Using Train Crews

Discussion in 'General' started by Boomer John, Dec 15, 2011.

  1. Boomer John

    Boomer John Member

    I am a big fan of Lance Mindheim and his ongoing development of his Miami switching style layout. Recently he has been on a kick to slow things down. I've done a couple of things that seem to be working well.

    First I figured out how long it would take a train to move 3 ft HO at 10 mph pulling five cars. Once I found that spot on my Digitrax controller I marked that spot with a red marker. While
    operating the layout I don't turn the knob past that point.

    Now the next thing is pretty wonky, and not for everyone for sure. I purchased some Preiser train crews and installed them on a plastic base. While in operation I drop the crew at switches or where they might be needed. I try to always move the train so I couple/uncouple near where they were dropped. I come to stop to pick them up or let them off.
    To me at least this really adds to the feel of operating the railroad. My daughters just look at me and shake their heads and mutter loser under their breath. :)

    John
     
  2. Jim James

    Jim James Staff Member Staff Member

    I think it's a great idea. It makes you aware of what it really takes to run a real railroad.
     
  3. SteveM

    SteveM Member Frisco.org Supporter

    I find it's a lot more fun to think about what the members of the crew would be doing than to just shove cars around. Layouts that provide "brakemen" that can be set out to flag for a train working on the main also seem to have a lot of other things right. If one is doing that kind of thinking about the work, there won't be as much flicking of cars with fingers, maybe less running over turnouts the wrong way.
    Influencing guests and other operators is another matter; my people skills aren't up to handling some of the folks I've operated with.
     
  4. gjslsffan

    gjslsffan Staff Member Staff Member

    :DYep I agree, like switching out a track and shoving the whole thing back when you need room for a couple more cars.
    Or making long couplings and making 4 moves when with some thinking you could have done it in 2-3.
    One of my very good friends that operates over here, is a very intelligent man, but he makes moves like, the more the better.
    He has been coming here for years. I like to give him a hard time once in a while and tell him that if I were his brakeman, and had to protect all those shoves to hold one more car, or making all those extra moves, I would likely want to take a brake club to him and the end of the day:D:D I am sure the engineer would too but he might have trouble holding on to the club from Carpal Tunnel :D:D
    Regards
    Tom Holley
     
  5. meteor910

    meteor910 2009 Engineer of the Year Staff Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Terry - Neat rule of thumb, thanks! In all these years with HO, I had never realized this, even though it is obvious if you think about it.

    One conversion for speed that all engineers remember is that 60 MPH = 88 feet/second. Given that HO scale is 1:87, one foot per second in HO is almost dead on 60MPH. If you want to be a stickler, it is really 59.3 MPH. Close enough for me!

    Ken
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 16, 2011
  6. gjslsffan

    gjslsffan Staff Member Staff Member

    Ken
    That is good information indeed, I would have never put that together, thanks for pointing that out. I never even thought about it that way. A guy could make a speed table with that info.
    Thanks,
    Tom Holley|-|

    PS ran across this on Google http://www.awrr.com/scalecharts.html has all kinds of scale tables and charts.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 16, 2011
  7. Ozarktraveler

    Ozarktraveler Member

    Reminds me of one of our naval deployments. One very late night, we had broken out some HO slot cars in our spaces. With many of the sailors in our division, "nukes" or some other "tech" rate, they had to do some "calculations" with a stopwatch and distance measurements. (Cruises will do that to you.) Suffice it to say slot cars can go "very fast" scale speeds.
     
  8. Jim James

    Jim James Staff Member Staff Member

    Navy corpsman, USS INDEPENDENCE CV-62. '82-'84
     
  9. gjslsffan

    gjslsffan Staff Member Staff Member

    Thanks Jim (Doc)
    For all you did for us. USS Boulder, USS America
    Tom Holley USMC 79-83
     
  10. friscobob

    friscobob Staff Member Staff Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Since my a-building layout will focus mainly on switching, and the section of the Frisco I'm concentrating on isn't exactly FRA Class 4 trackage, I'm a proponent of slow speeds. I had the privilege to operate on Jim Senese's Kansas City Terminal Layout, and one of his rules is that we operate at slow speeds. Even rolling at, say 20 MPH tops, I was still able to get a lot of work done. Did 10 MPH in the West Bottoms with bell ringing and whistle blowing, crawling along checking for clearance.
     
  11. klrwhizkid

    klrwhizkid Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    Just like our own Jim Senese (KCTRWY, veteran modeler and KC native, Chuck Hitchcock assigns two-man crews on all of the jobs on his Argentine Industrial District (Santa Fe) layout which is entirely a switching layout. One man is the conductor/brakeman and the other is the engineer.

    Chuck has Tsunami sound in all of his switchers and has the decoders set up so that the throttle will get a locomotive moving but one must apply the brakes by pressing F6 on the controller to slow or stop the locomotive.

