday excursions.  My timetable provided all the trains I wanted to run and therefore my version was full of things that just would not have happened!!

I throw this in just to make the point that the WTT should determine the type and number of trains - if you do it the wrong way round, you risk having an unrealistic timetable and, ultimately, unrewarding running sessions.

I have now converted the WTT into a sequence for my layout.  The basic "Ordinary Passenger" trains were put in first to provide a service similar to that offered by the S&DJR.  Then came the freights, slotting them in - in the order that they appear in the storage sidings. 

Then came the Express Passenger trains - 2 midweek services in each direction of 6 coaches and then 5 each way Saturday Only each of 9 coaches.  The weekend services were always longer as the traffic intensified so I will use a couple of 6-set formations and add strengtheners and through coaches for my SO trains.

Finally I put in the specialist Weekday & Saturday (WS) freights like Milk, Coal, Horse box, Oil tanks etc.

I have produced a full list of my trains here (please excuse the Excel spreadsheet header) :-


The "Boys" train is shown on one of the photos on the current layout- see Members Personal Layouts "Yarslow".  TSq stands for Trinity Square which is a version of Cyril Freezer's Minories terminus which will be included for suburban trains and there is a "Vans" train also on track 11.  The Coastal os a train from TSq that runs around the whole layout rather than runing quickly to storage.  Finally, the Blasford Trip working is an excuse to run a shorter freight from storage to Yarslow to effect a loco rotation.  Freight trains max at 28-30 wagons.

Stopping Freights, Parcels and the Blasford Trip generate traffic that demands siding space at Yarslow, suggests 3 sidings in the yard at Trinity Square (Minories), etc etc

I hope that this goes some way to show how the operational design for the layout drives the trackplan and the ultimate look of the project.

Thanks Barry for another method of moving trains outside of just running them...