Operating on your layout

[ginzokid]

I recently joined a new group of guys who actually have layouts. We are trying to start to have round-robin visits to every layout for the purpose of actually operating them. We are all new to this concept and some of us had not planned for actual railroad type operation, like me, so there is a challenge here to figure out some sort of schedule to run. This afternoon will be our first session at one of the guy's layouts. This one was planned for operation from the beginning. Sure will be better than the other group that just sits around and watches videos and has no layouts to visit. How can thay even call themselves a model RR group. Kim is about to kill me. I told her I would have to tear out the present layout and design a new one for operation. After the lumps on my head went down a little I could think more clearly. So, for now, I'll have the guys over and we can all brainstorm on what I can do to make this more for operations. I have little room left actually but may be able to fit in a small industrial switching area. I still think the new layout would be easier.....OUCH! Yes, Dear. No, Dear. (She was watching!) So have any of you actually thought about operating your layout on a schedule, car card system, fast clock or other type of system? This could be either frightening or fun. We shall see...... B-)

[taz-of-boyds]

This is sort-of related to operating your layout...

While I was watching the video of the layout Pete (and George?) have built and puzzling over how nice the train looked at the speed it was running, I considered setting the speed of the locomotives.

I know for the steam locomotive I operated (and for diesels too I suppose??), the speed and acceleration is controlled by how much power is applied. I guess DCC throttles are set at the speed you want, but it might be interesting to contrive some method of "controlling the power" until a speed is reached.  I will have to keep the idea in my head for now while it stews.

All the best,

Charles

[ginzokid]

Charles,

DCC throttle are variable just like DC throttles. Our NCE throttles have thumb wheels on them that turn to increase or decrease the loco speed. Also in DCC the top, middle and start speeds can be set. Basically there is a choice of 28 or 128 speed steps in DCC. We use 28. Zero is no movement and 28 is top speed. We can set our decoders so that the top speed of the loco may be a scale 35 MPH at speed step 28 while another loco will be set at 25MPH for that same speed step. Most of our locos start to move at speed step one. There are no rockets here although these same locos will go much faster direct from the factory. We electronically gear them down through decoder programming. I was running the trains at about speed step 12 in the video or about half speed. That works out on this layout to be near 25 scale miles per hour. The cool thing about these throttles is that you can unplug them to follow the train around and the decoder in the loco remembers what it was set at and will not change until you plug back in and make a change.

As for your question of controlling the power until a certain speed is reached, we do that by turning the speed wheel up or down. There is also a neat feature called Momentum. Here you set the momentum percentage from 1 to 9 (the highest) and the throttle automatically applies the power to the loco in a graduated manner. It is like a capacitor building up a charge as an analogy. Without the momentum on, if you dial up to speed step 12, the loco responds immediately to go to that speed. With momentum on, you dial up step 12 and the loco starts slowly and gradually builds up to that speed.

Hope this explains DCC a little for you.

-- Edited by ginzokid at 08/06/2012 4:36 AM PDT

[barrysfp45]

Pete

What happened with the possible museum layout room, did you guys get it or another dream shot down?

]:)

[ginzokid]

The museum director shot us down saying the "board" would prefer to keep the crummy little non-operating layout that they had. (Who's snide?) Meanwhile, our VP just wrote a letter to the Mayor and Council stating our plan and the director's reluctance to change. Who knows where this may lead.

Our Town of Conception Bay South is in favor of our using the Chalet building that is now home to the Manuels River Heritage Society once they move into their new building, but there again the head of the Society is afraid we would be "competition" to his new pet project and building just across the street. Idiot doesn't see that we would be an additional draw to the area. The building is smaller than the museum space but could be used for a small layout.

Meanwhile, we keep looking.

[ginzokid]

Reply from the Deputy Mayor is favorable. We may get a shot at the museum after all by going around the idiot museum manager. The Mayor, Deputy Mayor and a Councilman are all on the musuem board. They did not even know about our interest which means the manager out and out lied when he said the board had no interest. The saga continues......

;\

-- Edited by ginzokid at 08/08/2012 3:56 AM PDT

[ginzokid]

Work continues on George's layout. We now have half of the upper level built and with track. The three percent grade is a challenge but our double headed trains do it quite well. We have to run realistically short trains just like the old Newfy railway did as a result of the grade. This will give us almost twice the number of places to switch and drop off/pick up cars when complete.

😄

[dl85vette]

Do you still run your own layout Pete? Have you tried doing a session with 1 or 2 other people?

Couple of my friends (that are into trains) haven't been by at all. One would go on about looking forward to runing tank cars,etc and well, never seen him over yet.  Other buddy has to ask the wife to, well, pretty much exist.

[ginzokid]

The guys drop by every so often to just run a few trains, but we mostly work on George's "Club" layout. I'll have to get more scenery done one of these days........my time is spent over at George's mostly though. Especially now that we are doing the second level.

😄

[ginzokid]

We had an ops session last night where I unveiled the newest addition to the layout, the FSM John Allen engine house. It is not fully in place yet as I have to connect the track to the yard leads. I also brought over my new 4-6-4 Hudson in CN colors and the new passenger set I put together. Then we ran.

One thing we tried last night for the first time was the fast clock, set at 4:1. So every hour equaled 4 hours of day. I then ran the new passenger train at a very slow speed and timed the minutes between stations. We then allowed 10 fast clock minutes wait time at each station. This was done with the guys trying to do the thru freight and locals while the passenger had right of way. It was interesting to say the least. We are trying to establish a time table for the passenger train, east and west bound.

One thing we discovered for sure is that our runs between stations are not long enough, but we can't just use a track stretcher now. To lengthen the run we will have to run the trains a lot slower. I ran one at 12 and one a 8 of a 128 speed step setup.

The session still took 2 hours.

B-)

[taz-of-boyds]

Sounds interesting.  Maybe you could stop at alternating stations on the passenger runs to kind-of stretch the distances.

All the best,

Charles

[ginzokid]

I broke down and sent a check for a new operating system. Instead of using car cards and way bills, this system uses switch lists. This means that instead of having a fist full of cards for a train all you have is one sheet of paper telling you where each car is to go. If it works on my railroad I'll introduce it to the club.

B-)