Model Railroading on the Cheap

Here is a summary of how I operate this railroad. There are three distinct areas of operation, namely, 1) the Mainline with industries and interchange, 2) the industrial town of Hillton, and 3) Yardley classification, engine facilities and staging. Each can be operated independently of the other two. I use a card system for freight car forwarding because it can force you to vary your runs and remind you of what needs done when returning to operation after an absence. This railroad can easily keep two operators busy, however I am usually alone.

   This single track layout can be operated as a point to point railroad (from Hillton thru Hillton Junction, and Middleburg to Yardley) if you want, by blocking access to the upper tunnel, allowing operation thru all the towns without continuous loop running. However I usually include the loop as a place to allow the train to build some miles.

   My rule for a sense of direction is that when standing inside the operation pit, you are always facing north. That rule helped me when wiring the track blocks so I use it for operation also. So trains headed for Hillton or Interchange leave Yardley westbound heading toward the left. They usually leave the classification drill track via the main/classification crossover to the Yardley passing track for a short way to either the mainline or Holden staging tracks.

   The Yardley Operator’s chores are to group cars headed to a common destination; tend to the Engine terminal chores at the roundhouse and spot Yardley and Holden local industries cars. Most trains originate at Yardley where the switcher engine builds a train from the cars in the yard for destinations of Hillton, Mainline Industries or Interchange. When 3 to 8 cars have accumulated to a common destination, it is time to run a train to that end. The yard operator will use a switcher locomotive to assemble the train from the cars in the yard onto the classification drill track, attach a caboose to the correct end then park the switcher on a shut off track. He then will assign a road engine (I like steam locomotives) after turning it on the turntable if necessary and running to the head of his train via the engine-passing track. The train can then be sent to its destination or temporarily stored on one of the four double-ended staging tracks at Holden.

  Trains to Hillton are usually limited to not more than 8 cars, and leave after the Hillton man has his shipping cars located on the outer pass track in Hillton. Then we can run the ‘Hillton Turn’ (a railroaders term) where we take Hillton’s traffic up the branch and leave it on the inner pass, turn our road engine around on the ‘Y’, take Hillton’s shipping traffic from the outer pass and our conductor’s caboose and head down the branch to Yardley. This is the Operational Jewel of this railroad. That allows the Hillton switcher to spot today’s arriving traffic as the road crew leaves town. Trains from Hillton head down the branch and mainline to the yard or Holden stage.

   I use Holden staging yard for temporary storage of trains that I am not quite ready to take to their destinations. For example, you wouldn’t want to take a train to Hillton before there was room for these cars at those Hillton industries. If we have two operators, one can be pulling cars from Hillton’s shipping industries and leave them on the outer pass at Hillton (this is called preparing for the Hillton Turn) while the other operator is building the train to Hillton from the cars at Yardley. Of course these freight car movements are controlled by the card system.

   The Peddler Freight train tends the mainline industries – spotting cars at online industries and picking up the shipping traffic to be taken to the yard for classification based upon destination. The Peddler leaves Yardley via the Yardley approach and the Holden approach heading east (clockwise toward the right when viewed from the pit) onto the Yardley mainline pass. If the train is to be staged, it must lap the yard on the inner passing track into one of Holden staging tracks.

   If working an interchange run (heading westbound) with cars destined either eastbound or westbound  I like to keep the hidden Interchange tracks full, so if you put 3 cars into an IC track you take 3 cars off the far end and take them to Yardley (and change the waybills) as if they were coming to Y&H from IC. This effectively takes some cars off the railroad helping to keep the yard more fluid. It also provides a type of rotation for all cars as may be weeks before some cars reappear on the layout. I like this the best.

   The card system cards always show which car needs to go where. These cards are stored in pockets along the layout fascia. The car card identifies the car by type, length, road name & number, and has a transparent pocket for carrying a waybill showing what town and industry the car needs to go. I use a clamp type clip to contain the cards of a train and a destination note as to where the train is headed. This serves as a reminder as to where the train and its cars are to go when returning to operation after an absence.

   An additional peddler operation would be for the peddler to leave a few cars headed to Hillton on the outer passing track at Hillton Junction and leave town. Then later the Hillton Switcher could come down the branch with his leaving traffic, exchange his cars for those of the peddler, and return up the hill. The next peddler operation from Yardley would then pick up Hillton’s shipping cars from the passing track and take them to Yardley. The electrical block controls can support this version of operation. Of course one should include Hillton’s caboose with this operation to raise the level of complexity. (Personally I dislike this because it ties up a passing track at the Junction).

  An alternate interchange operating concept, (which I dislike after trying it) is that we put cars in till that track is full, and then pull all the cars that were there previously and take them to the yard for classification. This is considered traffic to us from interchange, now with new destination cards. There may be a dozen of them and you may need a helper engine to get over the hill.  One might use a pusher on the tail if both engines run well together. Then the Yard man has to deal with the handling of two locomotives off of one train prior to classifying. That challenge can be met with the block power selection shutoff toggles and the train-length long runaround track within the yard.  Another option would be to ‘double the hill’ to the Junction pass with cuts of about 6 or7 cars. Eventually, after recombining the train, you can proceed to enter the yard drill track via Yardley Pass and Holden Approach to Yardley Approach. You cannot store this train at Holden as it will be too long.    After running this layout for several years I believe the ideal mainline steam locomotive to be a 2-8-0 steamer or GP-38 diesel. I like SW-7 types for switching in the yards because they are short and with extra weight they do very well.