Performing prototypical Operations

As far as grades. Realistically your engine should slow and labor on a grade. Especially if there’s a curve involved. I actually use the electronics and cheat a bit. I use the Legacy RR Speeds with momentum set to heavy.     Have your train rolling at a normal clip and push the button for Restricted Speed. Which is around 5 SMPH. Your train will realistically slow without you touching the throttle. A little experimenting is involved to get the right starting point. After the engine crests the grade. Push the button for Slow or Medium speed and it will slowly accelerate back to speed.

You can play with the labor effects on the remote while all this is going on. One feature I’d like to see in the future. Is a way to simulate the sound of wheel slippage on the rails.

There is another aspect to realistic operations you should consider. It is the concept of producing and consuming industries.

For example, it you have a sawmill (the producer) then you also need a lumber store or a furniture factory (the consumer.) If you’ve got a coal mine, you need a power plant. This gives your trains some specific customers to serve, by picking up loads at the producer and setting out empties there. You then have to deliver those loads to the consumer, pick up the empties, and get those empties back to the producer to be loaded again. This is what real railroads do every day, on a massive scale.

Add in a time schedule, and it can be challenging to get all the work done in the allotted time.

Conventional locomotives realistically slow down on my upgrades, and have to be dialed back on my downgrades.

There are at least three kinds of switching. Rich Melvin has brought up local freight switching. There are also route switching and terminal switching. Route switching is a big part of my operations. Freights that have supposedly gathered cars from Chicago, Detroit, Toledo, Akron, and Pittsburgh, St.  Louis,  and Cincinnati converge on my Cumberland MD division point yard, where blocks of cars are swapped, so trains can continue on to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York or New England. Vice versa for westbounders. Passenger trains swap a diner for a club car, or drop off or pick up an express car. Mail and express trains get completely resorted to block them for destinations ahead. All these moves are based on historical B&O RR documents.

I've designed my operations to eliminate freight terminal switching, but I make up car-for-car passenger trains matching 1949 B&O consists. This is the right amount of terminal switching for me.

I want to run trains, not handle paperwork, so I've designed my operations with nothing to fill out, and minimal paper to refer to. This is a big part of what keeps switching fun instead of work. There's also no paperwork between op sessions.

I volunteer at the Wilmington and Western RR. When we switch, human hands pull the uncoupling lever. There are no magnets between the tracks. I find nothing unrealistic about using my finger to tap a tab or thumbtack to uncouple a car. I use magnets when I need to uncouple out of my reach. They work provided you get the thumbtack over the magnet.

I plan to buy the Lionel Cab-3 as I have a number of TMCC locos I currently run conventional. I plan to experiment with helper service on my steepest grade. I'm sure that will be an adventure when the time comes.

Some GREAT commentary on this thread!!  I've had the pleasure of visiting Bob's layout and it was amazing fun to operate on.  Norm Charbonneau also has a 3-rail layout that exceeds most HO and O-scale layouts in terms of realism and cohesiveness.  I'm not sure whether Norm holds regular operating sessions.

I agree that operating sessions are MUCH more fun with at least two operators and two trains.  I also agree that 3-rail "lobster claw" couplers can't be counted on for reliable automatic operation.  The ramification is that an operations-oriented layout must be designed so that all yards, sidings, operating accessories, etc., are easily reached without fouling any moving trains.

Re: Pushers / helper operations... If you're going to try this I strongly recommend using Lionel Legacy locos with back-drivable gears.  Two locos with speed-control and self-locking gears could potentially get into a feedback loop and "fight" each other.  No matter what it would take two skilled operators, reliable trackwork and reliable command signal propagation to avoid a messy wreck.

I agree wholeheartedly that the way "speed control" has been implemented isn't realistic, and IMO it does take some of the fun out of operating trains.  Real trains DON'T run robotically at 1 or 2 mph unless they are flood-loading coal or humping a long cut of cars.  A lot of 3-rail O gauge mechanisms were originally designed as toys for children.  To this day, most 3-rail locos still follow the design architecture of toy trains, rather than the best accepted engineering practices of scale models.  In many cases our motors, gear ratios, etc., wouldn't allow for smooth operation at slow speeds.  So when adult hobbyists demanded better performance, rather than undertake a costly re-engineering of the chassis and drivetrain, the manufacturers slapped the electronic band-aid of "speed control" on existing toy-like mechanisms.  It's mostly effective, but we all would have been better served by a clean-sheet solution.

That was two decades ago, and we've come to accept it.  However, consider the alternative.  Model railroaders in other scales including 2-rail O enjoyed realistic operation for more than 50 years without speed control.  They used high-quality DC motors--the largest that would fit.  Ball-bearing gearboxes, and a gear ratio which traded top speed for smooth slow-speed performance.  Locos designed like this generally maintain their speed very well under layout conditions.  When they encounter a curve or grade, they slow down A LITTLE, which is realistic, instead of relentlessly maintaining speed like a robot.  The reason Forumites argue with me about this is because most have never run a properly-engineered loco in 3-rail O.  Sadly, few exist.

I know that Bob Bartizek changed the gear ratio in some of his 3rd Rail locos, and changed out motors in others to achieve a more realistic speed range.  I was inspired by his articles in OGR, and have done the same myself.  Remember, "speed control" wasn't available in ANY scale before circa Y2K, so Bob's modifications were the best approach short of building a new mechanism from scratch, which I don't have the skill or machine tools to do.

I also agree with Rich that having some type of "model economy," which creates demand and supply for various types of freight and passengers is essential to giving your railroad a sense of purpose.

This has been an excellent thread and is worth reading by anyone planning to build or rebuild a layout!

Wow, I just found this thread.  It's definitely an untypical topic on any 3-rail forum.

Realistic prototypical operation definitely requires that the operation of track, switches, locomotives, couplers, etc. be as close to flawless as possible.  Derailments, jerky operation, cars that won't couple without bashing, etc. greatly detract from the experience.  Unfortunately, and largely due to the lack of standards, we 3-railers have challenges in each of these areas.

In my case, track and switches are very reliable thanks to Gargraves track, Ross switches (with some nearly identical Curtis switches), and Tortiose, NJI/Tenshodo twin coil or Caboose Industries ground throws for switch control.  Components that I determined to be only semi-reliable, like Gargraves switches and Z-stuff switch motors are not used.

Locomotives and control systems are the area where the scale guys in N, HO, and 2-rail O-scale have a huge advantage over us.  Their locomotives (at least in the last 20-25 years) are geared for realistic operating speeds and have good slow speed performance.  DCC has become the standard for electronics in those locomotives, providing command control, adjustable speed control, and a huge variety in sounds.  Locomotives from different manufacturers with different motors and gear ratios can be adjusted (by programming the electronic DCC decoders in them) to run together.  In 3-rail, there are at least 3 competing electronic command control systems: TMCC/Legacy, MTH DCS, and Lionchief (base, plus, 2.0, etc.).  There is really no way to get a TMCC locomotive, a DCS locomotive and a Legacy locomotive to run together with the same speed profile.

When the time came to choose a control system for my layout (in the late 1990's), the choice was between TMCC (new to the market and with an upgrade for conventional locomotives available from Digital Dynamics) and DCS (not yet on the market, but being demonstrated widely).  At that time, MTH stated that there would be no upgrades possible for conventional locomotives.  The only way to get DCS was to buy new locomotives with the system installed.  Since I wanted a single system with simple locomotive addressing, I chose to go with TMCC.  Some of my locomotives started as conventional, then had Digital Dynamics boards (32 speed steps and no cruise control), then got TrainAmerical Studios EOB (128 speed steps and cruise control with lots of momentum built in), and now have Electric Railroad Cruise Commanders (100 speed steps and cruise control without momentum).  The EOB momentum made switching moves very difficult.

I much prefer to not use cruise control in locomotives.  Unfortunately, with the toy train gear ratios used in most 3-rail product, the cruise feature is needed to achieve slow operation.  The exception is most 3rd Rail locomotives.  Because of their belt-drive transmissions, the gear ratio can be changed by changing the pulleys that drive the belt.  My best running out of the box locomotives are the 3rd Rail I1s decapods, made around 1995.  These have a conventional gearbox with a 31:1 gear ratio.  The motor makes 31 revolutions to make the drivers turn in a single circle.  Combined with a huge Pittman 9000-series motor with max RPM around 5000, these locomotives are very smooth runners with a great speed range.  By changing pulleys, I've been able to match the speeds of my 3rd Rail N1s 2-10-2's and an M1a 4-8-2 to the decapods.  Pusher operations always involve some mix of these locomotive types.  I've also re-motored some Williams and Weaver 2-8-0's and 2-8-2's with 24 volt Pittman or Globe motors to slow them down.  These generally see coal train service, and their absolute top speed is about 38 scale mph.  I had an article in OGR describing how all of this was done.  Digital subscribers can read all about it.

One solution for couplers is to change the standard 3-rail couplers to O-scale Kadees.  Guys like Norm Charbonneau and Dave C have done this successfully.  I wanted to use the standard couplers, and again unfortunately, standard is not standard in 3-rail.  Take a look at the couplers and you can see differences between manufacturers in the dimensions.  After much trial and error, I have standardized on Atlas electrocouplers (these get added to all locomotives, regardless of manufacturer) and Atlas, MTH, and Lionel couplers with thumbtack armatures.  These can be improved by installing new armature springs as I discuss in the GLA #11 video.

I must disagree with Rich in his description of traffic flow for prototypical operation.  Having both producing and consuming industries on the same layout is a toy train or a 1970's-1980's scale layout thing.  In order to have realistic operation, in my opinion the cars from online industries need to go to the rest of the world beyond the modeled layout, and cars coming to online industries need to come from the rest of the world.  A railroad makes money by handling shipments over hundreds of miles.  Short hauls from one industry to another that are only a few miles apart don't make money, and would likely be handled by trucks in the real world.

The layouts where I operate, including mine, have staging tracks that represent the rest of the world.  These tracks are out of the view of operators, and are typically underneath or behind scenery, or in a separate room.  A train leaves staging, enters the visible layout, delivers and/or picks up cars, and runs to staging.  I have 4 staging yards that represent Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Bedford, PA and Cumberland, MD.

On small layouts, the rest of the world can be represented by one or more interchange tracks.  Cars from another railroad get placed on the interchange track, the trains on the layout pick up these cars and deliver them to industries, and cars from the industries get spotted on the interchange track, where the other railroad picks them up.  The "other railroad" can be a shelf or storage box, and movements for the interchange track are made before an operating session.

Thanks to all of the hard core operators who read this reply! 

Based upon my experience of operating model trains on N to G gauge layouts, the most important factor for successful operations is not the equipment but the layout.  The layout needs to be designed for operations from the beginning.  This means planning to have staging yards, industries or switching districts, interchange yards, engine facilities, etc.  Another factor for successful operations is having enough "people" space.  Operators need to be able to follow their train around the layout and to "squeeze" by other operators.

Unfortunately, very few 3-rail people think about operations when they design their layouts.  Most of my 3-rail friends are "loop runners".  My advice for anyone who wants to operate is design the layout from the beginning to make it happen.  There are many books and videos available discussing this topic.  Equipment issues can be fixed.  Poor design cannot with out a major tear down and rebuild.  NH Joe

Really enjoying the thoughtful contributions and different perspectives which have been presented.

My involvement in the hobby includes a bit of everything - loop running of tinplate, postwar, MPC, and modern era trains using conventional power, TMCC, and DCS, operating on museum-quality layouts designed and built by NMRA Master Model Railroaders, and building and operating switching layouts in HO and N.  So, my experience is broad and I'm hardly an expert in any of these areas, but I understand and can compare the various approaches.

IMO, other than a Timesaver layout, trying to do realistic operations with 3-rail trains involves an excessive amount of time, effort, and expense as has been explained by several others above, or one must choose to live with several shortcomings.  To have realistic operations in 3-rail, a person needs a lot of time, deep pockets, technical expertise, and an overwhelming passion and commitment.  I admire and salute such folks, but it's a hard road to take.

To achieve realistic operations, I think that HO is the ideal scale - small enough to have a lot of interesting tasks in a reasonable space, large enough to see and handle the equipment, with a wide variety of equipment available. 

One great resource for learning about operations is https://operatingsessions.com.  Check out the layout directory to see various layouts, and sign up for some operating sessions in your area (you don't need to be a member of NMRA to do this).  By attending operating sessions, you can experience first-hand how different schemes work.  Other resources include NMRA special interest groups (SIGs) for operations (OPSIG) and layout design (LDSIG) - these groups have a lot of information regarding operations, although there isn't a lot regarding using our 3-rail command systems.     

My layout was certainly not designed for operations from the beginning. It is one long continuous loop. Although at first glance it looks like 2 seperate double track loops. At the time construction started and trains were running. Command control was still 10 years away. My early focus was on NYC name trains with Hudson’s for motive power. When I started thinking about running trains and developing an operating scheme. Rather than just watching them loop the layout. The passenger trains were the first to go. They just took up to much real estate. I started focusing on the Rutland. I always had a soft spot for milk trains.

I’m slowly getting to where I want to be.  I believe the key to coming up with a scheme is limiting the size of your trains. Focus more on locals and extras. Sure I can run a 30 car train. But after it runs it’s course for the session. What do you do with it.  You can have hidden or off layout staging. But sometimes that becomes almost like building another layout or should have been planned from the beginning. A large classification yard works. But if you have a 40 ft. Yard. That’s less space you have for your mainline.

I know modelers love big glamorous engines loaded with features. Look at the real railroads and look at what they use to pull a 8 to 12 car consists. These are what you should be purchasing. My fleet consists of 5 Ten Wheelers, 4 Mikado’s, 1 Consolidation, 1 Mountain and 2 0-8-0 switchers. Nothing really exciting. Multiple rd. no’s. of the same engine.   But that’s what I need to do the intended jobs on the RR.

If you model a specific road. Joining a historical society gets you a lot of info. as far as what types of  cars you  should be looking to purchase and the industries to model. There is a fair amount of research involved but it’s a way to keep active in the hobby even when you are not working on the trains or layout.

@Bob posted:

…I must disagree with Rich in his description of traffic flow for prototypical operation.  Having both producing and consuming industries on the same layout is a toy train or a 1970's-1980's scale layout thing…

You’re the expert here, Bob, so I’ll have to defer to your expertise. Your layout is a classic example of how to do realistic and prototypical operations on a 3-rail model railroad. I really enjoyed producing the video we did on your layout.

I guess I’m too “old-fashioned” in my operational ideas to offer any meaningful advice to a 21st century model train operator.

@Bob and @Rich Melvin This is one of those things where rigid rules make no sense. While most traffic is long haul, to Bob's point, some moves are local. For a simple example, recall Frank Ellison's Donaldson, where a loaded reefer was delivered to one industry, re-iced at another, and then was loaded at the packing company. Nothing unrealistic in that. Railroads preferred to reload empties for return trips when they could. B&O had a tie plant at Green Spring WV. Obviously, these ties were delivered on the B&O, not to interchange points. Steam locomotives required large amounts of coal and regular fillings of sand. These items usually came from online sources. Modeling railroads can have both kinds of traffic, both realistic. Nothing toy train about it.

There is a lot of good information in this thread.  I am glad to see that Ken Wing mentioned Frank Ellison.  He was the "father" (or certainly the first most influential writer) of using prototypical operations as the basis for model railroading.  He did not believe in lock-step, rigid adherence to prototype practices (what I refer to as "proto-tedium") but rather using those practices to create the impression of a real railroad at work but modified to accommodate the space limitations of a model railroad and to make the operations more fun and interesting.  And, yes, Frank Ellison modeled in 3-rail O scale.  His third rail was outside third rail rather than a center rail, but it was 3-rail.  And he had a function for each of the three rails: the outside rail was the hot power, one of the running rails was neutral or return, and the other running rail was used for detection from the axles of locomotives and rolling stock making an electrical connection with the neutral rail and lighting an occupancy light on the control panels.  For anybody interested in operation, I recommend reading Frank Ellison's six-part series, "The Art of Model Railroading" on the Kalmbach website.  The OGR Digital Portal has a wealth of information on Frank Ellison; for example, Run 108 from December 1989 was a Special Issue on Frank Ellison and his Delta Lines, and run 109 (February 1990) was Part 2 of that tribute to Frank Ellison.  OGR also carried THE definitive story on the end of the Delta Lines in run 125 from October 1992 in the article by B. J. (Sam) Sachs (the Boston doctor who had bought the Delta Lines) as told to Myron Biggar, "Frank Ellison's Delta Lines: The Final Chapter."

"

I finished watching Allen Keller's coverage of Howard Zane's Piermont Division. Howard is a real artist in many ways although he admitted he was just getting started with operations despite being the hobby for quite some time (the DVD is dated 2004). His example of operations is something that I could possibly achieve by using one of my double-tracked mainlines for dropping off and picking up cars along trackside industries. It would be simple but potentially fun especially with other operators, e.g., one person operating an express, another person operating a local freight, and a third operating a through-freight. The downside is I don't have passing sidings, and therefore traffic would get held up resulting in frustration on the operators.

It's edifying to read Bob's take on speed control.  I think the vast majority of us are lucky to get a train operating these days, and Lionel seems seem committed to pushing product and enabling operating via phone or I-pad. If Neil Young was still active with Lionel, maybe we'd stand a chance on moving towards actual prototypical engine operations as opposed to simulating effects. Like Dave C., I also enjoy playing with the brake-load lever and momentum features, and there's various effects that an operator can simulate, but it's all for show, and frankly I spend considerable time looking at the remote.

Towards real operations via a future Legacy upgrade, I can foresee an operator could program the number and type of cars into the controller, and the engine(s) would then respond accordingly, giving the operator some challenge both in starting and stopping (this can kind of be achieved via setting momentum and brake lever). The new Triplexes were advertised with a wheel slip feature, but I recall it's activated by the operator for simulation. It'd be awesome if it could actually happen if an operator increases throttle too fast given load and grade conditions.

For me, the "cat's meow" would be having two operators driving a train, one with a steamer on the point, and the other guy operating a pusher. That would take considerable skill, especially without electronic speed control enabled locomotives.

@Paul Kallus posted:

If Neil Young was still active with Lionel, maybe we'd stand a chance on moving towards actual prototypical engine operations as opposed to simulating effects.

Up above, Dave mentions "...a way to SIMULATE the sound of wheel slippage."  For years I've been asking the manufacturers to let us swap out the rubber-tired wheelsets for steel.  Then you would occasionally get ACTUAL wheelslip, accompanied by all the appropriate sounds and challenges of operating skill.  MTH's HO-scale steam locos came with an extra wheelset in the box.  But they never went back and updated their O gauge tooling to add this feature.  Some of Lionel's locos do have removable wheels and axles.  But they usually put the worm wheel on the LAST axle (a convenient choice, but sub-optimal for performance because of accumulated slack in the side rods), and this frustrates easy substitution.

Modern trains can do amazing things.  But there's something undeniably gratifying about the raw, analog experience of operating a "pre-digital" train (or automobile!)

I have experienced wheel slip on my layout with conventional locos with traction tires. The train has to be close to the limit of the pulling capacity of the loco. I've also experienced a loco that started a train, but based on stopping on a grade, was unable to restart it. These realistic experiences were not planned, but the result of running passenger trains with prototype consists (and cars with model rolling characteristics) together with grades.

A major factor in prototypical operations is they are at the mercy of operating accessories and operating cars available to do the loading and unloading required for a commodity or items.   Many here would like to get away from endlessly looping trains and give our layout railroad purposes.

Charlie

@Bob posted:

I must disagree with Rich in his description of traffic flow for prototypical operation.  Having both producing and consuming industries on the same layout is a toy train or a 1970's-1980's scale layout thing.  In order to have realistic operation, in my opinion the cars from online industries need to go to the rest of the world beyond the modeled layout, and cars coming to online industries need to come from the rest of the world.  A railroad makes money by handling shipments over hundreds of miles.  Short hauls from one industry to another that are only a few miles apart don't make money, and would likely be handled by trucks in the real world.

I agree with you Bob. Nothing on my 134 mi district went to anywhere on the same line or on the entire 240 miles of the division. It all went somewhere else.

If anyone wants to learn more about implementing an operating railroad, I highly recommend watching Allen Keller videos. Most or even all of them are HO scale, but they show wonderful model railroads with section of each video devoted to operations and track plans. I prefer the DVDs, use to have VHS but sold them all years ago. He also sells downloads, but I don't like watching them on my computer and I don't have a Smart TV. I wish he would sell the John Armstrong Canandaiga Souther RR DVD - John's layout was outer rail O-scale or whatever they call it...the kind of pickup things Frank Ellison used, although his was battery powered.

A layout I remember specifically for realistic railroad operation was John Shankland's hi-rail layout that TM featured in Great MTH Layouts Part 2 (released around the time MTH just came out with Proto2) where he simulated real railroad operations based on the CB&Q. One aspect of his layout that was really fascinating was a realistic operating classification yard.

There's a quote in it:

"Nearly everyone who creates a layout has some type of yard, but few are done correctly or even with much thought. Most guys just lay down some parallel lines of track with some switches and think they have a yard. But not John."

Great video (as expected) by TM, but also a lot of sources included in it that were very informative.

As far as producing & consuming industries, what is cooler than having a sawmill and a lumberyard on the same layout.  That is what I go for, handful of lumberjacks with axes in their hands...  It's totally doable on a smaller sized layout, I've done it and liked it.  Plus, I've worked at a lumberyard for 36 years and build houses, so I could say I'm partial to that scene.  It's all what you like I guess.

As far as cruise control I always thought it was unnecessary unless you have multiple trains handling multiple grades at one time.  Be honest I loved operating the TMCC Geeps with the pullmor.  It didn't lurch forward on the first step on the Cab1 and they kind of glided to a stop and needed a little finesse to get set right where you wanted.  I liked that, I loved those TMCC Geeps.  More operator -  not friendly, but inclusive maybe.  If I think of the right word I'll edit that, but I'm sure you get it.

Cheers,       W1

How's this for realism? I was running the St. Louis Timesaver today, and the loco threw a traction tire. I had to get out a relief engine to finish the run. It's often better when you don't make it up.

BTW I've seen B&O dispatcher records, especially from railroad hard times after 1960, and loco issues delaying trains were quite common.

It's interesting that you chose the word "inclusive" William.  If this hobby is going to grow or even survive, we have to attract new followers from outside our  community.  That includes casual model railroaders, even our own friends and family.  To me it's more important that a layout I build is engaging, even if not strictly prototypical.  I love real trains, and I've done my share of railfanning.  But most of us don't have the 40' x 35' referenced in the original post, and there's a hard limit to how realistic you can get with O gauge in a spare bedroom.  What I'm planning to build will be operations-oriented, having a sense of purpose, but I also want it to be inclusive and interactive.  It'll be train-like for sure.  Perhaps more of a caricature than a photorealistic portrait of prototype railroading.

No matter how realistic a layout is, imagination is required.  Sometimes more, sometimes less but it's the essential ingredient that allows our toys and models to be a stand-in for the real thing.  In this respect yours and mine are no different.

The word I couldn’t find in my head at the time is interactive, not inclusive btw.

Thomas (Mikado) recalled an excellent 3-rail layout with operations - John Shankland. I have that DVD somewhere and will dig out to enjoy again after all these years have gone by.

All the posts got me thinking, especially Ted's note about "engaging new people to the hobby." Towards this, if I was a newbie and wanted a challenge of operating a train realistically, I'd likely find a video-computer game that simulates the challenge (and if young again I might've even gotten a job on a real railroad ). I left the video game genre in the 1980s and haven't looked back, but a great many of my colleagues and family are hooked on them.

Conversely, the desire to build a model railroad likely comes from a different place; it's part mechanical, part electrical, part carpentry, and last but not least part fine art. I truly believe layouts, at least some, are works of art, e.g., John Allen, George Sellios, etc. The idea of building with our hands, using our minds outside the norm, and the act of creating is IMO second to none in the hobby world. I've tried other hobbies and have tried my hand at other forms of art, and stink at them . 3-rail may be for us challenged folks, but I don't care, it's fun and even I can do it.

Therefore, to address Ted's point, there should be two aspects of engagement. First is the desire to create in 3 dimensions a replica of a time and place or freelance as many of us do; and second the additional desire of wanting to make that miniature world a fun and interactive place to operate trains. Trains running in circuits, no matter how well-done the scenery is, gets boring to many people. I've found the average attention span of family and friends to be around 15 minutes . Let them operate by their phone and an app, and maybe that time increases a bit, but it will wane...there's only so much a person can do running trains and blowing the whistles and horns.

@Paul Kallus  I think of my layout as my artistic expression. I wouldn't call it fine art, but it's certainly folk art. Interestingly, the operations side is beyond the bounds of the merely plastic arts. As in Frank Ellison's timeless analogy, it's like playwriting. I try to copy certain elements of B&O operations with full fidelity, but others are omitted or severely modified to fit my layout and equipment. That's where this important tool called the "imagination" comes in. Really, all the trains, tracks, scenery, and operations are just there to stimulate your imagination to experience your artistic vision, whether that's being an engineer, running a vital transportation system, or something else.

The producing/consuming plan that uses back to back vignettes where a producer,  like a coal mine and loading operation, sends loaded cars out to a power plant or other consumer, where they are dropped off and the empties picked up.  But, the full loads are retrieved from the coal mine through a passage to the power plant where they were just dropped, and the empties you took to the mine, are picked through the secret passage at the power plant.  A double track set up with a scene divider that separates the mine/plant visually, but the cars just past through one side to the other.  You can sort of get away with a passenger train running in a circle, but freight railroads usually have loads going one way, and empties coming back, and if lucky they found someplace that could put something in those empties to make the return trip profitable.  At the Kirkpatrick Center in OKC, they had what you could call the museum of capitalism,  you could use a computer simulation to run just about any business, and it would evaluate how you did.  I tried truck driving as an independent owner, and was broke in 6 months.  It wasn't delivering the load, but it was delivering a load at a certain price to a certain place,  such that you had to find load opportunities to grab on the way back home, not just dead head.  A circuitous route burning a lot of fuel, could make you more money than a straight shot, when the truck always had a load.  I am sure RR's work out the same scenario, especially now that the bottom line is all they are concerned about, a freight car load going one way, is only profitable if they can bring it back loaded even if it goes south or north on its way to a westward home.

My formula for prototype operation is to start with a string of cars that have been dropped off on a yard lead. Switchers then go to work delivering cars to the various industries on my layout and bringing back loaded cars or empties to be set out for pickup. You don’t need a large layout for this.

@Paul Kallus my layout isn't really ready for prime time. Fully operational, but no structures, many areas no scenery, the rest just first layer ground cover.