This is the kind of switching action I love to participate in. Fine job done by the operator. Fun listening to the yard herder, dispatcher, yard crews, helper unit. No question. You guys have a sense of humor. BarstowRick out.
I’m always looking for ‘op session’ videos that are both fun to watch and inform you what’s all happening. This video satisfies those two categories beautifully.
I'd like to remark that the radio chatter between the Silvies yardmaster and the train crews, also between the head end and helpers, and the Burns local calling in, are realistic and enjoyable. Also as a former employee of the AT&SF Railway Co., I really enjoy listening to the trainmaster. He thinks a lot of himself!
I never tire of watching your videos.. to echo so many comments posted prior.. excellent layout and ops.. your narration each and every time brings the action even more life. Well done. Thank you.. Tom
Thank you for posting these ops vids. I still remember running with "the James gang" a while, while, while back. Time sure does blow by when you're distracted by stuff you NEED to do!! I'll get back one day n get hold of you. Love your layout. It is AWESOME! JEFF KEANE
This is the first time I have watched a yard operation since I was a young boy and I got to watch them operate on the Milwaukee Road at Avery, Idaho. I would stand on that bridge and watch for what seemed like hours. was so fascinated! You guys do a great job. I like hearing what is going on while I'm watching it. Thanks for a great video 😊😊
This is great, it is definitely real railroading in miniature! I love it, " Okay, another 12 hour day on the UP..." When I see videos like this it really tempts me to do N scale. Great video.
No problem, I went to watch other videos you uploaded as well, definitely helped kill an hour and a half of work. My work stuff can wait until tomorrow.
Hi Dean - I love the "Oregon Joint Line" intro jingle. You have created a very realistic operations video and I like the variety of challenges that you weave into the switching duties .......... especially liked the reprimand related to the business car. Your layout looks beautiful in the video (and also in person). Thank you for putting this great video together. Mike
Thanks Mike, I personally experienced all those challenges during my time as a real yardmaster. Imagine you had plenty of "challenges" over in the Engr Dept as well...
Please more videos like this! I have yet to find videos like yours anywhere else. I love the stories, the realistic drama including that terrible superintendent guy. Please moooorrrreeee!
This was really enjoyable and inspirational for my upcoming n scale model railroad I'll start building this year. Still working on track plans and operations like this would be really fun to conduct. Thank!
This is a phenomenal video. I want to design a rail yard for my layout very new to this. And I was looking to see how they were designed and how they're operated this is great
That was really fun to watch! I hadn't heard of the Oregon Joint Line. Please tell me more about it. I learned about the Colorado Joint Line from Kevin's "Scale Model Trains and the Colorado Joint Line" TH-cam channel. Thanks. Cheers, Dan
I've now watched this video - along with your videos of ops at the other yards - several times. I'm not planning on doing yard ops on the layout I'm currently planning, but this is quite fascinating. And I love all the various "characters" you have on these videos! BTW, as I commented on one of your other videos, Superintendent George W. Thompson the Third needs to be taken down a peg. :)
great video! however I do recommend putting a some signals at the north and south end where the yard branches off the main line. This is way more realistic as train drivers often do not know when and where the other train crosses to track 1 and having them do real slow speeds is inefficient.
thanks for the feedback Bart. The mainline through the yard area is considered "yard limits" which basically means stop before you hit something or run through a misaligned switch (google it for the full definition). Yard tracks are considered "Other than main tracks" and carry a 10 MPH speed limit whether they're signaled or not (although I can think of a few rare prototype exceptions). As a 23 year railroad employee I might have a pretty good handle on what is realistic...
This is a really cool operation. Job well done. One thing at 7:45, I would of told that George W. Thompson Superintendent, to take a Flying Fuck in a rolling doughnut, and hung up on him. That would add some prototypical railroad language.
Hi oregon joint line ive enjoyed your videos time and time again i was wondering if maybe you could do a session on the emigrant turn with the np lumber and ballast love to see that Like what you did with the up local
How do you know which cars go with which trains? Are you still using car tabs, just not showing them in the more recent videos? Thanks for all of the work you put into your videos - it really shows and they're quite possibly my favorite operations videos.
Hi Adam! Yes, in sessions we use car tabs but I've pulled them off for the videos. A lot of traffic stays on the same train from one end of staging to the other end so there's never a need for tabs on those cars. Typically in a session I'd say about half of the cars have tabs. Appreciate your kind words - it's not easy squeezing three hours of ops into a 15 minute video. Hopefully I'll find the time to do some more this Spring.
Where is CK&S Kinzua? You show a brief shot of the UP Burns local on what looks like a wye, switching Kinzua, but I thought the trackage immediately south of Silvies was Humboldt Jct and Harney Staging. i.e. not place for Kinzua to be! Would be great to see a track plan. Cheers!
the junction to the Kinzua line can be seen at 13:27 - it's branching off Harney staging. This was a late addition to the layout as a result of space opening up when we had the new dispatcher's office/workshop built over the stairway. You can also see Kinzua in the distant background at 5:09. I've never actually done a track plan reflecting the Kinzua addition!
Would it be at all possible to get the radii of the curves in the yard? I'm working on designing my own HO layout, two hollow-core doors in an L shape, and I really want it to be, basically, a single yard. I really enjoy the idea of classification (and greatly enjoy your videos!), so I want to make that be the focus of my layout. Just struggling a bit with designing a yard on a curve. I know your layout is N-scale, but getting a better idea of how this yard was designed, I hope, might help me with designing mine. Thanks for any insight you can provide!
