“Protect Your Back Watch for Slack” safety slogan in the yard at St. Charles
Real railroaders are inundated every day by safety slogans. This focus on safety appears to have ramped up in earnest in the 1970s with slogans appearing on all sorts of company publications, in shops, and on rolling stock like cabooses. I thought it would be fun to bring some of these prototypical safety reminders to the layout.
Safety slogan “Think Safety Then Proceed” occupying a corner at Mayflower
The first step was to determine what kind of safety slogans the Southern used. I found the best place to find them was just above the steps of a caboose, so I pored over hundreds of photos of Southern cabs, zooming in over the steps to see what slogans I could make out. I was able to capture more than a dozen slogans including the following:
“SOUTHERNERS THINK SAFETY”
“WATCH FOR SLACK”
“GET A GOOD GRIP FOR SAFETY”
“GET ON AND OFF AT SAFE SPEED”
“ON OR OFF CHECK FOOTING”
“THINK SAFETY THEN PROCEED”
“LIFE GOES YOUR WAY WITH SAFETY”
“SAFETY – GO FOR IT”
“DISMOUNT AT SAFE SPEED”
“PROTECT YOUR BACK WATCH FOR SLACK”
“THINK THROUGH EVERY MOVE”
“GET A GOOD HOLD ON SAFETY”
This safety slogan is the most unique to the Southern, so I placed it next to the Southern logo on the fascia
Armed with these slogans, I headed off to Hobby Lobby to pick up the closest lettering stencil I could find in the 3/4″ size range, a yellow paint marker, and a black paint marker – less than a $10 investment. I selected a few blank spots of fascia around the layout and used masking tape to provide a level reference line for the lettering. I just hand-held the stencil against the fascia, applied some yellow paint marker in the correct letter, and wiped the wet paint off the template. I carefully held a paper towel up to the freshly painted letter and dabbed it dry without smearing–this not only allowed me to move on to the next letter quickly, but it helped to created a worn and mottled look to the letters that I liked. Once the upper line was done, I measured and picked the middle point of the line, reset the masking tape for the lower line, and started with the middle letter for the lower line to keep things centered.
I decided to add the quotation marks as well. They appear on some of the slogans (not all), but I think it helps make it clear that these are pulled from somewhere instead of just being a random sign on the fascia. The template didn’t have the quote marks, so I used an X-Acto blade to make my own stencil in a blank spot on the plastic template. After things dried, I used a combination of the black paint marker and a sharpie to clean up around the edges. Finally, I used the Sharpie to draw in some extra stencil lines across the letters using pictures of actual Southern stenciling as a guide (for example, a line under the top part of the “T” and lines across the top and bottom of the “C” and “S”).
Ok, there’s one more project down that’s been rattling around in my brain and one less excuse to procrastinate on getting back to scenery…
This was a simple project that only required a list of slogans, a cheap lettering template, a paint pen and a Sharpie
This safety slogan is the most unique to the Southern, so I placed it next to the Southern logo on the fascia
Safety slogan “Think Safety Then Proceed” occupying a corner at Mayflower
This safety slogan seemed particularly appropriate for a switching-based layout
I put the “Protect Your Back Watch for Slack” slogan in the yard at St. Charles
These two were my first consist of Tsunami 2s and taught me a lot of lessons on speed matching
First, beware someone with 6 months of experience offering you advice… ok, if you’re still reading, I like your sense of adventure! I steered clear of sound decoders for years because I knew as soon as I started, I would need to upgrade the whole fleet to be happy, and it was going to be a huge investment in money and time. Other than a one-time fling with a Digitrax Soundbug many years ago, I really dipped my toe in the water when I picked up a couple of locomotives sound equipped from the factory a few years back, an Athearn GP38-2 with Soundtraxx Tsunami and an Atlas C420 with ESU LokSound v4. I tried installing one cheap drop-in sound decoder in an Athearn/MDC RS3, and that was not a positive experience, so I stopped for a while. Finally in February, I decided it was time to figure this out, so I did a bit of research and dove in! Here are a few things I’ve learned in the first 6 months and 12 sound decoder installs.
It’s not as tough as it looks. Not gonna lie, I’m the adventurous kind of person who doesn’t mind taking a hacksaw to a $200 locomotive, but I was SUPER intimidated by installing sound! What I found is once you’ve got a few basics down, it’s only a little more difficult than installing a standard decoder (which isn’t that difficult). The toughest part is finding a good space inside the locomotive to mount the speaker(s) while still leaving room for the decoder and other vitals. I’ve only destroyed one sound decoder in the process (more on that later), and I have gone back and redone some of my first installs based on lessons learned over time–extra time but no biggie.
You get what you pay for. Big surprise, this maxim applies to sound decoders too! I tried to go cheap at first and found a “great deal” on a one-piece drop-in decoder for an Athearn RS3. It even came with a speaker on-board–what a deal! Installation was very easy, but to me it sounded like a screeching lemur with its tail caught in a coffee grinder… the horn was tolerable, but the rest of the sounds were painfully inadequate and unconvincing. I tried building a baffle around the thin piece of plastic acting as the speaker, but it only improved the bass performance slightly with no improvement to the actual sounds. In the end, it was a waste of money and time, and that decoder spent most of its short life with the sound switched to “off.” If you love the screeching lemur decoders, I’ve got two more I’ll sell you cheap!
