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Do you run at scale speeds?

Sat, 2014-05-31 14:29 — Bill Brillinger

My prototype has a speed restriction of 25mph in place of the entire subdivision that I model.

Nice and slow, see, that's the way.

I was wanting to confirm that my speed was appropriate and so today I picked up a speed calculator app for my iPhone (ModelSpeed).

I discovered that, in fact, I am running too slow. But an actual scale 25mph FEELS too fast. A scale 18mph is much better to me. I'm going to enact the selective compression of time act of 2014 and say my 18mph is 25.

IAIS's West End - Atlantic Spur on a shelf

Tue, 2014-05-27 08:50 — IAISfan

I've always wanted to model more of Iowa Interstate's approximately two mile long Atlantic Spur, the IAIS schematic of which is shown below:

Dispatching the K&EFR & The mon night mail

Tue, 2014-05-27 03:52 — Ken Kaef

Operations

Train order working was introduced to the South Australian railway system by W A Webb ex Colorado Midland and the KATY commissioner of railways during the 1920s and remained in use in train order territories well into the 1980s

Run before you're done?

Sat, 2014-05-24 13:11 — bear creek

On another thread someone was saying that all too often modelers these days are afraid to run trains until their layouts are finished and perfectly detailed. It was also suggested that this makes a smaller layout preferable to a big one because it takes a loonnnnggggg time to finish a monster layout.

Well, there is certainly some validity to this opinion, but one should never make broad sweeping statements ... (oops... I just made one). I mean, there are often exceptions to the rule(s)...

List of Industries, loads, and car types?

Sat, 2014-05-24 06:28 — Bill Brillinger

Is there an online resource that lists various industries and the railroad related traffic they use?

Basically I'm looking for a list that I can use to populate my waybills with legitimate traffic.

Ideally this would include

Shipper (load origin, including city)
Receiver (load destination, including city)
Product (what is being shipped)
Type of car used to move the product

- Bill

2 comments

What is this? Updated Picture

Fri, 2014-05-23 09:28 — Ngwpwer

Found this Bachmann part in a on sale bin. Have a guess as to what its purpose is, just want to confirm it.

Thanks

26 comments

Blocking the BNML

Sun, 2014-05-18 06:52 — Bill Brillinger

Operations

I've been working on my blocking schema for the BNML.

I'll be using a modified Car Card system for traffic forwarding that includes blocking codes based on the TIBS concept as published in Model Railroader.

Anyone using a modern work order system for operations?

Wed, 2014-05-14 05:58 — JodyG

Just curious to know if anyone out there has implemented a modern prototypical style work order system for switching industries using local trains? I have seen what a class 1 railroad crew uses for for a work order when switching industries in real life. I am thinking I would like to implement a similar system on my own layout over a system like the the car card system.

Jody