Model Railroad Operations
Adds To Your Enjoyment Of Your Layout

On my Utopia Northern Railroad operations came long after I started building the latest reincarnation of the freelanced layout. I was too busy building it to consider running it, other than doing some switching or sending a train out on the mainline. If I was starting over again I would spend a lot more time up front thinking about why and how the trains are to run.

UNRR Train Schedule
listing train #, towns and arrival/departure times
developed on an Excel spreadsheet

If you'd like to study the schedule in more detail, here's a pdf of the train schedule that's easier to read. It will download so you can open it if you have Adobe Reader for pdfs. If not, this is a free program you can download from the Internet.

When several members of our Nottawasaga Model Railroad Club began coming over to my basement on Wednesday evenings model railroad operations took on a life of its own. We started we the ShipIt computer-generated switchlists. Then we decided to 'go manual" with car cards from MicroMark. Dolf Roelofsen has assumed the role of Traffic Manager and is leading the way as we develop our plan. I took on the job of writing out all the car cards and building the boxes with the help of Bill Payne. Then Martin Alborough, with his knowledge of Microsoft Excel set out to commit our model railroad operations to paper.

Here's the current schedule we're implementing. We usually have three or four operators and only run the scheduled trains when we have enough people. The coal train, for example, has to cover the entire layout, with a layover of three hours on the fast clock (4:1 ratio) at South Point. The train, therefore, keeps operators on their toes because they have to clear the mainline for the train. Coal is very important on the UNRR! We also have a scheduled mixed freight and several passenger trains. The rest of the trains are unscheduled and we take them in order depending on how many operators we have.

Plot of morning schedule

Martin has converted the file to plot the trains for morning and afternoon. This helps to visualize where the meets should take place if the trains are on time. We do not have telephones, but all the layout room is in one room so we can talk to each other to set up the meets or answer questions. Meanhwile Bill Payne and I are working on trackside signals to make movement across the layout even more interesting.

Plot of afternoon/evening schedule

We're working it out as we go along and every Wednesday evening brings new refinements and changes. I don't dare move cars between sessions unless I run a work train. That's usually my job anyway: doing maintenance to keep the UNRR ready for the next session. Model railroad operations adds complexity but it provides a reason to run the trains more prototypically and adds to the fun.

Go from "model-railroad-operations" to Train Operations Methods overview.

Return from "model-railroad-operations" to my Home Page.

Return to Top