First op session on my layout over the weekend, with mostly Bachmann products...

[p51]

I had my first op session ever on my layout on June 14th (not bad considering all this was a stack of lumber and boxes of rolling stock and modeling supplies as late as the end of last July. Two guys showed up, one of which was the guy who did most of the DCC wiring for me.
You'll probably notice that the locomotives are all Bachmann ten-wheelers (I have 4 of them, all ET&WNC marked) and all but one coach and a caboose are Bachmann, as well.



The session lasted just shy of 3 hours.

I knew ahead of time I was out of my depth in regard to any schedule and concept for the movements and told them so, in that this was a work in progress and was mostly to determine the best course in operations.

They seemed to enjoy themselves, and gave me a lot of really good ideas, among them:

1.Running one mixed freight all the way to the end of the layout, dropping off cars in the center section. The other engineer does the switching there while the first messes around at the end of track. That seemed to keep both operators busy.
2.Painting the ends of the ties at the points near turnouts showing the furthest a car or locomotive can be and still clear the adjacent track.
3.Perhaps adding a siding near the end of track, and/or near the center for a locomotive to tie up out of the way.
The third might not come to pass, but the first two surely will.

I can't imagine anyone comes up with a good operating scheme on their own the first time, and with these guys I now have a much greater grasp of how to keep two people solidly busy even on a layout the size of mine.



We totally changed my initial idea of each working an end of the layout and passing one another in the middle, and I really liked where we went. I deleted passenger runs in favor of mixed trains. It worked pretty well. It was also odd to watch two other people run my layout, as before it's been pretty much me alone.



Even my pup, Charlie, was on the same page. Instead of bugging everyone for loves and treats, he actually curled up in the door of the layout room, something he's never done before.



A funny PS to the story, and I'm not kidding, I had the window open for the layout room and while we were talking about train flow, one of the guys pointed out the window and said, "Hey, there's a blimp!"



Seriously, the Goodyear blimp was heading North, not far from my back porch. The US Open starts next week just North of here, I can only assume they were heading up there for that...
I had a smile on my face for the rest of the day. This was something I'd waited more than 30 years for as this is the first layout I ever had you could do an op session on.

[ebtnut]

Looking good and sounds like a real good time.  There is no "right" operating scheme, though generally being aware of prototype practices can be a touchstone.  In general, most folks assign one train to one person for the job at hand.  This may depend on how many operators are available and complexity of the railroad.  With just a few trains, the operator would likely be responsible for assembling the train in the yard, doing the work over the road, and breaking down the train when it terminates.  If space and operations dictate, then there may be a yardmaster who does all the work within the yard, and the engineer just does the over-the-road work.  Again depending on the overall characteristics of the layout, and with some experience, you can set up a rough timetable to govern the train movements.  This can be a simple as something like:  Local freight A departs terminal A for station B.  Passenger train C departs from terminal D for terminal A.  Local freight A holds clear for passenger train C at station B, completes switching and returns to station A.  No need for fast clocks and other higher-end operational schemes. 

[p51]

The layout is only in a 10X11' room, so there is a 'mainline' but not in a conventional sense. My original idea was to have each operator switching from their respective ends, then adding their consists together to take to the interchange. That simply didn't work out as one sat around for a while as the other end had far more sidings and cars.
Live and learn.
A pal of mine talked with one of the guys who came for the op session that night on the phone and I heard second hand that he'd enjoyed the session. To me, that's all that matters as he drove for over an hour to get to my house. Both the guys who came are very prolific operations types.
I still have some other ideas for future sessions, but at least I know for sure that I already have an operating concept that seems to work.