Operating to a timetable

I am a big fan of many layouts on this forum for many reasons but in my top 3 has to be Keith's Woodside layout simply because of the wonderfully descriptive narrative that is posted.  Not there, a "mixed goods" heading through the station - no!  Its the 3.40pm unfitted freight heading from A to B.  The layout, the trains, the scenery all serve to stage a procession of real trains doing real jobs.

My interest in model railways has always had an "operational" lean, hence my desire for layouts with plenty of opportunity for action.  Junction stations, shunting yards, a branch line etc etc.  I have made small FY- Terminus layouts but my boredom threshold is too low for them.

2 of the 3 main criteria to be satisfied by my Ultimate Layout were "Operational Interest" and "Variety of Traffic".

Thus, in the early days of designing the layout, I had a rough idea of the timetable, the types and number of trains I wanted and a feel of the traffic being conveyed.

With the track laid and wired, and scenery started, thoughts away from the shed have turned to producing a proper timetable - or should I say sequence?  My idea here is to set down, stage by stage, the process by which I have put my "timetable" together - not as a "this is how you should do it" excercise, more of a "This is how I did it".  Perhaps those struggling with the issues I had will find some help, maybe some will consider all this a load of tosh and consider that I should have modelled somewhere real where real timetables could be consulted.  Maybe some will realise that I am about to fall into a trap they have previously visited and help me out with some words of wisdom.

Whichever - here goes…………

May I start with a plan of my layout as a scene-setter.


The only change from this picture to reality is that I have revised the names of the branch stations.  Butterbump & Mumby now incorporates the factory whilst Blowick Lane is just before the traverser which represents Highmarsh.

It will become very clear, very quickly that Middle Junction on the right hand side is somewhat geographically challenged and this became very apparent to me when I first started to consider the timetable.  That is because the first stage of this process is to create a setting for your layout.  For many, this will be as simple as acknowledging a place or an area on a map where the layout is suppoed to be.  Links with existing/previous railway lines can be drawn and history bent to suit whatever back-story you desire.  If you are modelling a real place, history has done this bit for you!

I needed to stretch out the geography and to place the various bits of my layout on a map.  To do that, I needed to understand how the various off-scene bits fitted in - not easy when you design the layout first and the geography afterwards!!

This is the result

• The green line running north-south is meant to be the East Coast main line, passing through Beckbridge and Northborough.  Neither exist, of course - this is the ficticious piece of country in which I reside.
• The red line is the coastal loop line - much like the East Lincs loop and similar enterprises going north.  This passes through (amongst other places no doubt), Yarslow, Middle Junction, Blasford (fishing port) and Inglethorpe (beaches, holiday camps etc).  The last two named towns are, naturally on the coast.
• The yellow line from Yarslow heading East is the Highmarsh branch.  Highmarsh could also be on the coast.
• The orange line from Yarslow heading West is the end-on link with the former L&YR branch at Wythesney
• The blue line represents the "commuter" line in from Midworth and other outlying towns, to Trinity Square - the smaller Beckbridge terminus, situated in the administrative quarter of the city.
• The black line is the link from this network westwards towards the Midlands, avoiding the ECML
• Stations in green are represented on the layout by either stations or physical locations
• Black hatched stations appear on the layout as storage areas.

It will become clear that the map shows some places that now appear on the layout but didn't used to and this came about as a result of trying to sort out the geography.  Middle Junction in particular could appear at two places on the map simultaneously but this is nonsense of course.  Consequently, that part of Middle Junction which routes traffic to/from Trinity Square and its storage area has been re-named Nether Junction (as it is below the branch line at this point on the layout).  I still refer to it on the layout as Middle Junction but as far as the map is concerned, it is a different place.

Similarly, at the cartridge end of the Trinity Square storage area, the link from the Trinity Square storage area to the Down Main line plays an important role in allowing UP trains back into the storage area (via the facing crossover beyond the PW Yard) and allowing DOWN trains to reverse from the cartridge onto the DOWN main line.  Consequently, this crossover was named "Exchange Junction".  On the layout plan, this is the crossover linking the blue and yellow lines in the lower left hand corner of the storage area just above the cartridge bay end.