Following that experience but still wanting to save a LITTLE money, I tried out the “Econami” decoders from Soundtraxx. These were about twice as much as the screeching lemur decoder but still only 2/3 the price of a full-fledged sound decoder, so it seemed like a good place to start. The Econami was lightyears ahead of the screeching lemur in terms of sound quality (same basic sound quality as the Tsunami 2 series), and it had all the features I thought I wanted. After I equipped a few locomotives with Econamis, I splurged on my first Tsunami 2, mainly because the Econami didn’t have the EMD 567 turbo sound I needed for a GP30. Once I played with the “extra features” I didn’t think I cared about, I found that those features were worth the extra cost, at least in my “lead” locomotives. So what’s the difference? First, I’m very happy with my Econamis and would still highly recommend them for “in the consist” locomotives that use the prime movers available on the decoder (Alco 244, EMD 567 non-turbo, EMD 645 turbo, EMD 710 turbo, GE FDL-16). The prime mover sounds are, indeed, the same as the sounds on the Tsunami 2s. However, the Tsunami 2s have more noticeable depth and variety to the secondary sounds like valves, compressors, radio chatter and even toilet flushes. The biggest difference I’ve found is how the sounds correspond to the throttle and loads if you take the time and effort to really configure them which I’ll talk about later.
The tight quarters inside an Athearn RS3–the decoder is under the cab to the right side
Sound decoders are tough, but you can destroy them. I’ve found sound decoders to be tougher than they look, but they’re far from indestructible. They’re designed with either wires or soldering points that make them easy to connect to your locomotive, and I haven’t destroyed one with a soldering iron yet. However, sound decoders pack a LOT onto a little board, so the individual components can be small and fragile. I found this out with an Econami decoder I installed (poorly) in an Athearn RS3. I got everything to almost fit, but I needed just another millimeter of clearance, so I pressed the decoder down. Well, because of my poor choice of installation location, it forced a metal protrusion of the frame into one of the board’s components, and that was that! No more blue light, no more sound, no more movement, lots of heat where there shouldn’t have been… toast. So, be gentle with them, and don’t do anything to make direct contact with the frame or to put pressure on any single component. Expensive mistake but valuable lesson!
Take your time arranging the components in the install. The one decoder I fried was a victim of poor component placement in the locomotive. Usually the decoder sits above the motor like any other decoder, but it doesn’t have to–I’ve placed the decoder in the cab of a couple of RS3s because there just wasn’t room above the motor. The tougher trick is finding a good spot for the speaker(s). Most locomotives currently in production will leave a good spot for this, but many of my locomotives were purchased well before sound was much of a thing. I’ve crammed speakers in the long hood, the short hood, in the cab, on top of the decoder, you name it! A couple of times on some old Proto units (they filled every last inch of those shells with weight), I’ve had to take a hacksaw to the weight and carve out a piece of real-estate in the nose. I find that mounting the speakers to the frame assembly is more convenient and practical than mounting them inside the shell, but you can do either. Just make sure the speaker is sitting on something reasonably solid like a piece of the frame, or in some cases, a thick plank of styrene cut to go across the top of a truck. For attaching the speakers, I like to use 3M double-sided foam tape because it holds well while still enabling a little movement from the speaker so it doesn’t rattle its mount. The 3M tape is tough to remove if you want to change things, though, so I know others have sworn by servo tape.
Sound installations require a LOT of wires, so I’m careful not to make the wires too long, and I use liberal amounts of shrink tubing and electrical tape to keep the wires from making a rat’s nest inside the shell. I’ve found my wiring has gotten a lot neater over the course of a dozen installations, so expect a little trial-and-error here.
Basic mapping of a 21-pin connector for DCC (use at your own risk)
You can, indeed, hardwire a 21-pin decoder without a harness (but it ain’t fun or recommended). One of the downsides of the Soundtraxx Econami is it’s only offered in two sizes, the larger “plug-n-play” (ECO-PNP) board and the much smaller 21-pin version (ECO-21PNEM). The PNP is a drop fit for many locomotives, especially locomotives from the previous generation of factory DCC or “DCC ready” units. But it is kind-of long. The 21-pin is about 1/2 the footprint, so it’s the perfect size for smaller HO-scale locomotives where the PNP won’t fit, but… surprise, it needs a 21-pin harness which is only found in newer locomotives. I tried to buy a 21-pin harness, but they’re expensive enough that it effectively makes the Econami install the same price as a similarly sized, full-featured Tsunami 2 TSU-2200 series decoder. Hmm… could I hard-wire the 21-pin decoder? Turns out the answer is “yes,” but it’s definitely “off label” use that will probably void your warranty, and I would only do it in dire circumstances. For me, “dire” happened to be the cramped quarters of an old Proto 2000 GP7 and an Athearn/MDC RS3 (once I removed the screeching lemur). There are two tricks to this process: 1) know which pins do what. This was surprisingly difficult to figure out, and I ended up translating a diagram from German (the translated diagram is included for you here). 2) use solid wire that fits firmly into the socket to connect the wires. I bent the pin wire in an “L” shape, soldered it to the locomotive wires, and covered the wire-attached half of the “L” with a piece of small shrink tubing to keep it insulated from other nearby wires. This has worked great in 3 installs and has held up to >3 months of use! But again, not ideal… do this at your own risk.
