I’ve never understood crossing flasher behavior in industrial settings. Regardless of location when a train approaches a crossing at speed, industrial or main line, the behavior is simple enough. A predetermined time/distance away the lights activate and the gates drop. After the train passes a few moments later everything resets to normal. Not so during […]
Author: Lmind1
The Incredible Expanding Layout
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 […]
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 […]