Model Train Journal

Yeah, we're all different and bring something different to the conversation.

I think your front driver is derailed on that second illustration!! plus I don't see the outside third rail!!!

This bears an uncanny resemblance to the operating sessions at my old club. About half the members were retired railroad employees or had worked in the industry and one point or another. The rest of us, upon first joining, received a quick tutorials on lexicon, verbiage and appropriately colorful profane embellishment.

Back in the late 90's I was allowed to visit a fantastic O scale layout in the KCMO area, built in a dedicated 40 x 60 foot building. The owner was a very long time C&O modeler and had been working on his layout for decades and was at the point of just finishing up the scenery. It had working signals (that has to be obeyed) and went from floor to ceiling with typical C&O locations........so you would only see other operators while following your train through the labyrinth.

IIRC, there were generally 6-7 regular operators every Friday night and anyone who came along as a guest (like me) had to operate as well. House rule was (no visitors.....only operators) which meant you operated by prototype railroad rules, schedules and terminology.

My 1st session I had to operated a H-8 Alleghany as a pusher behind a 40-50 car train up and down grades. It was equipped with a open dummy couple on the pilot, so it never coupled just pushed, but if I didn't run fast enough, you would drift back and be called out. My biggest fear was pushing too hard and derailing some cars or the entire train, which could have tumbled down 6-7 feet to the floor. These were mostly brass models and even brass rolling stock and passenger trains and I didn't want to be remembered as the guy who destroyed the owners trains.

I had never done prototype operation before and although it was fun, it was also incredibly stressful for a novice, so I drifted off after a few sessions. I would literally go home with stress headaches, which was not what I needed on a Friday night.

Butch, the story of your experiences is precisely why "operations" groups have the reputation they do. You might not believe it at first, but folks who used to work for the railroad are often the ones to walk away first, simply because we don't want to leave feeling wrung out like we did a day's work as a hobby.

Our ops group here purposely tries to find the balance that makes an enjoyable afternoon's operations. We work to switchlists and trainorders but the idea is to emulate rather than replicate. The "schedule" is a linear progression of tasks rather than a schedule with clocks, the operators set their own pace.

There is no attempt to make things complicated, no puzzles to solve, artificial pressure. To be honest, emulating railroad ops arguably includes the idea that the industry goes to great lengths to make things work smoothly and efficiently, not solve purpose-designed "timesavers" and switching puzzles.

No jargon, no adherence to artificial replications like waiting some number of minutes to "pump the brakes", no car cards, fake bad-order events, none of that. Run the scenario, switch the cars as needed to the wheel report and switchlist, throttle in one hand, donut in the other, talk about what you've been building, get as far as we get and go out for supper.

I think we have the right balance, as no-one has quit either from boredom on the one hand or from not having had a relaxing enjoyable day on the other, not in the five years we've been doing this. There are a fair number of guys who worked for the railroad mingled with model builders, gamers, HO, N, live-steamers, quite the mix and none of what we're poking fun at with that cartoon, probably because most of us have been there and don't need to go there again.

I'd like to think we are pushing the envelope of proto-ops simply by backing off the artificial pressure a bit.

I have no complaint about the ops session and it was obviously enjoyed by the others, but as a rookie, I was not ready for the intensity of it......it truly felt like an extension of the stressful job I had and not like the hobby I wanted. I felt I was under the sword of Damocles the entire session. Given the opportunity I would try again.