Poor picture, but this shows the homemade pins connecting an Athearn RS3 to a 21-pin sound decoder
When in doubt, try 2 sugar cube speakers (and call me in the morning… no wait, don’t call). There are some real sound artists out there who have a lot of intelligent things to say about speakers… I am not one of them. If I had to boil down everything I read about speakers into 2 things it would be: 1) use the biggest speaker you can fit, and 2) use a baffle (the housing that goes behind a speaker). First-generation locomotive speakers were variations of the traditional paper cone design, but more recently, smart phones have ushered in a revolution in small speaker technology, and we benefit from tiny but impressive speakers nicknamed “sugar cube” speakers. Two sugar cube speakers take up about the same room as a traditional oval cone speaker, but a pair seem to provide clearer sound and slightly more bass, so I’ve settled on a pair of sugar cubes as my basic, minimum speaker requirement in most locomotives. I use the LokSound sugar cubes because they come with a nifty little baffle kit that includes options for a shallow or deep baffle and options to mount one or two speakers to the base. If they’ll fit, I like to pair the sugar cubes with the deep baffles on a single base, but the shallow baffles sound almost as good if you don’t have the room for the deeper sides. I’ve seen some 3D printed baffles to go with sugar cubes as well, and I’ll definitely be giving these a try soon.
Impedance mismatching is a thing, but it isn’t the end of the world. Impedance, a form of resistance, is measured in ohms like a resistor. Those real sound artists of whom I am not one have written a lot of great articles on impedance and why it’s good to match the impedance of the decoder to the impedance of the speaker. I can’t explain it, so I’ll take them at their word! A typical sound decoder impedance is around 8 ohms (like the Soundtraxx units I use) as are many speakers, including the sugar cubes. But wait, I remember from somewhere that if you run two identical resistors in series or parallel you change their resistance by either double (series) or half (parallel). No worries! unless you’re running your decoder at max volume, this is not likely to be an issue. For example, LokSound recommends using speakers between 4 and 32 ohms, so there is a range. Just stay safe in the 1/2 to 2x range and don’t get too crazy. For reference, I wire my 2 sugar cubes in series.
Tsunami 2 PNP installs on an Athearn Genesis GP38-2 (left) and Atlas GP38 (right)
When it comes to volume, less is more. Speaking of volume, I’ve found that on a layout with multiple sound locomotives, less is more on the sound volume. I usually set my master volume around 10-20% of the max output. I like to hear it in my ear at the volume I would expect to hear it if I were standing at the same vantage point (about 150 scale feet away) as an HO-scale person. I also take the time to tweak the levels of individual sounds to avoid letting any one locomotive dominate the room and to focus on the main sounds like the prime mover, horn, and bell. I keep the horn and bell pretty muted, though, as not everyone in the train room needs to know every time a train comes to a crossing. I set them just loud enough to be heard clearly over the prime mover by the crew initiating the horn or bell (to everyone else it’s an annoying distraction from their train).
Also, listen to the engine for a while and see what secondary sounds you like and don’t like and adjust them. For me, the poppet valves of the Econami decoders sound very loud and sharp and express themselves a bit too often, so I set the decoder to make these sounds more quiet and less frequent. On the full-featured Tsunami 2s, there are a myriad of secondary sounds. Most add well to the symphony, but I didn’t appreciate all of them. For example, the sound of a socket wrench is not something I’m used to hearing when train watching, so I turned the volume on this “extra” to zero for most of my locomotives. Other sounds like the radio chatter, doors opening, and toilet flushes I turned down so they’re barely audible. Again, I want the prime mover to shine and the background sounds to be in the background.
Configure each locomotive a little differently. Speaking of the extra sounds, decoders will come from the factory with a default setting for volumes and frequencies of sound. If you don’t tweak these, you may end up with decoders with “random sounds” being synchronized with other locomotives… not very realistic. I make sure each locomotive has a slightly different rate for sounds that can be rate-configured to avoid this and make the sound of each locomotive slightly unique.
JMRI Decoder Pro makes programming sooooo much easier. Decoder programming is all about configuration variables (CVs), and sound decoders have a LOT of things to configure! Soundtraxx uses a ton of CVs (like 500 for their Tsunami 2). LokSound has fewer CVs, but each CV can be used to configure multiple options by adding together the numbers associated with the options you want and entering the sum into the CV (it’s math, but at least it’s pretty simple math). You can skip a ton of this math and programming CV by CV by using JMRI’s Decoder Pro–it’s seriously awesome, and I never appreciated it more than when programming sound decoders! It turns programming into a set of selections on conveniently grouped tabs and uses plain language descriptions of variables instead of CV numbers. This is particularly helpful with Soundtraxx programming because each CV only controls one or two options, so its easy to separate them. It’s a little more complicated with LokSound because the decoders are “blank” and the sounds loaded separately after manufacture, usually by a dealer. They’re loaded as a “sound project” into the decoders “slots.” While there are some conventions on what sounds go into what slots, it’s really up to the person who designs and loads the sounds, so instead of sounds being conveniently labeled as “prime mover volume” and “horn” in Decoder Pro, you have to work with labels like “slot 1” and “slot 2”–still easier than manually programming each CV. JMRI and Decoder Pro are free software, and all you need is some kind of computer/DCC interface which most DCC systems offer. While you can use it with a stand alone programming track, I’ve found “programming on the main” to be a much better option for sound because you can hear every change in real-time.