The Trinity Square storage sidings accommodate Midworth, Wythesney and Whentby - a newly created destination for trains that disappear off-scene to the south but which do not neccessarily want to head down the ECML.  The main storage sidings represent Beckbridge and Northborough.

Hopefully all that is clear and sets the scene for the next stage - understanding the traffic flows.

I will follow this thread with great interest Barry.

I have been struggling for ages to set up a realistic timetable for Granby. Like you I am an admirer of Keith's Woodside, particularly as we model the same area, albeit different time periods. He has been very helpful giving me guidance on likely time lapses from his WTTs. One of the problems I have with a quasi fictional layout is that I keep shifting some of the real places around. :roll:

I will be interested to see how you fit your fictional stations into an actual timetable. Its one of the many fun by-ways of the hobby.

Best Wishes

Having set the layout somewhere north of Lincoln and south of Newcastle (plenty of scope there then!), I set about defining traffic flows and putting the varous specific trains into the right part of the storage sidings.

• General freight travelling south towards London, diverted from the ECML to ease congestion, mostly slower trains (F and H class) although some E class partly fitted traffic.  Plenty of coal traffic as you would expect.  Nothing fully fitted or exotic.  Some E class freights call at Inglethorpe to give them a distribution route southwards for urgent traffic.
• General freight travelling north, opposing the above.  Mostly slower classes of freight (F and H) and empties traffic, particularly coal empties.  Again, nothing exotic
• Oil traffic from Northborough (possibly a port or at least an oil terminal for imports) heading southwards to distribution yards (Whitemoor?)
• Steel traffic as above
• A stopping freight service southwards from Northborough, reversing at Yarslow.  Beckbridge would have its own yards served by ECML trains.
• Some exchange traffic for the Highmarsh and Wythesney branches handled by Yarslow
• Parcels traffic from Northborough into Trinity Square serving the intermediate stations on the loop line. 
• Oddments to/from Whentby - some milk traffic (not a lot), pigeon specials (a lot of fanciers in t'north), horse box traffic for the small race course at Inglethorpe.  A twice-per-term train laid on for the boys school at Highmarsh, collecting patrons from Beckbridge.
• The usual flow of engineers traffic around the network - Yarslow has a small PW depot providing for the distribution of ballast wagons/sundry materials to the branches and local main line gangers
• Local passenger service for weekday office commuters between Trinity Square and Midworth.  Saturday services include an extra lunch-time train but nothing in the afternoon (remember this is the early 1960's)
• Stopping passenger trains between Beckbridge and Northborough along the loop line
• "Coastal" passenger service from Trinity Square to Northborough calling all stations
• Branch passenger service for Highmarsh and Wythnesney from Yarslow

So far, so good.  Now for the real work.  Timetable or sequence?  There is no right or wrong answer so it's down to personal choice.  My preference is for a sequence as it removes the pressure when operating on my own (as I often do) of having a clock ticking behind you.  That said, I like to add times to my trains so I get the "10.24 down freight" rather than just "train #34".  This is very much an attempt to replicate Keith's Woodside atmosphere.

Options also include speeded up clocks (to try to cut out the length of time between trains where traffic is light), sequences without times and clock-driven timetables where time can be "Lost" as a result of delays/issues etc.

Alongside this is the system by which freight traffic is determined.

My system for stopping freight trains (rotating blocks of 3-4 wagons) has been explained before and is the subject of a video on my You Tube channel [Yarslow Model Railway].  I will simply re-use this system to move traffic between Northborough, Yarslow, Wythesney and along the Highmarsh branch.

There will be parallel rotations for vans and sundries coming into Trinity Square (including loco coal) and sundry specific traffics around the layout; loco coal - Yarslow, wood - Roe Boxes at Butterbump, etc

Our American cousins are big on Waybills and this system has many merits if admin is your thing.  There have also been articles in various magazines demonstrating computer programmes and computer generated traffic.  Perfect for the right layout and the right boffin.

