Start to plan for Operations

Here I want describe one of the possible path to organize Operations on your layout.

This is the way I found simple for me, but I understand it can not the same for everybody. I’m not a Railroad “Pro”, more a modeler that like the Operations and this I’m sure is reflected on my approach.

That said, as a modeler… I start from the track plan!

1- Start to Plan your traffic:

Well, not exactly, as my plan was designed with the fundamental railroad rule in mind: rail traffic is generated from customers and rail service must have a revenue to have a reason to be ( as any business adventure, I well know!)

So, after reading a lot about SP Coast Division ( type of traffic, type of merchandize delivered, history of some key-industries, history of some key-town along the route, timeline for main freights types to identify what-was-when, etc….) I’ve identified some subjects I like to model in the selected era and selected locale:

-   cement traffic from manufacturer to distributor

-   perishable freight traffic with typical car management (cleaning, icing, loading, pre-cooling, unloading )

-   some wood-chain industries ( not the lumber sawmills on the mountains that are simulated from staging but furniture makers, building materials resellers , crates manufacturers …)

-    food treatment chain ( canning , frosting,  packing,  stocking, transfer to trucks for door delivery…)

-    Chemical raw materials supply for food treatments and gasoline for automobiles, oil-derived products for  industries and… to run trains motive power

-    Express mail traffic and LCL ( Less –than-Carload package shipping: what in modern time is UPS-DHL and USPS delivery )

Setting these  “Given” in a list was a good start, and I’ve used this “guideline” to find good names for all industries along my track plan  and “on the outside world ( the two staging yards )” and design all service tracks ( spurs or sidings) that will do the jobs.

The result was something like this document, that shows all main buildings along the path from San Francisco to San Jose: my modeled section of the Coast Division.

Buildings list

 2- Shipper / Consignee and Lading list:

Well, after this, and sourcing from the Customer list referred above, a second document take shape.

This will list all customers ( using Excel or any different spreadsheet software give you the “sort” facility: sort by town, by lading, etc), setting also quantity of cars they weekly need.

Shipper/ Consignee- Lading & Cars count

If you’re interested to download this document and use it as form to fill with your data, I’ve put it in the Google document service as “public” ( no on line editing ) . here the direct link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuXzk2BFH4GxdEZhd1RRQ29ZM0tTLURRdFRFbFNucEE

Select “File” menu and then “Download as..” and select the format you like ( Excel or Open Office are obviously editable formats).

A good starting source for Industries names, his location and lading type, can be the OpSIG (Operations SIG of NMRA) database, that is available at their website, http://www.opsig.org, under “Online Resources,” and then “Industry Database.”

This sheet will be the basic document to plan your traffic, unrelated to which  method you may select to implement ( Car-Cards & Waybills. Switchlist, Timetable & TrainOrders, Warrants…. or any of the “electronic” alternative , JMRI  included) 

3-      Timetable

Before speak about this we’ve to prepare another “basic” : a Timetable of the “scheduled” trains, passengers trains included if you plan to have it. To do this job, I take as a good start a real Employee Timetable of a relevant year I want model. For an example of some “vintage” SP Timetables, you can source on my page here: http://enzofortuna.altervista.org/SP_doc.htm  

Here is a sample ( in progress as you see) of my ETT prepared for my layout:

Again this is available to download at Google Docs using the same procedure as above:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuXzk2BFH4GxdGZtdzE5dS1OaVB1eDE5TlpoeGtDOXc

You see that I’ve listed regular and “named” trains, both passengers and freights. In addition to these some 3^rd Class “Extras” are generated (randomly or when the OP session need some “excitement”).

Given the number of operators my layout will have “normally” , I image to split the daily time in 4 consecutive OP sessions. Anyway we will define this when the time of a first “Round Robin” become a reality!
An important "visual" addition using Excel or similar software is the ability to generate a "Traffic diagram". This helps a lot to check train meetings and timings on the line.
Here is a good sample and explanation: http://mdodd.com/virginian/string_diag.html



4-  “on hand” documents for your crew

All these activities give you an organized basis to step forward with next action: prepare documents to have “your Railroad running” in a prototyped simulation.

The traditional choices, as said, are:

-     Car Card & Waybills
an attractive prototypal approach to Waybills can be found on Tony Thompson’s blog: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/11/waybills-15-managing-bills.html

-     Switchlists
For example of this approach see the Robert Bowlidge site : http://vasonabranch.blogspot.com/2012/04/switchlist-move-cars-by-shuffling.html

-     Track Warrant
see for explanation the Carsten S.Lundsten site:
http://www.lundsten.dk/us_signaling/twc/index.html#TheTWForm

Any of these methods have sustainer or detractors, but I want to describe in a next post an alternative I want to follow ( at least as my first option ) given my inexperience in car traffic planning: I want try to use the Operation section of JMRI , a freeware software that maybe some of you know ( and use?) to program you DCC decoders or display CTC panels.

JMRI Operation description is here : http://jmri.org/help/en/package/jmri/jmrit/operations/Operations.shtml

So, wait ‘till I find some time to drop another update here!

Locate and name correctly: partial plan review

Well friends, one of my worry was always the not correct position of the Menlo Park and Redwood Junction along the line and also the toy like shape of the industrial area at Redwood. So, taking advantage of my now steady lacks of time to advance in track laying …. ( you remember the declared strike of the road gang on my last post here ) , I fire back the layout design software and ….. here are the results:

-          Shift Redwood and Menlo to his correct position along the line !

-          A better ( at least so it seems to me ) spurs layouts for some industries that will provide some challenge to switch and a more “railroady” feeling of the entire scene in Redwood Jct.

-          Browsing some old mails from friends discussing candidates for industries at each location ( and a big “thanks” to Robert Bowdidge suggestions about the area ) I start again more Internet research for good names.

-          I ended to define all industries located in my industrial “park” and find several pictures of each.

-          Also I’ve relocated the diverging point of the Los Altos branch adding some more length to train travel.

-          As a freelance choice, and ‘cause I always want to have a Winery in some place, I select the Rossetti Bros. ( really on the Santa Cruz Hills ) and place it on the branch.

-          As aside advantage Menlo Depot is now in a better location near the layout edge, to become a key-point to identify the scene and my Coast Line portion.

-          So, now, avoiding the previous switchback, unrealistic curves, I have a smooth ladder layout for 4 Railroad customer, and a correct prototypical sequence of location! Not bad, I think.

What all this means is this next weekend have to devoted to scrap away the already in position cork ( from the “old” Menlo” to Palo Alto ) and lay down the new roadbed!

Here you see the design “before the cure” and “after the medicine”:

Before ....

... and "Now"