When using lots of momentum, it’s important to know where the brake is–a bright red sticker makes it easy
Put the most used functions in F0-F6. Most newer decoders, including the Soundtraxx and LokSound decoders, allow you to “remap” the functions from the normal DCC convention to wherever they’re needed. Sound wasn’t a common thing when DCC conventions were set, so it’s not surprising that the conventions may not allow for convenient access to sounds. Also, the number of buttons on a throttle is limited, so you want to make sure the ones easiest to access (single push) are the ones you need most often. DCC is amazing, and I’m so grateful for those who made it happen for the hobby–they were brilliant! However, there is one unconscionable omission in DCC that I do not understand: braking. All decoders allow the programming of acceleration and deceleration (momentum), but some have no braking function so there’s no way to slow the locomotive down except to “e-stop” (ouch) or wait for the momentum to bleed off. The combination of momentum and a sound decoder is AWESOME, so I knew I wanted this and a way to easily control braking via the throttle. The sound decoders I’ve played with all have braking options, but the braking is implemented differently in each decoder. With enough tweaking, I was able program braking that feels right into both the Soundraxx decoders (Econami and Tsunami 2… not so much on the Tsunami in the Athearn GP38-2) and LokSound decoder. While sounds like couplers are cool, I decided easy access to a “brake” button was more important, so I had to remap my functions. As I use Digitrax UT4 throttles, all the important functions needed to be programmed into F0-F6, the only “one push” functions on the UT4. Here’s how I mapped them:
F0 – Headlight on/off (standard)
F1 – Bell (standard)
F2 – Horn (standard)
F3 – Short horn (standard on Soundtraxx)
F4 – Dynamic brakes (sound only, no braking action)
F5 – Light effects (gyralight if equipped, dimming if not)
F6 – Brake (complete with a nice stop-sign sticker on my throttles)
You need to play around to really make them sing. To get the most realistic sound out of a decoder, you need to really play around with it and make lots of tweaks (there’s a reason there are so many CVs). On a real locomotive, the sound is not tied to speed as much as load and demand. For the economy decoders like the Econamis, you get what you get, and the prime mover pitch is tied to the throttle setting. You can use function buttons to increase and lower the RPM sound, but who wants to have to control their throttle AND RPMs separately? Some might, not me. What you REALLY want is for the decoder to sense the load and other factors and change the pitch according to the load. The key to this is the decoder’s use of Back EMF (BEMF) which essentially allows the decoder to sense the load on the motor. With the LokSound decoders, the use of BEMF to control the prime mover sound appears to be native in the decoder’s function. For the Tsunami 2s, it took a bit more work to configure this, but it is SOOOO worth it! Soundtraxx calls this “Dynamic Digital Exhaust” (DDE), and it requires the tweaking of a few CVs, two to tell the decoder your idea of “low speed” and “moderate speed,” one to control the prime mover based on the difference between your throttle setting and current speed (this is where building in some accel/decel really helps), and one to tell it how sensitive to be to the BEMF.
By 1) adding in a good bit of momentum, 2) turning up the “speed differential” CV to full blast and 3)upping the BEMF sensitivity to about 30% of max, I get a locomotive that sounds very realistic to my ear. When I move it from idle, I crank the throttle up immediately to where I want the speed to be. The prime mover howls to life with a roar because it senses a difference in its current speed (zero) and the desired speed. The locomotive, still belching sound, then begins to creep slowly up to speed, and the prime mover quiets a lower level as the actual speed closes on the desired speed. After that, the BEMF helps it know if it’s under load or not, so it’ll drop back to near idle going downhill, and it will notch up if moving uphill, especially if its moving a lot of cars uphill with it–perfect!
Another tweak I highly recommend is the dynamic brake setting which can be done even on some of the economy decoders. For most model applications, you don’t actually want the application of dynamics to slow the train. You’re going to control the train speed with the throttle, and the “dynamics” are just ear candy as they’re presumably helping you keep the speed in check going down a grade. Soundtraxx has a CV you can select that will drop the engine sound to idle if the dynamic brakes are applied. I like this because when I’m heading down a grade with a loaded train, a single function button push allows me to drop the prime mover sounds to idle and bring up the dynamic brake whine while still moving the train at a realistic speed. Cool!
Speed matching is really important for the cool features. I’ve always been a “close enough” guy for DCC locomotive speed matching. This has served me just fine until now. I was so excited when I figured out how to use DDE to make my locomotives sound amazing in response to throttle inputs and loads, and then I put two of these amazing locomotives together in a consist. When just the the two of them were creeping along together downhill and their prime movers were screaming at “notch 8,” I knew something was wrong. Turns out, if locomotives aren’t perfectly speed matched, one is always pushing or shoving on the other. The BEMF in the decoder translates this as “load” and adjusts the sound accordingly which means notch 8 sounds for notch 1 action. I spent hours painstakingly speed matching locomotives to a single locomotive I picked as the “pacer” using 28-step tables and trim for each locomotive. This was time well spent as multiple locomotives sound far more realistic now that they’re not fighting each other.
Advanced consisting is a big help. Before sound, I used Digitrax’ “universal” (command-station) consisting almost exclusively. Now that I have sound-equipped locomotives, I’ve switched to “advanced consisting” (decoder-aided consisting). Advanced consisting has a couple really useful features. First, you can configure the locomotives on the ends of the consist to only use their headlights when the consist is moving in a particular direction–this is crucial for my layout where switching is common and the consist changes directions all the time. Also, you can configure most functions in any locomotive to respond to either the consist address or only the locomotive address. This allows you to pick a single locomotive in the consist to respond to horn and bell functions–I wish this could be configured to respond based on direction as well (the lead locomotive’s horn and bell are used and switch based on direction), but alas, this doesn’t seem to be a feature yet. Most importantly for sound, this allows me to program functions like dynamics and braking to respond to the consist address in ALL locomotives so they work as a team in both sound and braking.
