Garden Railway Forum

Well, ten (and a half) scale miles really, although even that would be about half a mile long if laid end to end so I cheat with a couple of loops. There's only 87 yards of actual circuits out there, plus loops and links, but by a bit of cunning planning and imaginative operating (using the same nameless halt to represent 4 different locations, depending on which lap you're on), it's possible for two termini, one through station and a couple of generic stopping places to represent a 10.5 mile branch with 9 stations, and run it in real time at scale speed.

I designed my line with this in mind, but that kind of operation isn't everyone's cup of tea so we mostly just go round-and-round any old how. Today, however, I'd just put the finishing touches to an Edwardian-era timetable for display as a bit of "paper modelling" and noticed the clock was at 1815, and there was a passenger train booked out of Wragby at 1827- TOOOO tempting!

A mad dash outside probably didn't raise steam as fast as practicable (it's amazing what gets forgotten or mislaid when you're in a tearing hurry; lighter, coaches, transmitter, keys to the workshop to get all that stuff) so we eventually got going at 1832- five down and not a good start. I struggled for steam all the way to the second station too- worried about having enough fuel to go all the way I'd been a bit too mean with the fire- but that was soon fixed, and by the time Minting (at 4.5m not quite halfway, but the only passing place) drew nigh we were on time, until a coach bogie derailed on the run in. That fixed, the fire was shut off to top up the gas, a quick job that wasn't quite so quick when I realised I'd mislaid the lighter again, so still 1 minute late leaving.

Fortunately it was 2 miles (4 laps of the lower circuit) to Wispington, ample opportunity to catch up without speeding. I based the times on 15mph start to stop average, which is reasonable for narrow gauge but leaves a bit of wriggle room. A further three halts follow at one mile (2 lap) intervals so there are plenty of top-up opportunities to keep the gauge glass healthy without cooling the boiler down. Time was kept all the way round, and arrival at the terminus was 3 minutes early after a splendid 44 minute run, with enough steam left to shunt the coaches and run the loco onto shed for disposal. A check of the lubricator- probably the limiting factor for this sort of escapade- revealed oil to spare.

Train No39, 6:27PM Wragby-Horncastle Weds 18th June 2014
Engine: Tennyson (Taliesin Class), 3x all 3rd 8w coaches.

           Miles BOOKED     ACTUAL         REMARKS
Wragby      0.0   1827         1832         Engine late off shed
Langton     1.2   1831/3      1837/8      Poor Steaming
Hatton       2.4    1837/9     1841/2
Minting       4.5   1847/50    1848/51   Refuelled, trouble lighting fire.
Wispington  6.5   1857/8     1856/8
Edlington   7.5   1902/4     1901/4
Thimbleby   8.5   1907/8     1907/8
Thornton    9.5   1911/3     1911/3
Horncastle 10.5   1919       1916  

Arr P1. Headshunt blocked with goods stock so shunt to P2, run round & dispose loco.

Altogether a fun if challenging way to spend a lovely evening. Hopefully future runs will be a bit more relaxed as I get the hang of this style of driving, with station calls less like a frantic Formula 1 pit-stop.

Interesting, I know my line is about a scale half a mile end to end, and just a bit more then that in terms of track (because one of the terminuses is off the main line) but I've never bothered with recording distance managed, or tried to do a realistic run since I would be going through the top station a few times before actually getting there.

Excellent Mr Dodd, good effort. Nice to see a railway being operated rather than just running trains. Nothing wrong with doing either of course but the variety is nice.

Well done on working out the timetable and the timings.

I quite like the operations side of railway modelling as well. The eventual plan with my line is some sort of timetable and fast clock operation, so that a working day of 12-16 hours can be compressed into a 3-4 hour operating session. I have a feeling though that sequential working may end up being the rule.

The other thing that needs to be addressed is some sort of single line working. The three block stations on my line are essentially out of sight of one another, so if we have more than one train on the line, so sort of single line staff, or at the very least, German/Scandinavian style telephone block and train registers, becomes a necessity. The other possibility is some sort of dispatcher control, which has generally replaced telephone block.

Cheers,
Peter in AZ

There's always good old staff and ticket! or if all else fails time interval!

Being an Isle of Man Railway enthusiast I am most familiar with Staff and Ticket, which is easy enough provided that (a) you know what is coming traffic-wise, and (b) you don't issue a ticket when you should have sent on the staff, or vice versa!

An acquaintence of mine tried to introduce some American friends of his to the joys of staff ad ticket operation on a large O gauge layout, but they seemed to have difficulty getting it.  The first thing is that you are going to get the "not made here."  Once they are over the initial "bloody foreigners" reaction, the second objection from those who are into operations is that they are used to Timetable and Train Order, and find Staff and Ticket cumbersome.  Fair point - it is when some fool goes and leaves the staff at the wrong end of the section.

The first attempt was a bit of a disaster, but the second actually went simply because they started thinking in terms of the staff and ticket system as simply a way of sorting out who should be in a section, so I suspect they had in most respects reverted to thinking in TTTO terms.  Apparently it was still a hell of a job to persuade them that the blocks were not permissive, though!

Personally I think the locals would find telephone block more comfortable, as that simply makes sure there is a greater awareness of what is in section at any given time.

Cheers,
Peter in AZ

Out of curiosity (I am terrible with Maths - blame my youth), how do you calculate scale distances, times etc?

If you are doing it by distance then you simply multiply the length of your line in feet or yards by the scale conversion number, so if you have 50 yards of track and work in SM32/45 it would be 50 X 19.1 which equals 955 scale yards.  If that happens to be the length of your circuit then just under 2 laps is a mile; and 10 laps would be a shade over 5 miles.

Speed is time to cover a certain distance.  A mile takes 1 minute at 60 mph (a fact useful for Mamod owners); 3 mins at 20 mph; 4 minutes at 15mph - that's the money number for 2' gauge men; 5 minutes at 12 mph; 6 minutes at 10 mph.  The basic version of Scale Speed is therefore scale distance divide by the time.  A 16mm scale model travelling at a scale 15 mph should therefore take 4 minutes to cover 92.5 yards, or more usefully 7 seconds to travel 6.'

Things get a bit scary when you use the fast clock method of operation because there you 'play with time' by making - for example - 1 minute equal 4.  On my line I have 22 yards (a chain - old money) between the top two stations.  I work in 1:22.5 scale so with a 1 to 4 fast clock this grows to 90 chains (1 mile and 1 furlong, or one and one-eight miles) and if my train covers that distance in 1 minute 8 secs it has travelled at a scale speed of 15 mph, but thanks to the fast clock that becomes 1.125 miles in 4 minutes 32 secs.  The snag with fast clock is that you have to shorten the station stops to a "scale" 8 secs or 15 secs instead of the half-minute or minute you would get in real time.  However, this is OK until you loco needs to be serviced.

So in summary:

Scale Distance - actual distance multiple by scale
Scale Speed - scale distance covered divided by time.

I hope you are seeing how this works.

Cheers,
Peter in AZ

Hi Pete,

That's both an interesting an useful reminder to those of us looking for scale operation. It's something I had a plan to sit down and write out to refresh my memory but you've saved me the job.

Many thanks,

Andrew

Thanks Peter. I understood the idea but having the maths explained as well as that and in such a straight forward way is great.

Ben