Acceptable standards at exhibitions

[Barry Ten]

Throwing in a few observations as an operator on Sherton Abbas, and to a lesser degree with my own layouts: we've done quite a few shows with @wenlock's Sherton (a GWR branch terminus) and we try to operate realistically within certain parameters. All moves are done in accordance with signals as far as possible, based on our own understanding of the rules and the knowledgeable types on this forum, as well as comments received at exhibitions. We try to run at appropriate speeds and avoid rough-shunting.

 

But there's always something new to learn.

 

As an example, for a while we allowed locos to run past the platform starter during shunting moves within the station limits, as we believed this was appropriate, until it was suggested to us by a signaller at one of the preserved railways that this was incorrect procedure. Now we always operate the signal even if it's just to detach a wagon from the end of the train and shunt it into the bay. We'll do so until someone else argues the opposite case. 

 

We don't run with lamps. These would be wrong half the time and changing them over would involve the big hand from the sky. This would be a big no-no given that in all other respects the layout needs no manual intervention. For me, not having lamps doesn't shatter the illusion of realism in a way that changing them over would. It's a question of priorities - if lamps are your thing, then understandably the layout won't tick that particular box.

 

We don't run to a timetable or sequence, but we do make sure something is nearly always moving. This means that the station can end up looking busier than perhaps is appropriate for a rural backwater, but by choreographing the arrival of a passenger train while a goods train is waiting to leave from the goods loop, it ensures there are no major lulls in the operation. It also means that the fiddleyard operator is kept fairly busy making up trains. Simultaneous movements of up to three locos are sometimes seen.

 

Fatigue is a factor. More mistakes will be made late in the afternoon on a Sunday than earlier in the operating session. This is particularly the case if the operators are also trying to engage with the public, as we do. Exhibiting is great fun but always enormously tiring, and on top of that, one is always mindful that the hard work of packing up and driving home is still to come. I've only ever had one prang in my car (thankfully minor, but my fault) and that was on the way home after exhibiting.

 

 

 

[Phil Bullock]

1 hour ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Phil

 

Could one of the lamps be a red one. Shunting within station limits was a white and a red lamp each end.

Good point Mr M….. but it’s a black and white photo 😀

 

As is in the lay-by is within limits too…

[RedgateModels]

18 minutes ago, Barry Ten said:

 

As an example, for a while we allowed locos to run past the platform starter during shunting moves within the station limits, as we believed this was appropriate, until it was suggested to us by a signaller at one of the preserved railways that this was incorrect procedure. Now we always operate the signal even if it's just to detach a wagon from the end of the train and shunt it into the bay. We'll do so until someone else argues the opposite case. 

 

 

What you need is one of these - a shunt ahead signal kindly made for me by @Jon Fitness

 

 

It's a fixed main arm with the lower shunt signal being cleared to allow the loco to pass the main at caution to run around the train.

Edited October 5, 2022 by RedgateModels

[whart57]

On 05/10/2022 at 06:06, AndyID said:

Can't speak for anyone else but I do care, a lot. I'd like to be able to recreate some of the steam loose shunting I saw more than sixty-five years ago. The problem with models is not insufficient mass, it is too much friction. Of course that is not a simple problem to solve, but let's not assume physics makes it impossible as you seem determined to imply.

 

 

I care too, I'd like to model Wingham Canterbury Road in 3mm scale. I have a scratch built Walton Park, an ex LSWR "Saddleback" under construction and a kit for an ex-SECR O1. I also have a ramp I constructed on which to test rolling stock. It starts at 1 in 50, evens out to 1 in 100 and then finally goes level over some four foot of run. What I have discovered is that while you can do a lot about friction by really souping up the bearings, that isn't the complete answer. Even if a wagon has bearings light enough to start rolling on a gradient more shallow than 1 in 100, it still won't roll any distance on the level. However, stick the wagon up on the 1 in 50 bit and it will accelerate like the proverbial bat out of hell. In short it doesn't behave like the real thing.