Most of my train consists are fixed but the PW trains, trip working, parcels and stopping freights are variable.

The Weekday express passenger trains come from the Midlands (destination yet to be confirmed) and terminate at Northborough for the benefit of businessmen.  A stop is made at Yarslow.  5 coaches including a buffet car.  On Saturday, the same train terminates at Inglethorpe but misses the Yarslow stop and is designed to serve the holiday camps.  The trains move holidaymakers away from Inglethorpe in the morning and bring the next load of punters in during the afternoon.  The 5-set is strengthened up to 8 coaches.  On the layout, this is a different train with a copy of the 5-set and 3 extra coaches.  Other SO trains are made up of 8 coaches comprising mostly 2nd class open types - meant to represent the dedicated holiday trains.  In real life, they might spend the week at Inglethorpe before returning to various work-a-day destinations like Sheffield, Manchester, Derby or Birmingham.  Any passengers coming to Inglethorpe from the north will not appear on the layout.  On Sundays, these trains run for the benefit of day-trippers.

Parcels trains use a similar rotation system as the freight - blocks of 3 or 4 coaches and vans.  I did think of detaching or attaching vehicles at Yarslow but, nice though this sounds, I decided against it as it would not have happened.  The parcels for Yarslow would be unloaded onto the platform with the train making an extended stop for this purpose.

The cartridges hold the "occasional" trains - Boys school, milk, horse boxes, engineers, pigeons, special load.  The timetable makes provision for these in the form of "paths" around the layout.  There will be a system of cards or prompts that generate which train will run and on which path.  Some have fixed paths (like the  "Boys" train) but the prompt will determine whether trains like the pigeons run UP or DOWN.  These paths allow trains to run to Trinity Square or Highmarsh - useful for engineers or ballast trains.

The next job is to start putting this all together as a sequence……..

I will describe the starting point and call it a day for now - information overload!!!

I put in the commuter trains first with services to bring in the workers in the morning rush on weekdays and Saturdays.  Another rush gets everyone home between 5.30 and 7.  On Saturdays, workers do a half-day so the home-based trains run just after lunchtime and there are no afternoon trains. 

Next I put in the branch trains for Highmarsh and dove-tailed the "Coastal" trains in so that passengers from Highmarsh can get to Trinity Square.  A quick look through Bradshaws will give you an idea of the frequency of ordinary passenger trains for your line or a line like yours.  I am only producing a representation of the traffic, not every single train, so the "rush hour" comprises only 2 or 3 trains.  As it is, the whole timetable (including all SO and weekday options and occasional trains) totals 102 train movements!

I ended up with 7 daily ordinary passenger trains.  The number is deliberate.  I have 3 ordinary passenger trains in storage for each of the UP and DOWN lines.  Having 7 trains means that on each operating session, the trains rotate their positions in the storage sidings.  My 2 coal trains are used for 3 daily trains for the same reason.  Get the picture?

Then I slowly added in the expresses and finally the freights which would have been subordinate to the passenger trains.  Remember that train classes A to K reflected their importance and priority as well as their speed.

Finally, its worth pointing out that my storage lines, each of which hold 2 trains (3 for ordinary passenger), hold trains that are either the same (both J class for example) or trains that run at the same frequency (typically once a day) - so the H class "Bolsters" train and the oil train occupy the same loop and both run on Weekdays only.

Where the storage sidings are dead-end (like "Midworth") or where trains terminate, provision is made in the timetable to run round or to fetch another engine from the loco shed for the return journey.  Don't forget to allow time to remove the original train engine back to the shed.