    Additionally, the maximum allowable speed is 20 mph, with 10 mph as the predominant speed limit while switching. To facilitate an engineer's understanding of what 10 mph is, Chuck has a speedometer in a section of the layout that will indicate the scale speed of a locomotive that passes through that section.

    With appropriate aisle space, the two-man crew concept works quite nicely.
     
  12. yardmaster

    yardmaster Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    John, I grew accustomed to similar utterances from my wife when we started dating 18 years ago. Her usual mutterance: "Are you sure that would be prototypical?" On the other hand, she went to the effort to find me the 1943 ORER reprint a few years back, so she may not understand my madness, but she embraces it.

    At any rate, this is a neat thread that you've started, and you are using concepts that I've thankfully gotten across to my almost-12 year old operator as we start to run trains. On our Northern Division, we'll start with engineer and conductor/brakeman as Keith noted. If there are enough folks, we'll add a separate conductor position. I figure for any true operating that we do, I'll act as yardmaster/yard clerk.

    I might have to borrow your idea for the Preiser crews. I like it!

    Are you using actual blue flags? I've read of making scale flags that could be pushed into the roadbed with brass wire or balanced on the rail by using an upside-down rail joiner that's spread apart.

    Happy operating!
     
  13. gjslsffan

    gjslsffan Staff Member Staff Member

    |-|I made these with some .012 steel wire and bent a hook on one end, glued a piece of paper to and hang off the engineer's side in front of the cab. The difficult thing is to put them on without tearing something up:eek:

    Details West MW451 has Men at Work signs for between the rails, they work pretty good, as many of mine have been run over many times:D Just straighten them out and away we go.
    Thanks
    Tom Holley
     

    Attached Files:

  14. Boomer John

    Boomer John Member

    I now have signals in at the KCT and MOPAC crossings. So train crews must get clearance from Tower 2 to traverse up/down Santa Fe St. I also have looked
    into Lance Mindheim's idea of having crews throw down fusees at street crossings, but the electronics are about $25 each and I have four streets to cross.
    Have to think about that one.

    John
     
  15. yardmaster

    yardmaster Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    John, I must know more about the fusees. Do you have any links to more information?

    I've always thought that scale fusees and torpedoes would be a fascinating addition. The latter might pose some safety problems.

    Completely off-topic but I can't resist: what in the world happened against Davidson last night @ Sprint Center?
     
  16. meteor910

    meteor910 2009 Engineer of the Year Staff Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Chris - I had the "pleasure" of watching the Davidson game in the company of a bunch of KU fans over in Olathe this week during our visit with Kurt, Jen and the girls. Coach Self summed it up best in his post-game comments - "We aren't very good right now".

    KU has one great player - Thomas Robinson, and a bunch of not-great and/or not-mature players. TRob tried to win the game on his own - 20+ points, 18 rebounds, but no-go. His team missed six or seven layups, made only two of about twenty threes, and forced no turnovers during the second half when the game was in question. A terrible performance to say the least! KU lost an immense amount of talent after last season, and a bevy of great recruits will not be available until next season. In fact, they landed one more future recruit this week!

    KU is used to 33-34 wins, and a #1 or #2 seed in the tournament, with a good shot at winning the whole thing (they have five national championships). Not so this year! By March, they will be decent, likely 24-25 wins, maybe a 5-6-7 seed in the big dance. Pretty good by most school's standards, but an off-year for the Jayhawks. Wait 'til next year!

    Ken

    ps - The good news was that Santa brought the girls a Lionel "Polar Express" for around the Christmas tree. The girls loved it, and Kurt likes it as well. We went to Franks HS in Overland Park twice yesterday to buy some more stuff for it! We got a fourth car (a diner) and some extra track. It looks really good now! Also, I made some nifty whistle posts from some cardboard backing that the track came on. Addison likes to blow the whistle, and learned when we rode the train at Baldwin City this June that the engineer blows it when he passes a whistle post. Now she does it too!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 21, 2011
  17. pbender

    pbender Member Frisco.org Supporter

    When I saw the price, I said to myself, wouldn't that be a good use for a 555 timer circuit:
    http://home.cogeco.ca/~rpaisley4/LM555.html#4

    Use the basic circuit on Rob Paisley's page above with a push button input. Add a couple of LEDs for outputs.
    You would have to select appropriate resistor and capacitor values to get the on time right. (just how long does
    a fusee burn again?)

    I think you could build 4 of these for less than the cost of one of the commercial ones you're talking about.

    Paul
     
  18. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    The ones I'm around: 10 minutes minimum.

    Andre
     
  19. gjslsffan

    gjslsffan Staff Member Staff Member

    How about some HO on N scale torpedo's, now that might break up the conversation enough to realize one is about to leave the limits of their authority:D
    Tom Holley|-|
     
  20. wmrx

    wmrx MP Trainmaster

    Hey, Tom. Creating the sound effects to simulate a couple of torpedoes going off would be pretty easy. You could coordinate this with the fusee and really have something unique and prototypical. I have a bunch of torpedoes in storage. I would be glad to volunteer a few, if someone wanted to make a recording. :D
     

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