 

I witnessed loose shunting only a few years ago. At Bangkok's Hualamphong station the station pilot - a early sixty year old GE diesel - sorts carriages out using loose shunting from the throat of the carriage sidings

 

 

And a couple of YouTube links

 

 

 

What is noticeable is how smooth the carriages run, and how, as in the first video, the shunter hasn't given enough welly the vehicles roll almost imperceptibly to a halt. You just can't do that with small scale models and that is because they don't have the inertia of the full size thing, and that comes down to mass.

 

Edited October 6, 2022 by whart57

[sulzer27jd]

2 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Just another 2p...

I think there's a big difference between model layout operation in an exhibition setting and at home. I know little of the age/interest profile of those attending exhibitions, but I just sense that the majority want to see things moving. I know as I get older my attention span diminishes, whilst those with young children want to see continual movement. Hence, on roundy-round layouts the trains inevitably just circle round and round. There might be sidings on the layout, but very rarely do we see them actually being shunted.

An exhibition, after all, is a show. It's not necessarily a time for deep reflection on prototype operation.  Even at Pendon, how often (if ever) are trains shunted into sidings and remarshalled?

 

 

 

 

 

Similar could be said of differing types of exhibition. A show that is intended for a wide general audience is perhaps more suited to the type of layout with lots of movement etc. Whereas the more specialist shows will perhaps allow a more nuanced approach. The OP was discussing things he noticed on a video taken at Scaleforum, where the hosting society at one time had a strapline of "getting it all right". I would expect the attention to operation at such a show to match the level of detail in the construction of the model. Someone earlier pointed out that we have the ability to select the appropriate 2,3 or 4 bolt chairs, so surely the operation should strive to reflect that degree of authenticity.

 

One suggestion I would make is to better explain to an audience what is going on. What that train is, why it looks like it does, why is there a sequence of movements and what do they represent. The stopping to recouple before moving coaches is an example. There is a reason for it, so explain it. If I already know, I will skip past that or accept the information as helpful. In these discussion there is often a dig at branch line operation, usually along the lines of,  you wouldn't see constant movement on a small branch line. The statement is absolutely correct but one way to overcome that is to simply state the time of day. As one train leaves, the information can be changed to state, "The time is now xxx and the next train is ....." When I operate my own layout I use a sequence rather than a timetable and large chunks of the day are discarded - or used as a coffee break! x

 

I appreciate the effort that goes into building and presenting layouts at shows and would hate to think that I would discourage anyone from doing so. There is a question as to whether layouts are there to entertain or educate and to what extent to they do either or both. They are not mutually exclusive and helping people understand what they are seeing goes some way at least to informing them why certain things look the way they do. The more one moves towards a fine scale (whatever that means) approach to building the important more it is - I would suggest - to reflect that in the operation. The use of video and YouTube etc is really interesting as it potentially gives a far wider audience and home based layouts have an opportunity to be seen by the public.

 

John

Edited October 5, 2022 by sulzer27jd

[bécasse]

40 minutes ago, Barry Ten said:

 

 

As an example, for a while we allowed locos to run past the platform starter during shunting moves within the station limits, as we believed this was appropriate, until it was suggested to us by a signaller at one of the preserved railways that this was incorrect procedure. Now we always operate the signal even if it's just to detach a wagon from the end of the train and shunt it into the bay. We'll do so until someone else argues the opposite case. 

 

Signalling, and signalling practice, on preserved railways bears only a passing resemblance to the railway of yore.

 

There are good reasons why preserved lines are festooned with signals and why movements on them should never pass a signal which is "on" but that isn't what used to happen. Fixed signals cost money and were generally only provided where required by statute, where the hand signalling of regular (shunting) moves would have been awkward or difficult or where it was important to ensure that the route was interlocked before a move was made. Some railways were more ready to provide fixed signals than others, the NER was almost overly generous and the LNWR distinctly parsimonious, for example.

 

Whether a platform starter would have been cleared for a shunt forward move would depend on the arrangements (and everyday) practice at the location concerned - although it has to be said that there probably weren't that many locations which called for shunt movements forward from a platform road. In the BR period, and earlier in some places, the starter may well have been locked by the block/token instruments, meaning that, in the absence of a shunt forward, signal any move would have to be hand signalled either by displaying a green flag or by the relevant "hand" signal as defined in the Rule Book.