The late Frank Dyer (Borchester Market and others) had a philosophy that his layouts showed the everyday scene rather than a string of exotic and unusual trains/engines/services however much we might like them.  As a result, I make something of everyday events rather than something exotic.  Hence my decision on the parcels train and its treatment at Yarslow.  My UP coal train could simply plod around the layout but I allow it a stop at Yarslow for water.  That makes something different yet it represents something that would have been seen anywhere on any day.  It's the only train that does this - don't overdo things!

After a break, I will try to post a link to my timetable or, at least, post a couple of pictures of it to demonstrate what I have come up with.

Thanks for your endurance if you've made it this far!!!

  Hi Barry,
   
  Although I’m still building the branch, I will eventually get onto the mainline and intend to use a timetable of sorts to make sense of the railway movements, as I also don’t like the idea of just making it up, as it rather defeats all attempts to model a prototypical as practicable railway.
   
  So you can be pleased that your post makes perfectly good sense so far and I’m following along and beginning to have ideas for train formations.
   
  Good stuff,
   
  Bill

Thanks Bill

A couple of small points that might help with planning etc;

• My "week" comprises a Weekday, Weekday, Saturday, Sunday rotation rather than insisting on 5 weekdays or forever running a Summer Saturday schedule.  The latter might have a lot of extra trains but many freights were cancelled to make paths for them and that defeats the idea of variety.
• As I am on a loop line, the overnight freights can use the ECML and therefore I don't have to accommodate early morning or late night traffic, nor the trains that didn't run early on Monday mornings.
• Although my trains have times, this will be time that they appear on the layout and I will use Bradshaws to trace back a start time from Northborough, Sheffield or wherever.  This is where Keith has a huge advantage as he has a timetable that relates directly to his locations!!

Barry

Hi Barry,

Are you using a fast clock?

Nigel

[user=1632]BCDR[/user] wrote:

Hi Barry,

Are you using a fast clock?

Nigel

I use a fast clock    Dotric Pty Ltd - Software
as do a few others that I know here in South Australia.

Creating timetables for the hobby is a great exercise for the brain & keeps it working… especially for when one has 5 operators to keep employed gainfully for a couple or three hours…

Hi Nigel

I am using a schedule with each train running in sequence.  Some trains run whilst I do other things (shunt, prep etc).  Others stop at stations whilst another trains gets started etc.

The advantage of this for me is that I can stop and start the session at any point - useful when I will be operating on my own most of the time.

This solution may not suit everyone, hence I mentioned some of the other options.

Barry

Hi Barry,

No fast clocks then. (I was asked on one operating session to bring a fast clock. I brought my barber's clock running at x4. I didn't get asked again). Not really my thing.

The operating sessions I've been to run on accelerated time and waybills, and often have a random "joker" thrown in such as a locomotive breakdown, a hot axle or freight cars spotted in the wrong place. Although as Ron says, a fast clock and a timetable is better when you have a group running things.

Is there a limit on how many trains you can have running at the same time with your DC block arrangements?

Nigel

 

Hi Nigel

Anyone coming to Yarslow with a 4x clock wouldn't get invited again  

I can have 3 trains running at once if I operate on my own - UP and DOWN main plus one other that could be a Trinity Square arrival/departure, a branch working or a shunt either at Yarslow, the PW yard or Trinity Square yard.

If the shed is full of operators, I could have 2 main lines, Trinity Square main, branch, PW yard, Trinity Square yard and Yarslow yard all with moving locomotives.  That is 7 simultaneous moves.  The layout's electrical design can cope with this via the Master Cab Control Panel but how often it would happen is another story! 

With that many operators, I would consider some form of simple bell communication system and "block" instruments.  (I have used a VERY simple method yonks ago using bicycle bells and 2-light instruments set by DPDT throw switches.  No interlocking or anything fancy like that.  It worked because the layout was end-to-end with two storage yards and a junction in between).  BUT - in the shed, the number and frequency of bells would probably drive everyone nuts  :shock: :shock:

Barry

[user=606]Sol[/user] wrote:

… especially for when one has 5 operators to keep employed gainfully for a couple or three hours…

Oh Ron, what a problem to have!!!!!