Comments Q & A: Blocking cars in transfers.

 Ralph Heiss comments on my post about blocking transfers. On a lot of railroads layout owners insist on station blocking locals. Insisting on station blocking a six car local seems on its surface to be a nuisance.

However on a friends layout, Bill Meyer, a layout I find quite enjoyable, he has a local on which the first two stops are oriented in such a way that if those cars are not in the correct position it causes quite a delay.

The first stop is a Home Depot warehouse, I do not remember the second. These two stops are also within yard limits.

I often block this local in two halves. I set up the first cars as directed and give them to the local to work while I continue to work blocking the rest. If I get them all station blocks, “Good on me”, if not they’re only about six cars total anyway. The local can get their job done with out too much trouble.

As to the car floats Ralph mentions these probably should be blocked in a particular way because of the EXTREMELY limited nature of the tracks available when unloading. Delays at the other end, on the prototype, will amount to DAYS otherwise.

Finally Ralph mentions Oak Island transfers. My question is if a block is classified in such a way that all the cars going to destination “A” are grouped together, and cars for destination “B” are together, etc.,  is that enough? How detailed is the blocking?

Finally the clock. On the Atlantic Inland I have ALWAYS used 1-1 time, real time, no fast clocks. On a TTTO railroad one needs a way to keep time. 

1-1 time allows crews to use their wrist watch if the want. It allows the TTTO main line to operate against the clock. It allows YM’s to look at the schedule and KNOW they have one hour to get a train ready, or ten minutes! Fast clocks are artificial nonsense.

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