Once you pick a manufacturer, stick with them. I’m not here to tell you which manufacturer to pick, but I will say, its a lot easier if you pick a manufacturer and stick with them! I heard this advice from others, and I now wholeheartedly agree! It’s far easier to make your fleet act in concert, especially when M.U.’d, if things like momentum and braking are implemented the same in all the decoders. While it may sound appealing to have a smorgasbord because you like one manufacturer’s Alco sound and another’s first-gen EMD sounds, it will limit your ability to implement consistent features and “feel” across the fleet. Having said this, I still use (and love) the one LokSound-equipped C420 I have even though everything else is Soundtraxx. Thankfully, the L&N train it powers is usually run by a single locomotive, so I just had to tweak it to feel and act more like the Soundtraxx equipped locos, but it doesn’t need to be a perfect match because it’s never M.U.’d.
My only LokSound decoder is in an Atlas C420 that runs solo
Every manufacturer has their pluses and minuses, so pick the features that work for your operations (aka “why I picked Soundtraxx”). You really can’t go wrong with the leading manufacturers, and you’ll find zealots and haters for each. They all do things differently, though, so ultimately you have to figure out what your priorities are. I hear great things about TCS WowSound, but I have no personal experience to share. I wanted to jump in, so I evaluated the LokSound and Soundtraxx locomotives I had on hand to see which I wanted to use on the fleet. When just listening to the sound, especially as it changed based on how I was operating the locomotive, I prefered the LokSound. However, when I began playing around with things like braking and tweaking CVs, I found the Soundtraxx was far more intuitive to configure, and now that I know how to use DDE in the Soundtraxx decoders, I’m able to get a lot of the same sound dynamics out of my Tsunami 2s that seem to be pre-programmed in the LokSound. I can live with complicated programming, so what it really came down to for me was one simple thing: Soundtraxx has a reasonably featured “economy” line that works for many of my locomotives. Interestingly, as I’ve gained experience, I’m still happy with the Econamis, but I will probably invest in full-fledged models from here on out because their extra features enhance my enjoyment enough to justify the extra cost. The Econamis will still have a home in B-units, mid-consist units, and units that only see service occasionally.
If you’ve stuck with this article to this point, good for you for listening to a rookie! I hope some of my learning points will help you as you make decisions and jump into the world of sound decoders. While I won’t encourage a battle of which manufacturer is best, I would encourage those of you with experience in this area to add some of your own lessons in the comments. If you’ve learned nothing else from this, I’ve hoped you’ve at least learned that it’s not a good idea to use a sound decoder that sounds like a screeching lemur.
Operations, in my own words, is simply the means by which a railroad – or a layout – moves things to the intended location while keeping trains from colliding over a shared set of rails. Paperwork is an important part of railroading operations, so it stands to reason that paperwork should also be an important part of any operations-oriented layout. No one REALLY loves paperwork, though, so how much is enough? There are as many answers to this question as there are operating layouts, but I’ll share what I’ve settled on because I believe it strikes a pretty reasonable balance and works well for a sleepy coal branch layout like mine.
Everything the St Charles Local needs to operate on the layout
My goals for the layout’s operations:
Replicate essential elements of the prototype’s operation
Make paperwork realistic without being overwhelming (and avoid tedious paperwork that serves no modelable purpose)
Make it easy for operators to work their trains like the prototype and get the cars to the right place with minimal training
Avoid creating any boring jobs on the layout (a dispatcher would be a boring job on this layout and thus would always fall to the host)
No car cards (I realize I’m tipping some sacred cows here…)
The first step was to understand operations on the prototype St Charles Branch. To help, I had photo captions, excerpts from articles, and some notes from individuals who worked in the area, but the real score was an Employee Timetable (ETT) of the Southern’s Appalachia Division circa 1970. Employee timetables are a critical piece of paperwork on the prototype. They list the scheduled trains for each line, the “class” of each train, the stations they run through, and their scheduled arrival times for each station. In a timetable and train order operations scheme, lower class or unscheduled trains (extras) must keep clear of higher priority trains in the timetable. While the timetable sets the basic scheme of operations, the dispatcher uses train orders for each crew to handle the details, telling them where and when they can work, what trains they need to meet and where, etc.
The Southern’s Appalachia Division dispatcher controlled far more than just the St Charles Branch, so a dedicated dispatcher for my railroad that employs 2-3 operators per session and no more than 2 trains simultaneously would be overkill. In the name of “avoid creating any boring jobs,” I wanted to see if I could completely simulate the role of the dispatcher in keeping the trains moving and separated without actually having a human playing the dispatcher on the layout.
Part 1. Moving the Trains
Employee Timetable
The Appalachia Division timetable listed one Southern second-class train each direction from Andover (the main coal-field yard near Appalachia, VA after 1965) to St Charles daily except Sunday (same crew with a different number for the outbound and return trips) along with one third-class L&N train each direction from L&N Junction to St Charles. All other trains, including the “St Charles Switcher”/”Black Mountain Local” mine runs out of St Charles would run as extras and have to steer clear of the scheduled trains.
Additionally, timetables list all the unique rules and procedures for that division including things like speed limits (20 MPH for the whole St Charles Branch) and instructions for working specific sections of track. One of the interesting sections in the Appalachia Division ETT reads as follows:
“At points shown below, semaphore signals will govern the movement of trains and engines. When track is not occupied, signal will indicate proceed. When in either position, stop or proceed, signal will be fastened and locked with a switch lock. When indicating stop, position will not be changed until train or engine occupying the track clears it and the crew of same restores signal to proceed indication.
West of St. Charles—located at the junction between Straight Creek and Gin Creek branches.
West of St. Charles—located at the junction between Bailey Trace and Fawns Branch lines.
West of St. Charles—located on Black Mountain main near east end track No. 5.”
