Operations on the Pepper Valley Division
Overview
A typical two to three hour ops session generally has three or four jobs. The Pepper Valley and Roseville jobs are either one-man or two-man crews. Silver Lake and Bellows Falls jobs are normally handled by a one-man crew. Operators work near each other, so it is easy to talk back and forth to coordinate train movements. Each train moves in an east or west direction for the duration of the job. At the completion of the job, the locomotive and caboose are turned according to the train orders.
The operational paperwork is designed to be very easy to read and understand. Each job comes with a clipboard containing train orders, car cards, and waybills. At each town there is a track card showing the local track schematic, turnouts with ID numbers for control from the throttle, and industry locations with names and spotting numbers. The train orders describe the flow of the job and provide a schematic flow of the layout. A “Recommended Operating Practices” card and “Procedures for Special Ops & Extended Sessions” card are also included with the clipboard.
Each car card shows a photo of the car and the car’s color, road name, reporting mark, and road number, in an easy-to-read font sized for older eyes. Since the Pepper Valley Division is an N scale layout, each car is unique in its combination of type, color and road name. This makes each car easy to identify without squinting or using X-ray vision to read the road number.
The four-sided waybills are clearly labeled as “Freight Waybill 1” (or 2, 3, or 4) at the top. For operator clarity, each waybill has a minimum of easy-to-read information including where to pick up the car and where to set out the car. If any special handling is required, then an instruction tag is provided in the car card envelope. Operators may set cars at any spot at each industry location unless there is a colored dot with a number on the Set Out line of the waybill. The number on the colored dot indicates the car is to be set out at a specific spotting location referenced from the town’s track card.
Operators utilize Digitrax UT6D and DT602D throttles during operating sessions. The layout also supports Wi-Fi throttles on handheld devices, adding to operational versatility. Since 2-1/2 hour sessions seem most comfortable for operators, car movements are usually down in the 60-car range. If the session is staffed by hard-core, die-hard operators, then we’ll run with the full 80 cars. That may not seem like a lot but on a smaller 9’-6”x 7’-4” N scale layout that is still a three hour plus session.
