gunrunnerjohn posted:Big_Boy_4005 posted:House rule at my place is, one train per person at a time. Anything else can get risky, because my track plan doesn't have multiple loops, but rather a very long single mainline, with sidings. I can't just set the trains on autopilot and let them run.
Chicken!
We run two trains on each of the two mainlines for modular shows, typically that's only 120-180 feet of track, depending on how much space we have.
Yeah John, I'm a bit of a chicken, with engines costing what they do. My guess is the modular layout is flat, no grades. You also have the advantage of many eyes and full visibility from any point.
My layout winds around three peninsulas, then climbs or descends between three levels through hidden trackage. There are also turnouts that must be thrown to complete a loop. It takes my full attention to do that. If I'm alone, it's one train at a time, period.
Even with that rule, I've had disasters. I'm doing my best to correct the causes of those problems, but I always manage to find new ones. I had to do some track repair last Saturday when I tried running a new SD-45 counterclockwise around the upper deck. It exposed a rail misalignment at an electrical gap, which was causing engine derailments.
Last year, I managed to fry one of my favorite Atlas engines, in a nasty derailment, when I wasn't keeping the locomotive in sight as it rounded the end of peninsula two. I had forgotten some items on the track, as I was trying to do a test lap, then THUD and a lot of smoke (not the good kind). I'm still afraid to open that thing up to inspect the damage. I suspect I burned the insulation off a bunch of wires inside, before the breaker tripped.
Now back in the day, at enterTRAINment, and with my modular portable layout, I ran multiple trains on a wide variety of loop style track plans no problem. MPC engines were fairly cheap back then. Now new scale cars can cost what some of those engines did.
For the layout tour this Saturday, I'll have Patrick and my son running trains, leaving me free to chat with guests. Just two trains. If it isn't too busy maybe I could run a third. That would be a new milestone for the layout. The easiest way to add that third train would be to run two on the upper deck in the same direction following.