I had heard about one of these semaphores from a former Southern employee who once worked in the area, but now I knew exactly where they were located and how they were used. This was perfect for my layout because I could use two of the three semaphores to protect long sections of hidden track (e.g., the helix between St Charles and Turners Siding), and best of all, the crews do the work to protect themselves on these lines without the need for a dispatcher or hard-to-model procedures like a fusee or flag.
Clearance card showing how many orders the crew has
Even with these semaphores, trains still used orders giving them clearance to run. Train orders give crews instructions and authorization to occupy certain sections of track and to meet other trains. The dispatcher issues the orders to the conductor and engineer of each train, and the orders can be given over the radio or passed along to the crew by an operator at a station along the way (this was the primary use of semaphores at Southern stations–to tell a crew if they could proceed or needed to slow or stop or pick up orders). I’m no expert on orders, but the two common orders on most railroads are the Form 19 and the Form 31, similar forms in content, but crews needed to stop and sign a Form 31 while a Form 19 could be issued “on the fly.” The Southern seemed fond of the Form 19 while the L&N seemed to use more Form 31s, so I decided to use both. With no dispatcher, I also decided crews would start their jobs by receiving orders telling them their clearances and any other special authorizations or provisions. The practice of picking up orders before moving the train is prototypical, but of course, the train orders were not enough paperwork for the crews by themselves, so the Southern (along with other railroads) required all crews to have a “clearance card” before departing. The clearance card tells the crews how many orders they have and the order numbers for accountability–paperwork, after all, is all about authority and accountability.
So, to get trains working when desired and to keep them from colliding, I would need a timetable, clearance card, train orders, and a couple of semaphores. The actual Appalachia Division Timetable is more than 20 pages long, but I really only needed the sections that 1) apply to the St Charles Branch, and 2) apply to model operations. I’ve created a very condensed, single sheet version of the Appalachia Division ETT which has a cover (having it LOOK like a timetable is important to me), a simplified recreation of the timetable for Andover-St Charles, and instructions such as speed limits, use of semaphores, etc. that would be relevant to a model operator. I used the exact verbiage from the Southern timetable in most places, so it has the “feel” and function of the real thing without requiring an operator to read a 20-page document before running their train. To give it even more authentic feel, I took the time to match the the fonts and formatting as close as possible to the real thing–this took a long time, but I feel it’s well worth the effort. While Microsoft Word or Publisher may seem like the best programs to use, I find it’s far easier to build complex documents in Microsoft PowerPoint where I can control text boxes and shapes better. By taking the time to match the feel of the prototype ETT, the layout’s timetable becomes more than just a source of essential information on schedules and rules; it’s one of many parts designed to transport an operator into the layout’s time, place and purpose. It reminds them they’re working on a piece of the Southern Railway, that their operation is part of a larger “Appalachia Division,” that they’re running a part of a transportation system and not a toy, and their train’s purpose extends beyond the modeled portion of the layout.
My one-page recreation of an Employee Timetable for the St Charles Branch
Train Orders
An example of my model Southern Form 19 train order
With the timetable in-hand, I now turned to train orders. Because there are very few trains running simultaneously on the St Charles branch, a single set of train orders would likely be sufficient for each train, and because all trains start at a “station” which, in reality, had an operator who could hand orders to the crew, it would be realistic to hand the orders to the crew when picking up the train. To create the train orders, I found images of actual train orders from my era online to use as examples for both the Southern and L&N. Train orders were often given in very simple and standardized language–easy to recreate and easy for a model operator (i.e., non-railroader) to understand. The Southern’s Form 19s were hand-written or printed in bluish ink on semi-transparent green paper, so I use a little color and underlying texture for my rectangle shapes to get this look out of a printer. I found some examples of Southern clearance cards and the L&N Form 31s in a book as well. Like the timetable, I took the time to recreate the Southern and L&N forms as painstakingly as I could in MS PowerPoint. The orders should remind crews they’re working for two different railroads, each with a distinctive culture and personality.
An example of my model L&N Form 31 train order
As far as what goes on the train orders, I try to keep it simple. The timetable mostly keeps the trains separated, so the most common verbiage is the train’s clearance between points on the railroad and the timeframe that clearance is valid. For inferior trains like the L&N’s CV Local (825/826), I’ll add extra verbiage like a reminder to expect to meet a superior train in St Charles and a reminder to use the semaphores for protection while on the western branch lines. I fully expect this verbiage to be refined as 1) I learn more about the prototype and actual orders used, and 2) I have more operating sessions and see what information the crews actually need to be successful at working and keeping their trains separated.
The scheduled trains on the St Charles Branch are “out and backs” which means they have a single crew and set of locomotives, but they’re technically two trains, one in each direction. This means most crews will have at least two train orders. The L&N crews receive clearance from the L&N dispatcher initially and run according to timetable on the Southern as far as St Charles. From there, they need to pick up a Southern train order to proceed railroad-west past St Charles and work the branches. I’m currently using a clip on the fascia near where the St Charles depot will go with orders to be picked up, and I’ll eventually have a semaphore at the depot I can set to tell the crews to stop.
A train order awaiting pick-up at St Charles
So far I’ve got a way to keep the trains moving and separated without a dispatcher–time to move on to getting the cars to the right locations.
