Almost overnight I feel as though my layout has doubled in size, all of this without adding a single turnout or section of track. It’s becoming apparent that I probably have a lot more model railroad than I actually need to keep me entertained. What happened? In the past year I’ve learned an enormous amount […]
Author: Lmind1
Modeling When You Have No Free Time
We’ve all been there, or are there now. You look at your kid’s school and sports schedule, your work schedule, family obligations, and yard work and realize the amount of free time available for modeling is measured in minutes not hours. It’s not just the absence of free time, such time periods in ones life […]
Locks
In modern times at least, railroads lock everything. Switches, gates, derails you name it, nothing happens without the conductor reaching for the keychain first. To have a model railroad where opening things is as simple as an instantaneous flip of a toggle strays from the pace of the real world. I’ve written before that it […]
Solo Operating Sessions
Whenever I’m at an operating session I invariably ask the host how often they run their layout just by themselves. The answer is an almost unanimous “never”. There are number of reasons for this. I suspect in many cases the layout owner derives most of their hobby enjoyment from building things and operating sessions are […]
Mission Mode Operating Sessions
Topic: Model Railroad Operations Tick. Tick. Tick. You’re running out of time. Better speed up. How do you plan your operating sessions? I’ll argue that most folks are mission driven. They have a certain number of moves they want performed, industries they want switched, or trains to run and, by god, nothing short of completion […]