[The Johnster]

14 hours ago, newbryford said:

 

Will it work with normal signals that go upwards?

No. 

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, CloggyDog said:

 

The answer might be found in the axle-hung motors from Japan, which are easily back-driven and have little rolling resistance? 

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/m/10260566

 

 

Interesting, and a possible alternative to Tenshodo/Black Beetle.  

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Phil

 

Could one of the lamps be a red one. Shunting within station limits was a white and a red lamp each end.

And for lamping purposes the chariot was considered to be part of the loco.  Difficult sometimes to distinguish the lens colour of lamps in photos, esp. monochrome ones. 

[Steven B]

21 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

But if we do run to a timetable, we typically used a speeded up clock - for example using an 8 times clock we can run the 24 hour day in a 3 hour operating session.  Using a fast clock even allows our train at arrive conveniently at the next station at the "right" time if we have shortened the distance between stations by the same factor of 8 times.

 

The problem with a speeded up clock is that the speed factor needs to be variable. We can't duplicate the distances between stations (or want to wait the x minutes between trains) so we speed things up. However, once a train arrives in a terminus, time needs to return to 1:1 otherwise running-round, shunting etc becomes unrealistically fast.

 

With regards to mass, and it's effects on shunting - the biggest issue is not the scaling of the waggon or coaches mass but that we have no way of scaling the size of the planet. Our trains are running on a planet that's 46 or 148 times bigger than it should be, hence our trains. The air is also thicker than it should be - scale fliers have some interesting discussions about scale speed that put ours to shame!

 

Steven B.

[whart57]

47 minutes ago, Steven B said:

With regards to mass, and it's effects on shunting - the biggest issue is not the scaling of the waggon or coaches mass but that we have no way of scaling the size of the planet. Our trains are running on a planet that's 46 or 148 times bigger than it should be, hence our trains. The air is also thicker than it should be - scale fliers have some interesting discussions about scale speed that put ours to shame!

 

When it comes to scale speed most people have success in using the wheel rotation speed as their guide

[HonestTom]

I went to a recent model railway exhibition and was outraged to see that the carriages were uncoupled from the locomotive without the crew even leaving the cab. Apparently we are supposed to believe that the rolling stock uncouples itself now! Realistic operation, my eye!

[Steamport Southport]

6 hours ago, Phil Bullock said:

And in Michael Clemens latest book on the Worcester area there’s a 204 hp shunter in the up refuge at Norton being overtaken by a Castle on a Padd job. The 204 is propelling a GWR shunters chariot which is wearing express lamps.

 

Express lamps or station pilot/shunting lamps?

 

Station pilots and yard shunters had a red lamp and a white lamp on each end. Left white, right red when looking from the front.

 

 

OOPS. Already mentioned.

 

 

Jason

Edited October 5, 2022 by Steamport Southport

[CKPR]

On 05/10/2022 at 10:03, Nearholmer said:

 

Interestingly (to me anyway), if you go back to pre-WW2 model railways, most builders placed far more emphasis on operational realism than on visual realism, they wanted to create "models of railways", and they certainly didn't distract themselves by representing anything very much outside the railway boundary. The sea-change seems to have started immediately before WW2, when a few heavily-scenic concepts were floated, and gathered pace as knowledge of the work of people like John Allen and John Ahern spread.

 And me, despite my inclinations towards rivet counting and finescale modelling in general. My favourite model railways include several built to  pre-war O gauge standards using the products of LMC and Millbro and operated by the book.Even just reading about these types of usually long established model railways in magazines from the 1959s to the mid-1970s, there always seemed to be an atmosphere of authenticity that is absent from many of today's note perfect models of railways.

Edited October 6, 2022 by CKPR

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, HonestTom said:

I went to a recent model railway exhibition and was outraged to see that the carriages were uncoupled from the locomotive without the crew even leaving the cab. Apparently we are supposed to believe that the rolling stock uncouples itself now! Realistic operation, my eye!