Part 2. Moving the Cars
There are many ways to move cars on a model railroad including tabs on cars, car cards with waybills, and switch lists. The benefit of tabs on cars is the tab (like a waybill tacked to the car) follows the car and doesn’t create a need to carry a lot of extra paper. It also doesn’t need unique car numbers, something important with model runs of single car numbers a couple decades ago. However, for me, tabs on cars is not an option because I don’t want non-prototypical things cluttering up my models and breaking the illusion of reality more than the models are already doing, and all my cars will have unique numbers anyway. Car cards with waybills do a great job of moving a car’s destination from location to location using the prototypical practice of a “waybill” and providing additional details about a car’s lading. On the downside, they require some training (like when to flip a waybill), they require extra space on the layout/fascia at each town, and they require operators to carry a bunch of cards along with their train–I’ve been at operating sessions where cards went flying, went missing, or got separated from their car leading to messes, “mystery cars” and operator confusion. Additionally, the movement cycles of a coal hopper are very simple, and the lading and load/empty status are self-evident taking away two benefits of car cards.
Switch Lists
Recreated Southern switch list for my layout
That left me with switch lists. Switch lists are used on the prototype, either hand written or computer generated. They’re used mainly on local trains that will be setting off and picking up cars (not really needed for a train that’s not doing any switching). The switch list is specific to a train and tells the crew where each car in their train needs to go using the car’s initials (e.g., “SOU” and “LN”), car number, and some sort of destination designator. They often have additional information such as the car’s tonnage and load/empty status. The switch list is built by the conductor FROM any waybills or other routing information the conductor may have, so a crew doesn’t really need the individual waybills if they have a switch list.
On my last layout, I created a master list of every car on the layout and its destination (call it a “master switch list”), and I provided crews with blank switch lists they could use to build a tailored list for their train, much like a real conductor would do. However, I soon found that only the most die hard members of the crew would take the time to build their own list. For now, I’m building the switch lists for my crews and making it part of their starting paperwork along with the timetable and train order. I use the front side of the switch list for the outbound cars and the backside of the switch list for inbound cars, so crews merely have to flip it over instead of building it. I may revert to having crews build their own (or at least portions of it) in the future, but for now, I view the USE of a switch list as essential paperwork but the BUILDING of a switch list as tedium which I’m willing to endure but not push onto my operators.
To create the switch lists, I built forms in my favorite graphics program (yup, Microsoft PowerPoint) that I print out 3-per-page, front-and-back on thick tan paper and cut out. I found pictures of both Southern and L&N switch lists online (eBay is a great source for pics of old documents like this) and created railroad-specific switch lists for crews (L&N version below).
Destination Codes
A key part of a switch list (and a waybill) is understanding the destination of the car. This can be done in many ways as long as each destination is unambiguous. Because a train usually performs switching within a town/station area, trains are typically “blocked” to group cars for each town/station–this makes it very helpful to include the town/station in the destination for each car. Once the car gets put on the correct train and taken to the correct town, it needs some sort of unique industry identifier, and for industries with more than one track, a unique track identifier. While you can use long-hand like “Mayflower / Mayflower Tipple / Empty track #3” as a destination, it gets a little tedious to write out, so like many other modelers, I use short-hand 2-letter codes for each town and a unique number for every track in the town. Here are my town codes for on-layout destinations:
SC – St Charles
BK – Baker
MY – Mayflower
TS – Turners Siding
KG – Kemmergem
MO – Monarch
BE – Benedict
I picked letters that not only make sense for the town name but are also hard to confuse with anything. For example, both “Mayflower” and “Monarch” codes start with an “M,” so I chose a second letter that would be hard to confuse with the other name (i.e., “Y” is found only in Mayflower and “O” only makes sense for Monarch).
Track diagram and destination markings on the fascia at Mayflower
For the second part of the designator, I could have gone with a second letter/number for the industry and a third designator for the individual track within the industry. Instead, I opted to only use track designators since it still gets the job done and cuts out an extra symbol. So, for a town that had two industries with 3 tracks each, one industry would have tracks 1-3 and another industry would have tracks 4-6. For tracks with multiple industries on a single track, I use “4B,” “4C” etc. for each destination. For example, at the Mayflower tipple, I have a place to spot boxcars or flatcars bringing in material on part of tipple track 4, so this destination gets it’s own “4B” designator to differentiate it from the tipple. Tipple tracks on the prototype inherently have separate areas for “empties” and “loads”–because an operator can easily see if a hopper/gondola is empty or loaded, I didn’t include this in the destination code. I also created a unique track designator for ALL tracks that could be a destination for a car and not just fixed industries–for example, I sometimes use the end of the main at Mayflower as a place to spot a covered hopper, so I’ve designated the last 12 inches of the main as “track 5.” When looking at a switch list, each car bound for a destination on the layout will have a short-hand 3-letter destination code like “MY3”, or in the case of a track serving multiple spotting locations, “MY4B.”
I don’t expect operators to memorize these track numbers, so I place them on a track diagram on the layout fascia. Each town is clearly marked with its name and its 2-letter destination code. Each track is labeled near the turnout throw with its unique number. Each industry or destination spot is marked by a block at the intended spotting location containing its name and the associated track designator(s). In this way, an operator can arrive at a town, look at the fascia, and by checking the switch list know where each car in the train should go.
Track Chart
Most railroads also publish track charts for all their lines. The track chart contains useful information like grades and curvature, but it also includes a block diagram for each section of track with the town name and a diagram of all the tracks and their length–this diagram is often drawn in a blocky style using only 0, 45 and 90-degree lines. While crews on my layout don’t necessarily need to know grades and curvature, they do need to have a basic understanding of where towns are in relation to one another. For this, I drew up a simple little track chart of the entire layout for operators to use.
