running to a timetable

[brbluewill]

how many of you run there layouts to a time table?? or do you just run whatever suits your mood.i have never run to a timetable but fancy having a bash at it so how do you go about compiling one

[Alex]

Hi,

Nope, don't run to a timetable. When I go out to the shed I just power up the controllers and run whatever trains are on the track. I'll stop and change over to other ones now and again simply to give them a run around the track and to keep them in running order.

Alex

[michael]

how many of you run there layouts to a time table?? or do you just run whatever suits your mood.i have never run to a timetable but fancy having a bash at it so how do you go about compiling one

like you, i would like to, but dont know where to start

[poliss]

Although I model Continental and USA practice, I operate to a British Rail timetable, which means they run anytime they feel like it. 

[MJKERR]

Depends on the layout
If you ran it realistically, on a smaller layout you could end up with long spells of nothing happening
Equally, on a large layout you could end up with overload (for example dealing with a technical issue)

As a result I operate a turn based timetable
This allows three or four trains to operate within each turn

[Oldman]

Although I model Continental and USA practice, I operate to a British Rail timetable, which means they run anytime they feel like it. 

Does that include leaves on the line etc.
Won't be having a timetable for Lyne End when built but may do a card based system for shunting freight movements.

[EtchedPixels]

For the old layout I ran the actual timetable (although not to a clock) for the line from the relevant time. It was a non existant location so I simply split the difference between the two stations it was notionally between. For the 1976 timetable the freight was rather more 'ad hoc' as I couldn't find any good documentation of the evening freight activity at the time.

Snow Hill is going to need  a rather more designed timetable given it features things like HS2 and lines that someone closed

[Lawrence]

I remember going to the Dundee show one year and there was a group running a single line layout to a timetable, every 20 minutes or so a DMU would go by - Absolutely horrendous and a complete waste of time.

If you want to run a timetable, please make sure you compress it somewhat or you will get awfully bored

[Flax]

I'm planning to have a timetable for my own layout, but not basing it on the prototype for some of the reasons already mentioned.  My terminus is fictional and only very generally located (somewhere in the eastern counties) so I'm going for a fictional network to go with it.  I've been working out what trains would be required for passenger services that feel right, and a bit of appropriate freight.

Planning this, and so working out the stock required and how it needs to move is quite good fun - but I'm far away from having something to work with yet.

[brbluewill]

i like the sound of the card system will need to look into that

[Ollie3440]

At the current time i don't run Sheaf to a timetable, but myself and JC92 have had several goes at coming up with an operating sequence. Eventually we'll decide on one and we'll run to it where we plan to use bell codes between station and fiddle yard when operating

Ollie

[EtchedPixels]

i like the sound of the card system will need to look into that

A variant of the card system for shunting is the scrabble system - wagons are assigned scrabble letters based upon their common-ness, the fiddle yard supplies incoming trains of random letters, the yard operator sends back words.

It's a way to keep sane on exhibition layouts shunting for hours on end !

[brbluewill]

i like the sound of the card system will need to look into that

A variant of the card system for shunting is the scrabble system - wagons are assigned scrabble letters based upon their common-ness, the fiddle yard supplies incoming trains of random letters, the yard operator sends back words.

It's a way to keep sane on exhibition layouts shunting for hours on end !

hope they keep it clean

[Flax]

I like the sequences I've seen - give some extra interest at exhibitions.  An example from Warley below:


Weydon Road had 53 moves in the sequence and shows where the station sits in a network (hope you can zoom on pic to see the small print!). It seems a good way of having a 'timetable' without the issues of keeping to time.

Really like the card idea, and the scrabble variant sounds like it would be interesting.

[cudders]

I could never be bothered. Just run what ever I fancied 

Cudders