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Written by Alan
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Sunday, 04 January 2009 02:17 |
For those of you who are new to model railroading or have heard the term operation and wondered what it's all about then here is a quickish synopsis.
How do we start?
Most of us started out with a simple oval of track where we ran a train around and around and around and around. As you can see this gets rather boring. After a while we might purchase a switch (point) and we can then drop off and pick up cars. This is OK for a while too but eventually becomes a bit pointless if not boring. So we add more and more switches (points) and drop off more and more cars and we also might introduce an industry or two around our layout.
Cool, are we operating now?
Well, not quite although we are on our way.
Operations as the name implies is a way to try to replicate the movement of traffic over our railroads like the prototype does. Real railroads don't go around dropping off and picking up cars for no particular reason. They do it for a purpose and that purpose is to make money by providing a service to its shippers.
So how does it work?
If you want to move some goods from one place to another you need to transport it. This is where the railroad comes in, not surprisingly. You ring the railroad and tell them you want to ship X pallets or carloads, if you're a big industry, to somewhere. You are known as a Consignor or Shipper. The person you are shipping to is called the Consignee or Receiver.
The railroad then sends you an empty car suitable for what you want to ship. You fill it up and advise the railroad. They come and collect it and send it off to the receiver. Once it has been emptied it is picked up again by the railroad and the process starts all over again.
This is what operation aims to replicate on the model.
So how do we do it on the model then?
Well, there are a number of different methods, personally I use a computer program. However, I think the most popular is the Car Card and Waybill System.
Which works in the following way:-
- Each piece of rolling stock has a card with the details of it on it. For example Car type, Car Number, Railroad as a minimum. These cards have a pocket on them.
- When an industry on the layout wants to ship something you fill out a waybill. The waybill is placed in the pocket of the car card.
- When you come along with your train you pick up the car and carcard with the waybill and deliver it to the industry.
- Also on the waybill is where the shipment is going to.
- So the next train that comes along will pick up the car and take it to the Receiver.
- Once at the receiver the Waybill is removed and the car returned to it's storage location
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There are lots of variations on how this works but that is a basic example.
You can add in train schedules, random events like bad order cars, slow orders. All sorts of things to make running trains more interesting.
This all sounds rather complicated do I have to run trains this way?
No, of course not. If you enjoy watching trains run past then go ahead and do it. That is the beauty of this hobby you can do what you like.
This sounds very interesting where can I get more information?
There are a number of books on the subject and places on the net as well.
For starters take a look at Designing Model Railroad Operations by Richard Schumacher for a great article on Operations. He also has links on that page to more articles. |
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Last Updated on Saturday, 10 January 2009 17:46 |
Operations