Simple track chart for my St Charles Branch layout
The track chart is laid out in “right = east” orientation and includes the town names (and short-hand designation) in the correct order. It also has a basic track diagram of each town, and I’ve depicted tipple and depot locations (depots are usually drawn on track charts, tipples are usually not). I’ve also included dashed lines for the hidden areas of the layout with letters that correspond to markings on the fascia to help crews better understand logically where their train is headed when they head out of the visible scene. The track diagram also helps them understand how to construct and block their train when heading west of St. Charles.
Blocking Instructions
Southern Blocking Instructions for layout crews
Speaking of blocking a train, prototype trains aren’t put together in random order but rather are assembled into “blocks” based on the destinations of the cars. Switching and local crews are typically required to block their trains in a certain manner to make them easier to handle at the next station or by the receiving crew, so I want to simulate this on the layout as well. Trains waiting in staging are already blocked by me before an operating session (you’re welcome), so the majority of the blocking for crews is for trains taking cars from the upper layout to staging. I could have just left the blocking at “Southern” and “L&N,” but I wanted to give crews a little more prototypical work to do. In addition to the online destination codes, I’ve got multiple destination codes for the Southern’s offline staging yard representing Appalachia, VA (pre-1965) or Andover, VA (post-1965). The loaders in the vicinity of St Charles loaded mainly two types of coal: raw coal for the huge Westmoreland transloader in Appalachia and clean coal bound directly for customers (routed geographically south of Appalachia/Andover) or to connections east of Appalachia/Andover with the N&W and Clinchfield, so all cars that aren’t L&N have a destination code APP, SOU, N&W or CRR to be used by crews to block their trains prior to returning to staging.
The Southern produced a periodic document called Freight Train Schedules and Blocking Instructions. This book has a page for every scheduled freight on the railroad describing how it should be blocked including engines, cars by destination, and caboose. I’ve created a similar document for my crews. In addition to blocking by destination, I’ve also included blocking instructions that place loaded cars on the head end of empty hopper trains and empty cars on the back end of loaded hopper trains, a common prototype practice to improve train handling on grades and curves. I also add a couple basic instructions for the crew to help them understand the train’s purpose and their chores a little better.
Part 3. Putting It All Together
So, in summary, a crew on the St Charles Branch needs a timetable for basic train schedules and area instructions, a clearance card telling them how many train orders they have, at least one train order giving them clearance and specific instructions for their job that day, a switch list telling them where each car should go, a key for each town labeling destination tracks to match the switch list, blocking instructions to get cars ready for the return trip off the layout, and a track chart to help their brains understand the arrangement of towns and tracks. That sounds like a lot of paperwork, but it really isn’t. First, the “key” for each town is on the layout fascia, so they don’t have to carry it with them. Most of the other bits of paper can be combined into a single sheet. For each train, I build a single sheet that has the clearance card and train orders printed on the left, the train description and blocking instructions on the upper right, and the track chart in the lower right. Now, when you add the timetable and switch list, the operator only needs 3 physical sheets of paper. This is still a bit much to carry loose, so I provide each crew with a clipboard for their train. Clipped on the front is the sheet with clearance card/train order/blocking instructions/track chart. On top of that is the switch list. The timetable goes into a plastic sheet protector on the back for easy reference. Add a pencil and an uncoupling tool (attached by Velcro), hand them a throttle, and they’ve got everything needed to operate successfully on the railroad!
Single sheet for crews with clearance card, train order, blocking instructions, and track chartThe one-page timetable fits neatly in a plastic pocket on the back of a clipboard
One final note, when using model paperwork, operators need a convenient place to set things down or else they’ll either leave it behind (bad) or set it on top of the layout (more bad). For those who’ve been keeping up with the layout’s progress, you’ll remember the fascia pockets I build around the layout between the staging and lower levels–this is why they exist. No matter where an operator is in the layout room, they’re never more than about an arm’s length away from a clipboard pocket. How about the throttles? When an operator is handling a train solo, they need to be able to quickly set the throttle down to interact with the paperwork. While there are throttle pockets all around the layout, it’s even better if the operator can just keep the throttle with them. This is where the throttle lanyards that allow an operator to just drop the throttle and let it dangle from their neck come in real handy–this is perhaps the best $1.50 solution to a $25.00 problem on the layout so far!
Conclusion
I’ve taken a little more time on this post because I want it to serve as a more thorough article for those looking for ideas on realistic model railroad operations. I will never claim to have “THE solution,” and there are definitely pluses and minuses to my methods. I do believe this method, though, strikes a good balance that gives the die hard prototype enthusiast or ex-railroader enough sufficiently realistic paperwork to make them feel at home while being limited and simple enough to avoid intimidating newbies or weighing crews down with tedious tasks that only a small percentage of people find fun. While I will continue to refine my operations as the layout evolves, this method definitely meets my goals and needs for the short-term. I’m always learning, so please feel free to post your critiques, feedback and better ideas in the comments section! I’ve also included some jpegs of the blank forms below–feel free to use these for your own personal use. The easiest way to “fill them out” is to copy the images into MS PowerPoint or similar program and create a text box on top of the image.
Clearance card showing how many orders the crew has
An example of my model Southern Form 19 train order
An example of my model L&N Form 31 train order
Southern Blocking Instructions for layout crews
Single sheet for crews with clearance card, train order, blocking instructions, and track chart
My blank Clearance Card
My blank Southern Form 19
My blank L&N Form 31
A train order awaiting pick-up at St Charles
Everything the St Charles Local needs to operate on the layout
The one-page timetable fits neatly in a plastic pocket on the back of a clipboard
