No, not THAT type of couple! I’m talking about coupling and uncoupling during operations. It’s the most fundamental of tasks. Even so, there are some things we can do to enhance the experience of operating our layouts. To start, here’s an excellent video explaining how the big boys do it. After watching it, here some […]
It’s 2006 at the East Rail Industrial park in Miami. The engineer has gotten out of the cab to talk strategy with the conductor about a plan of attack for handling an extremely complex switching situation. Pauses in the action like this are common in the real world. Just because a comment is annoying and […]
Cars spotted at The Terminal Corporation’s logistics warehouse in Baltimore on a very rainy day in May. The photo above, taken yesterday in Baltimore, illustrates how just a single turnout and judicious industry selection can provide a platform for an interesting operating scenario. Because this is a logistics facility, you can’t just dump cars anywhere. […]
In the above video clip, The Downtown Spur job works Miami Iron and Metal. Let’s take a pause in our day (pun intended) and talk about switching operations. Looking at a crew’s shift, where does the bulk of the time go? Moving cars? Nope? Travel time? A little but not that much. Where then? Last […]
Setting the brakes is an integral part of operations as seen in the YouTube video above (go to the 1:20 mark). A reader recently contacted me asking for some clarification on operational practices centered on setting brakes while switching. For the answer I reached out to my buddy and ops. guru Tom Klimoski for the […]