First Ops Session on the AT&G

[AC87]

The photos just don’t do it justice, we had a blast ! The operations Gary created were straight forward and ran very smoothly. It was an honor to be a part of the first ops.
Aaron

[mountaingoatgreg]

Gary,

It looks great to see the railroad operating!!!
I really need to get my layout operational...pushing the cars aound the layout has gotten old...

[bdw9535]

Gary,

This is an example of the switchlist that is used for one of the Conrail Jobs on my layout

Bruce

[Gary S]

I need to study the switchlist more so it is straightforward to me. What I created left no doubt as what was supposed to be done. I'm sure the "normal" switchlist contains all that info in a shorter form.

[ocalicreek]

Switch lists really require you to 'know' the road, or have the tracks/industries labled really well.

How much resetting will you have to do between sessions?

Galen

[Gary S]

Galen, right now I don't have a system down for continuing from session to session. I'll just reset the railroad between session - basically just taking things slowly, and we'll be refining and adding new stuff as we go along.

At some point, the cars on the layout would be used in the following sessions. Also, cars at each interchange would come on and off the layout between sessions. The layout is operationally similar to the LAJ.

I'm hoping Aaron and Nathan can come by again this weekend or early next week so we can run again. I'll be adding a "Flux job" which will do all the switching at GERN Industries and a "Spud run" which will switch out Mountain King Potatos. I think these industries are big enough to warrant a seperate job hauling in 8 to 12 cars and picking up as many. I can also add an "Extra" that would pick up at the SP yard if there happened to be a heavy traffic day. Could even run two local turns if needed.

I'll probably end up using normal switchlists sometime in the future, but for now, I do like the "explanatory" switchlists we're using. As for setting up the sessions, I may build a card library of waybills with relative amounts based on the average weekly set outs at the various industries. Then would decide how many cars needed to come onto the layout, would draw that many waybills, and that would determine where the cars were going. Cars already on the layout would go through a "hold" period and then would be picked up and taken to the proper interchange.

[Lester Perry]

Fantastic Gary . I need to surf around the Big Blue more, I have been missing a lot of good stuff.
What I have done is make a card for every car I have and at the end of the day I leave every thing where it is. Next time just pick up where I stopped. Here is a photo of car card and train order telling what to do with that car,

The car card stays with dispatch on a board. The numbers are tracks at Clifton Forge yard. Below that are the different businesses on my lay out

The orders go with the train.