Model Railroading > Large scale flat switching.

We had a "fun day" at the Indiana Live Steamers today.  Our public runs start next week.  We have been working pretty hard and we needed a little R and R.

I set up a flat switching event.  Most of our members have never used car cards and built trains.  We had 15 cars to use for the switching.  I shuffled the cards and picked 5 or 6 cards and they assembled the train.  We had switch men, car men and a yard master.  We rotated the jobs so each could do different jobs.  

Photo one shows the cars we had.  Photo 2 shows the searching for the car to pick.  Photo three shows the car men coupling the cars.

They had such a good time we will do it again later this summer.

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Photo 1 shows a completed train.
Photo 2 We are located near a National Guard base.  They have a 9 track rail head. These two gentlemen stopped by to watch us for a bit.

Photo 3 the inevitable oops.

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One of our new member's other hobby.

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We have op sessions here in Texas a number times a year, just like the HO Railroads,
using car cards and switchlists.  There are three railroads that participate and each has about
100 cars on site to facilitate the action.  We use 3 man crews, engineer, conductor, and brakeman.

It is indeed a lot of fun.

Oh yes at the ops meet  here at Train Mountain its just like running an HO operations club event takes hours to do the switch list with just  a few cars.  And why is it instead of a car derailing its the engine as its the heaviest thing in the consist?  Lazy solution run a passenger train oh and the CSX engine is looking good.