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How To Make Model Railroading More Interesting
Alan from the UK sent in this idea to share:
One of the readers said he was bored just running trains and wanted some suggestions how to improve matters.
Here’s my idea…
Alan sent in this example. Also see his wonderful layout featured below.
Give each wagon a card with it’s description at the top. Then write the days of the week in a column on the left, and opposite each day write where the wagon is supposed to go (see photo) I have the following destinations on my layout:- Brewery, Creamery, yard, goods shed, station goods shed, goods store, tail traffic (at the rear of passenger train), storage siding, canal wharf, coal merchants, and loco coal stage.
My layout is terminus to fiddle yard which is a 7 road turntable type. Its length restricts the No. of 10ft wheelbase wagons to 8 or less. I converted a dice so that it is numbered 2 to 8. After shuffling all the cards, I throw the dice. Say I get a 6, then I take the top 6 cards and make the train up in the order that the cards were dealt. The train leaves the FY and when it reaches the station / goods yard, the wagons are shunted into their allotted places.
You can also do the same the other way of course, shuffle the cards and shunt the wagons in order to make up a train.
When you look below you’ll see Alan also has a high level shelf track as part of his layout. Alan says “this is for running in locos plus I can run longer trains at speed.”
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You didnt mention why you wrote the days of the week on the lh side of the cards? I use more or less the same system also a fy where I assembke the teajns
How To Make Model Railroading More Interesting Give each town or switching area with sidings, a name. Then fill out car cards for each piece of rolling stock. Next write down where each type of rolling stock might have a place to either pick up or deliver a goods to. All of this should keep you busy for a while. Come back again when that is done for more information and WE can go from there.
Now you are starting to do operation rather then “circle burning the layout which can be tiresome and boring.
Good luck to you. You are trying and that is good on your part.
Now Alan is starting to get into a very interesting aspect of the hobby – called OPERATION.
Over the pond, many of us are blessed with larger basements under our houses, which our wives allow us to fill with a model railway (model railroad). Some of these allow a larger section of a prototype line to be modelled. For one or tow of these, google “Tony Koester’ or “Alan Mclelland”. you may be able to pull up a post that will describe layouts that are intended for ‘operation’. Don’t be discouraged because of the size of these layouts.
However, I would suggest that operation is probably much more interesting with a terminus-fiddle yard than an oval, which is better suited to exhibition running.
The days of the week on the ‘ operation’ card relates to the day you are actually running the trains
It just means you have variations each time.
Alan