January 2015 - Michigan Interstate
In January 2015 I was able to participate in an operating session on Greg McComas' HO scale proto-freelanced Michigan Interstate (MCIS) St. Clair Subdivision. This may very well be the closest operating layout to where I live! Greg has put a great deal of thought into the operating details and methodology of this railroad.
Four operators, including Greg, is the optimum number of people for an operating session. The railroad is point-to-point with staging on either end and Bay City Yard in the middle. In addition to Greg who usually plays Superintendent-Trainmaster-Dispatcher-Mechanical, there is room for two road/local throttle positions and one yard position.
This time I would work the Bay City Yard Job. MCIS MP15DC 153 would be my work horse for the day. Bay City Yard has six tracks for classification, two locomotive facility tracks, a main track, and a passing siding. Over the course of the operating session we would turn the inventory in all of the tracks. Switching can be challenging here as there are more than six blocks to classify here and several times during the session the length of inventory for a particular block exceeded the length of the tracks in the yard. This adds to the importance of the strategy of switching cars here.
Greg is set up to allow the WiThrottle app to control trains, so one can use his or her own personal iPhone to run trains. Very cool! For the yard job I did opt to use Greg's plug-in throttle though.
The session began with a job briefing outlining the basic operations on the railroads as well as an explanation of his train cards and staging areas. The St. Clair subdivision is essentially a first-come first-serve DTC block authority railroad with block cards attached to the railroad to authorize main track occupancy. Very simple and effective.
An aid for the yard job which I appreciated is the inclusion of a blocking matrix on the switch lists to make it convenient to keep track of the track/yard blocks while writing up switch lists for inbound traffic.
Greg maintains a blog for his railroad. Feel free to visit it with the button below:
Four operators, including Greg, is the optimum number of people for an operating session. The railroad is point-to-point with staging on either end and Bay City Yard in the middle. In addition to Greg who usually plays Superintendent-Trainmaster-Dispatcher-Mechanical, there is room for two road/local throttle positions and one yard position.
This time I would work the Bay City Yard Job. MCIS MP15DC 153 would be my work horse for the day. Bay City Yard has six tracks for classification, two locomotive facility tracks, a main track, and a passing siding. Over the course of the operating session we would turn the inventory in all of the tracks. Switching can be challenging here as there are more than six blocks to classify here and several times during the session the length of inventory for a particular block exceeded the length of the tracks in the yard. This adds to the importance of the strategy of switching cars here.
Greg is set up to allow the WiThrottle app to control trains, so one can use his or her own personal iPhone to run trains. Very cool! For the yard job I did opt to use Greg's plug-in throttle though.
The session began with a job briefing outlining the basic operations on the railroads as well as an explanation of his train cards and staging areas. The St. Clair subdivision is essentially a first-come first-serve DTC block authority railroad with block cards attached to the railroad to authorize main track occupancy. Very simple and effective.
An aid for the yard job which I appreciated is the inclusion of a blocking matrix on the switch lists to make it convenient to keep track of the track/yard blocks while writing up switch lists for inbound traffic.
Greg maintains a blog for his railroad. Feel free to visit it with the button below:
And now for some images from this operating session:
