Operating sessions - is this a local thing?

[gavino200]

I recently found out about "operating sessions". This is where people get together with their electric trains and pretend to be real train drivers. There seems to be a leader or dispatcher too, who gives orders to the others. He tells them when they can drive their trains etc. Often they wear headsets or use walkie-talkies. I thought it was the oddest thing when I heard about it, but there are tons of examples of this on YouTube.

 

I never knew this was a thing. It's not something I would do, but I'm not "against it" or critical of it. Each to their own. But I'm curious - is this an American thing? Or do model train peeps do this everywhere? Is this something people do in Europe? Japan? I searched but couldn't fine any "Japanese operating sessions". Maybe I need to search in Japanese. 

 

 

[bill937ca]

I view this as a North American HO thing and freight oriented. 

 

Never heard of a train order in Japan. How would we read it?  You fluent in Kanji?   Many freight trains in Japan just pull into a siding and the containers are removed by front end loader. Then the train continues on without the selected containers.  Passenger train orders are mostly likely electronic and the line is controlled from an off line control center. Lines like the Yamanote line are essentially above ground rapid transit lines where control attempts to keep a constant distance between the current train and his follower. There may be lines in Japan that run on line of sight like a tram line.  Some of the really minor lines use a token coil system where possession of the coil is authorization to proceed. I don't find it applicable to Japan when operating practices are so different.

[Pashina12]

I get the impression that it's a North American thing. I've been to a few myself and found them great fun, running to the real timetables, having to make the meets, etc. It'll likely be a while till I get there, but my pie-in-the-sky dream is to be running full to-the-timetable op sessions, too... personally I find the operations aspect of real railways fascinating, and equally fascinating to me are the ways people devise to reproduce those operations in scale.

[Pashina12]

2 minutes ago, bill937ca said:

I view this as a North American HO thing and freight oriented. 

 

Never heard of a train order in Japan. How would we read it?  You fluent in Kanji?   Many freight trains in Japan just pull into a siding and the containers are removed by front end loader. Then the train continues on without the selected containers.  Passenger train orders are mostly likely electronic and the line is controlled from an off line control center. Lines like the Yamanote line are essentially above ground rapid transit lines where control attempts to keep a constant distance between the current train and his follower. There may be lines in Japan that run on line of sight like a tram line.  Some of the really minor lines use a token coil system where possession of the coil is authorization to proceed. I don't find it applicable to Japan when operating practices are so different.

 

I can't speak to Japan per se, but it's I think a safe assumption that back in the day of old school freight trains, Japan had a North American style system of train orders, too. The (Japanese-run) railways in Korea and Manchuria used such a system, and the DPRK uses it to this day... the railways in Japan's colonies were *very* American in character, and I get that sort of feel from what I've seen so far of Taisho and early Showa-era JGR, too... so yeah, I'd not be surprised to learn that they used a NorAm train order system too.

[Pashina12]

An additional comment I'd make is that... equivalent systems exist(ed) in Europe and elsewhere, too. But I'm gonna guess the reason for the model railway "op session" seeming to be fairly limited to North America is that North America is really the only place where the large "basement empire" sort of setup exists as the rule rather than the exception, and I think such a large layout is kinda necessary in order for the op session idea to really work?

[Kiha66]

The local club in LA has this once a month, each member gets a table with your train, time at each way point, and scheduled meets.  The double track main line is cut to single in many places to force meets.  Its a lot of fun, mostly cause of the shenanigans as someone messes up and the problems cascade down the line.  

[railsquid]

I was going to say something along the same lines; I suspect also North American operations are much more freight-orientated than other countries, which leads to different operating approaches.

 

From the UK I'm aware of coordinated/timetabled operation at clubs and exhibitions, have also seen one setup at an exhibition in Japan where they were simulating the Seibu line timetable, but nothing like in the video.

[IST]

We are also running trains based on timetables in exhibitions of our Hungarian modules. Due to that we have one track Fremo modules (40-50 meters long...) it is easier to maintain good traffic without any problem with the trains running in opposite directions. All the station masters get their timetables for their stations and all of the train drivers get their timetables from me and everybody have to keep the departure and arrival times. It seems easy job, but as we experienced it needs a lot of attention from everybody. Sometimes it is easier to explain to the visitors also what they are seeing on our modules. Our sessions are generally 45-50 minutes long and we start them in every hour. Last time we had 3 stations and 2 stops (including a total of 3 station masters) and 6 trains were on the tracks continuously, so we had to synchronize 9 peoples' work. There were some problems of course (as always), but I think it is fun to play in this way.

To illustrate this I show you a station master's timetable and a timetable for one of the train drivers:

 

  

 

Sorry, it is in Hungarian, but I just wanted to show you the details. Making the timetables can be a little bit hard due to calculating the right speed of the trains and the right arrival times, but this is also part of the preparation for a model train exhibition. I can tell that it caused me some headaches to have a timetable which good enough to amuse not just the visitors but us and keep the trains running in almost every minutes, but it really works. The hardest part is to collect enough people to keep the timetable. I mean in the last time in October we needed the above mentioned 9 people, plus 2-3 people are always needed some free time (watch the other parts of the exhibitions, meet with friends or family members, etc) and of course we do not have enough members for this in the club so we asked some people who are also modelling in N but not in our club to join us.

Of course we tried running trains without timetables but it went always chaotic mode within a couple of minutes or 1-2 hours, everybody became angry and nervous, so it simply does not worth the stress.

And we are still beginners in this, FREMO conventions have more strict rules, for example every wagons and coaches have their train card with their goals... But FREMO is basically not for visitors.

 

[kvp]

I would like to add, that fremo goes so far to model operations, that some stations aren't even sceniced but fully signalled and operated as close to the prototype as possible. The clock is usually faster to simulate multiple days. (usually at 24x speed) The trick is to keep the passenger and unit train schedules while moving all freight to their destinations using scheduled and best effort freight movements.

 

Then there is this japanese group who in the past for every JAM has choosen a line to model and recreated it in full (without scenery), including signalling and station to station communication systems and ran one exact day's timetable (with fast time). The Toyoko line undergrounding switchover was the most complex so far including on the fly track modifications, using a recreated liftable ramp. Sometimes they modeled full networks for smaller private operators.

 

I've also seen some british modelers model one station's traffic in relatively little space, using fiddle yard(s) as the rest of the world.

[Pashina12]

What IST and kvp describe is pretty much exactly what I want to do eventually with my setup (but including waybills for each car etc).

[Ken Ford]

Operations is one of my major interests in the hobby.  I operate regularly on a large, well known layout that is run under timetable and train order rules - no “mother may I” here. 

[Azamiryou]

I'm very interested in operations, and always keep an eye out for information on how Japanese trains operate, with an eye to being able to operate my own layouts more realistically. Even in contemporary Japan with predominantly passenger traffic and with freight largely containerized, there's plenty of "work" to be done on the railroad.

 

The members of the railroad club I was in in Japan did not show much interest in realistic operations. With as many model railroaders as there are in Japan, I'm sure there are many who do realistic operations -- but it seems to be less prevalent than in the US. (And even in the US, my experience is that it is considerably less popular than the magazines would lead you to believe.)

[EH500 (12)]

On 16.12.2017 at 9:48 AM, kvp said:

Then there is this japanese group who in the past for every JAM has choosen a line to model and recreated it in full (without scenery), including signalling and station to station communication systems and ran one exact day's timetable (with fast time). The Toyoko line undergrounding switchover was the most complex so far including on the fly track modifications, using a recreated liftable ramp. Sometimes they modeled full networks for smaller private operators.

Do you have links to a video or pictures? This sounds awesome!

[kvp]

I can't seem to find their website atm, but i'm pretty sure i've linked them here on this forum a few years ago.

One video i could find from a JAM exhibition: (the section about the club starts at around 5:00)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=318&v=AecfDBDYdvc