Complex Switching plans

 We hear this over and over again, the prototype does not like complexity. Neither in is procedures nor its physical plant. Expensive and complex track arrangements installed to serve a customer,  that might reasonably receive one car per week, are simply not going to happen. 

This is absolutely the opposite of what model railroaders, in fact, do. I’m getting tired of hearing, “But this was what the prototype actually did”, to explain a switchback that only accommodates one small engine  and one car, needed to reach an industry receiving 24 cars. 

I must be the only person who thinks that these operations are an annoying nuisance, and are no fun. 

I’m sure most of my readers, who probably have MUCH better things to do, are familiar with John Allen’s  “Time-Saver” switching plan.  While this is an enjoyable game, I do not think it was designed to be part of a layout. Traveling through a complex system of switch-backs in order to spot two cars at a time, at an industry that requires six cars, is, in my opinion, the height of annoyance. Bad enough when all the track and equipment functions reliably, it’s a means of torture when turnouts don’t work properly, cars de-rail constantly, and engines stop and start randomly.

I’ve even seen a switching district with two time-saver plans, one in front of the other, used by a layout owner in order to “Fully” utilize an oddly shaped space on his layout.

It’s mind-numbingly annoying.

I do understand. You want to get every inch of “use” out of your layout space. I am far more guilty than most. What I’m advocating is that we all build a “physical plant” that serves our simulated industries and is based, at least somewhat, on the prototype. Let’s make the switching demanding, but not a nuisance.

 

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