Great video Mike. OS meaning "On Sheet" is interesting and appropriate. Especially before CTC when Station Agents, train crews, and operators had to report their location to the dispatcher. The term "On Station" became common nomenclature once CTC became widely used because it would provide electronic/visual feedback to the dispatcher. That's how dispatchers and I used the term on the MoPac & UP. But again, railroads are conglomerations and the nomenclature terms are like a soup of intersecting terms and meanings stirred together in a large caldron and used differently in different areas. That's why your use of the term is so fun and it is the right term. One of the interesting train reporting methods I remember using is "Train Registers" that were located in dispatcher phone boxes at junctions in Dark Territory and at junctions that went from Dark Territory to signaled territory. Every train would have to stop and fill out the Train Register and reference the Train Register for trains told to wait for. Can you imagine having an operating session where you used "Train Orders" with a person designated as an operator/agent at every station? The train crews would run deaf with no communication with a central dispatcher, but rather received main track authority and operating instructions from the operator at each station? Thank you Kevin Dawson
Hi Kevin - You are correct that a lot of railroad nomenclature tends to take on a variety of different interpretations and uses. I remember Train Registers as we had one on the north end of the Denver Terminal at Clear Creek when I was Roadmaster there in the early 1980's. A tragic event occurred with that register in August 1985 that resulted in a horrific head-on collision. As a result, train registers were then done away with in favor of Track Warrant Control (TWC) territory which was a really good move. Thanks so much for your great comments and for watching the video. Mike
Excellent, if short overviewof whatloooksto be a fun Ops session on what isone of my favourite layouts to watch...! Thanks for posting and cheers from Melbourne, Australia.
Greetings, Gary, and thanks for noticing the turntable control device on the slide out ..... you're the first to comment on that. I appreciate you checking out the video! Mike
Great video Mike!!! I was looking at the MR magazine again with your layout and saw you retired from BNSF and lived in Texas, did you ever do any work out of Temple TX, I pass over that yard on I35 on my way down to Laredo every so often, it looks huge!!!
Thanks for your comments. I did not do any work out of Temple, but did pass through a few times on hy-rail and geometry car inspection trips. I also walked a few yard tracks with the Roadmaster several years ago. I appreciate you watching the video! Mike
Great tutorial for Ops on your layout I greatly enjoy it. Does it happen you have more crew than trains? If so what do you do? Does it happen that trains "terminate" faster then expected as well? Thanks again for the great video
So far, we haven't had more crews than trains; however, if that were to happen we would be able to add trains to the operation a little later to allow everyone to operate ...... OR ..... we would form 3 man crews to allow more junior attendees to gain experience and familiarization with the layout. Trains don't terminate faster than expected as they all have some work to do along the way and they have meets with other trains which eats up some amount of time. Thank you for your comments and questions. Mike
No, that is a train order board and not a wayside signal which governs the movement of trains. A train order board remains green unless there are orders to be delivered to a train. Thank you for watching the video. Mike