To be fair that’s not locomen’s work, though the driver is required to satisfy himself that coupling up has been correctly performed.   Firemen often uncoupled from the loco to save time, as I’ve said everybody wanted to get home early, but it was the guard or shunter’s job.  On Cwmdimbath it is done by the Great Shunting Pole Of God, (Pol shwnt y Duw Mawr), attached to a small COB torch, which appears from the sky, does it’s work, and disappears whence it came as if it had never been…  

 

Coupling up happens as if by magic, one of the benefits of tension lock couplings, and thing preventing my joining the Elucidated Brethren.

[TheSignalEngineer]

18 hours ago, newbryford said:

 

Will it work with normal signals that go upwards?

 

3 hours ago, The Johnster said:

No. 

You obviously didn't know how to balance one on the weight bar.

[Blandford1969]

How is it in all this talk of accuracy we do not see the reverser being moved from one gear to the other or notched up, how these engines move in mid gear is a Miricle - unless that is of course it is a Pannier which will happily move in mid gear or a flying pig where the regulator more often than not blows by?

 

How is it as well the trains leave without the guard getting out and giving the right away?

 

Or the passengers who never move?

 

The list just keeps growing. 

 

 

[Lemmy282]

4 minutes ago, Blandford1969 said:

How is it in all this talk of accuracy we do not see the reverser being moved from one gear to the other or notched up,....

 

 

Have a look for the YouTube video of Nick Mitchell's 9f with DCC controlled reversing gear. Oh and it is 2mm finescale

[sulzer27jd]

17 minutes ago, Blandford1969 said:

How is it in all this talk of accuracy we do not see the reverser being moved from one gear to the other or notched up, how these engines move in mid gear is a Miricle - unless that is of course it is a Pannier which will happily move in mid gear or a flying pig where the regulator more often than not blows by?

 

How is it as well the trains leave without the guard getting out and giving the right away?

 

Or the passengers who never move?

 

The list just keeps growing. 

 

 

I think everyone accepts there are, in most cases, limitations. That of course was not what was being raised in the OP. 
 

I for one would be grateful for more knowledge on how the real railway operates/operated as I would like to try and show that in my operating. 
 

J

[Steamport Southport]

36 minutes ago, Lemmy282 said:

Have a look for the YouTube video of Nick Mitchell's 9f with DCC controlled reversing gear. Oh and it is 2mm finescale

 

I was just going to mention that. 

 

 

 

[88D]

On 03/10/2022 at 00:39, F-UnitMad said:

Interesting as I sometimes watch videos of shunting on layouts and get bored by how slow & tedious it looks - but I know I would be happy watching exactly the same in person at a Show.

Possibly it's down to being able to see the whole layout at a show, and seeing the purpose & context of the moves, whereas on video the view is often restricted or cropped to the train itself, and so it's less easy to 'follow the story', so to speak.

And you can talk to the operator, it becomes a two-way interaction in the flesh. I love shunting, less so roundy roundies.

[Bernard Lamb]

1 hour ago, Blandford1969 said:

How is it in all this talk of accuracy we do not see the reverser being moved from one gear to the other or notched up, how these engines move in mid gear is a Miricle - unless that is of course it is a Pannier which will happily move in mid gear or a flying pig where the regulator more often than not blows by?

 

How is it as well the trains leave without the guard getting out and giving the right away?

 

Or the passengers who never move?

 

The list just keeps growing. 

 

 

But all these points are within what the great majority find to be acceptable.

Which is where we started.

Bernard

[Mallard60022]

32 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

But all these points are within what the great majority find to be acceptable.

Which is where we started.

Bernard

Yup, as often happens the thread begins to go around and around in ever decreasing Circles and then gets very repetitive, and boring, indeed.

P

[pete_mcfarlane]

On 04/10/2022 at 11:11, Bernard Lamb said:

I also once witnessed two operators on another very well known layout resorting to actually shouting and swearing at each other from opposite ends of the layout when a move went pear shaped. 

 

The second example is not acceptable to me. 

Bernard

Probably entirely prototypical though.....

 

I recall an early 80s Railway Modeller (an April edition?) with an article on construction a miniature vintage telephone set up, so the operator could have an argument with a (pre-recorded) voice on the other end when things went wrong.  

[ardbealach]

Have no fears --- the topic will come to life again under a brand new heading.  And we will once again repeat the same comments.  (Alisdair)