This is the third and final post in a series about what constitutes realistic layout operation. I doubt I am introducing any new ideas here, but rather offering a summary of my own views. To sum up: my core position is that realistic layout operation means following the prototype.
In the first post in this series, I talked about layout appearance as one component of realistic layout operation. Of course the layout itself is passive, but provides what Frank Ellison called the stage on which the performance takes place. I pointed out that proto-freelanced layouts can readily be, and have proven to be, every bit as realistic in appearance as layout built with great fidelity to a particular railroad, place, and time. That post is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/11/realistic-layout-operation.html .
In the second post, I described some of the essential tools to achieve realistic operation, which are items of paperwork, again following the prototype. And for the proto-freelanced railroad as much as for the prototypical one, the many prototype examples of relevant paperwork provide us with the models for what we use. That post can be found at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/12/realistic-layout-operation-part-2.html .
This concluding post is still about following the prototype, but now I want to turn to the topic of actual layout operations. I will summarize this point as procedures. Here a common point that is made is that we can add realism if we mimic the jobs that people did on the prototype. And as with so much in modeling, we are of course selective in this. We certainly can’t or don’t want to include jobs such as boilermaker, secretary to the division superintendent, supply clerk, redcap, or even locomotive fireman.
But it’s important that we know at least a little about what the jobs actually comprised that we do model, and how people went about them in the era we model. This is not easy to find out, particularly as a chosen model era is more and more distant from the present. If you model the 1920s, there are certainly no surviving railroaders to be interviewed.
But a great deal has been published, in magazines and books, about prototype railroad jobs. For example, we know a great deal about operators out on the line, like the Frisco operator shown below (Kalmbach Library) with the tools of his trade in 1939: headset, scissor-mounted telephone, telegraph key and sounder in the background, while he copies a train order.
By procedure I mean how things are done on the layout: how trains are run, how switching is conducted, and so on. Here following the prototype, unlike the case of layout appearance, enters a realm known by us as modelers, and not known to other observers. Of course the knowledge of individual modelers varies greatly, but all of us can aspire to learn more about how railroads actually work, or did work back in the day we have chosen to model.
Sometimes when I make this point, I can see some faces fall in the audience, and I know what at least some of them are thinking: “Oh no, more research to do.” As a person who enjoys learning things (as long as I’m interested in them), I only have a general understanding of this reaction. But yes, this is the area where you need always to learn more.
I can remember a time when visiting a
layout for an operating session would involve the layout owner saying,
“Okay, Tom, you run the coal train around the layout, and when it gets
back, Joe, you run the passenger train in the other direction. And as
soon as he finishes, Ed, you run the reefer block.” Let us gently pull a
curtain over that era. This was not, shall we say, exactly what the
prototype did or does.
Instead, trains have schedules and more specific tasks, including local trains doing switching along the line, and such other complications as helpers, or changing locomotives at intermediate terminals, and of course meets between opposing or overtaking trains. Each of those changes makes operation more complex and more realistic. So yes, you have to learn prototype operations, and in particular, you need to learn the operations of the specific prototype you model.
I would add that it’s also valuable to get some flavor of what it was like to do the jobs. Though such reminiscences have not been extensively published, there are certainly a number of good examples. One I often quote, because I have repeatedly enjoyed re-reading it, is Vanishing Markers (by Ralph E. Fisher, Stephen Greene Press, 1976) , and the excellent Dan Rehwalt and Linda Niemann books (see my initial post about such books, at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/06/railroad-stories.html and additional books following up at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/06/more-railroad-stories.html ).
I should mention the two volumes of Working on the Western Maryland, WM Historical Society, 1999 and 2011). I show the cover of Volume I below, and next to it the Contents page of Vol. II, typical of both volumes in the variety of job categories that are represented. Most of these are individuals’ summaries of their job histories, but many insights into railroad work are included. (You can click on the image to enlarge it.)
So to sum up what I’ve tried to say in these three posts, realistic operation of layouts large and small rests on three foundations: realistic appearance, use of prototype-style documents and paperwork, and following prototypical job procedures. And common to all three foundations is the principal point: follow the prototype.
Tony Thompson
