Realistic Model Railroad Operations : How To Design Train Schedules 

This is one of the best operations explainers I’ve come across. The concept of interference traffic really makes sense. Well done.

excellent video with lots of value added. Looking forward to next video.

Thank you for sharing your ideas on operations. It’s good to learn from someone who has experienced it already.

Probably my biggest pet peeve of layout videos on RU-vid (and when visiting somebody's layout) is when they have beautifully done scenery and well detailed and smooth-running trains, but they run the trains like slot cars. It's like, why go through making all of that realism when you aren't going to run them realistically?

Well scripted overview of operations planning on your layout. Thank you for sharing! Mike

Great video, I am a big fan of the Santa Fe

Well done. I look forward to your videos. Operation of a model railroad is like putting the cherry on a sundae.

You definitely have the right shirt!

love the Shirt, great content for your channel.

Nice video, I have some ideas/ suggestions. For fast clocks one very important aspect you didn’t cover is what type of freight car routing system you use. If you use car cards and waybills what speed the fast clock is set to isn’t too important. If you use JMRI or some other computer-based switch list program, the fast clock speed is very important. The biggest failure I often see with JMRI is trains/cars do not make it to the location in time for what JMRI wants. Also, what speed the clock is set too is very important if you run passenger trains, especially if you run lots of passenger trains that follow a set schedule. Most passenger trains run a daily schedule. I agree 100% that your schedule will likely be based off of how many quality operators you can get for your Op Session. If you want to build a large layout, you will need a large number of quality operators. Most Op Sessions are 3 hours long, do they have the attention span or interest to operate for 3 hours. What I do to determine the schedule and staging/siding capacity is I print out the track plan on put it on one monitor and a sheet on another and I simply run a mock op session on a table. You can use your finger or pieces of paper to simulate trains running at specific times. Being able to see the towns works better for me than a line chart. The most important thing of all is it will likely take 3 Op Sessions for you to perfect your schedule. Don’t get frustrated and give up if it doesn’t go flawlessly after 1 Op Session. Finally, I’m really glad to see someone else model the 1990s. The 1990s seems to be the forgotten decade and manufacturers seem to think nobody models the 1990s.

Cool video

I too LOVE operations

this video got my wheels turnin :)

Are you operating ever week or just once a month?

3:24 is this actually a 4wheeled freight car? I always that that the US relied on bogies only?

You need to adjust VDO speed

Your lucky too have a bunch of friends that are happy to run trains with you, I have been trying to get Oops going on my layout, but they talked about doing it and so far all are no sĥow.