If I remember correctly the mainline is a 30" radius and then tracks are spaced at 1.5". So that would make the sharpest curve on track 5 at 22.5". The equivalent curves in HO scale would be fairly broad (41" to 55") so probably not do-able in your space. I would caution you that I have an HO friend with a curved yard and it's very frustrating because couplers will not line up on his sharp-ish curves (21"-25") - especially with the longer modern equipment he likes to run. You might consider running some tests with your equipment and the curves you have in mind before you permanently lay down track.
This is typical of eastern Oregon, the lowlands are often barren, the higher elevations are covered in pines and other conifers. In between is a transition zone.
Very well done. MRC article was great. How do you make it sound like you’re talking on a radio? Especially the chop sound when the mike closes. Do you just record it from some type of 2-way radio? Or is it an app? Or post-production editing? I’ve been trying to come up with this for a long time! Thanks for any help!
Dean, I’m thinking that as there are no tabs on your cars and apparently no card boxes on your fascia that you’re using switch lists to run your railroad. Is this correct? If so, and considering that you’re running some pretty descent length trains, do you find it time consuming, in terms of the setup, to use this method (if, indeed, that is what you do)? Thanks and love your videos! 👍
I do use car tabs, but I pull them off for the videos. The great thing about the tabs is that it allows me to completely change the operating scheme on a whim and set up all sorts of one time scenarios.
Oregon Joint Line Model Railroad Yeah, I felt sure I had seen other videos of yours that had the tabs on car system. I’ve only used that system once before and that was a looong time ago on an unfamiliar layout. I remember I was assigned a small yard and the tabs made it quite easy to do a decent job. I imagine on your layout, with so much yard action, that the tabs work really well. They certainly help you to assemble the train with sensible blocks.
appreciate your enthusiasm - the last couple videos haven't done that well. Considering the amount of time I put into them making more isn't high on the priority list at the moment.
thanks for your question. Switching is the railroad term for sorting, and the sorting process typically takes place at a railroad yard. A switch crew will perform the sorting using a switch engine - typically never getting over 10 MPH in the process. So switch engines are often geared for low speed with enhanced pulling capabilities.
Thanks Skye - the technology is greatly improved in the past few decades with the introduction of Digital Command Control (DCC). There's a "decoder" in each locomotive which can be programmed to specifically respond to throttle signals for that locomotive but ignore signals for other locomotives (that's the greatly simplified explanation...). You can now run several locos (or groups of locos) independently without having to electrically isolate each section of track. Even better they now make DCC systems that are radio controlled (like mine), where you can follow your train around without even having the throttle plugged in. In the videos I am often controlling three or even four trains at the same time by myself! Here's some additional information dccwiki.com/DCC_Tutorial_(Basic_System)
Oregon Joint Line Model Railroad thank you so much for explanation. Last I had a model train set, I was 12 and had to move and was made to leave everything behind except some of the cars and engines HO scale. Now I have a few cars but no engines that I have started to collect sense moving a few times. So I am by far out of date on technology. I assume these things can be Arduino controlled? Btw I love the format of your videos
I know it's not convenient, but there's a bunch of pissed off Carmen waiting for those inbound cuts to quit moving so they can inspect em. Leave 30/45 scale min, if you want to add challenge, have an take it longer for repairs, or randomly tag cars for your closest rip track.
Appreciate the feedback Patrick. The yards I worked in that were this small typically would not have carmen performing inspections - it was up to the switch or road crews to bleed, lace, and inspect. This was usually done "under fire" with no blue flag protection so it went pretty quick (e.g. switchman would start bleeding the inbound train as the switch engine tied on, and pull the pin on the first cut; or lace cars as they were being kicked into outbound tracks - highly dangerous but very efficient). We'd only bad order the most obvious cars needing repair and send everything else out of town.
Nice video.can you make a yard operation at the other because I have watched this video 10 is 2 hours it is very realistic and very interesting great youtube channel and layout.
Really good video. It gets right to it and doesn't waste time. And THANK YOU for not filling half the video with talking head stuff!
Nice layout and fun to watch video…love the “radio” audio
This is the kind of switching action I love to participate in. Fine job done by the operator. Fun listening to the yard herder, dispatcher, yard crews, helper unit. No question. You guys have a sense of humor. BarstowRick out.
I wish you would make more ops videos like this!
I’m always looking for ‘op session’ videos that are both fun to watch and inform you what’s all happening. This video satisfies those two categories beautifully.
thanks - really appreciate the feedback.
It's a trip. I do this with real trains for a living, and it's the same exact thing you guys are doing on the model set. I like it.
thanks - it's the exact same thing (or reasonably close...) because I also make my living working for the railroad including 4 years as a yardmaster.
@@oregonjointlinemodelrailro4125 wow i did not know that
I'd like to remark that the radio chatter between the Silvies yardmaster and the train crews, also between the head end and helpers, and the Burns local calling in, are realistic and enjoyable. Also as a former employee of the AT&SF Railway Co., I really enjoy listening to the trainmaster. He thinks a lot of himself!
I love these ops videos, very inspirational and very well edited! My daughter loves your barbershop-like intro jingle.
This is typical railroading! Hurry up and wait. Great humor, love all the action!
Very impressive yard operation. Your video is quite helpful for new comers into yard operation. Looking forward to see the main yard in operation.
thanks Anthony!
Thanks for this! What a great entertaining yard video. And Wildcat! I grew up in Helper so its awesome to see some home coal on these Oregon rails!
First time watching a yard sorting processes. INTERESTING. Gave me some ideas on my own layout design and operations. Thanks. Great show . . .
Thanks Douglas - who would've thought sorting could be so interesting, although it's really the decision making that is the interesting part.
I never tire of watching your videos.. to echo so many comments posted prior.. excellent layout and ops.. your narration each and every time brings the action even more life. Well done. Thank you.. Tom
thanks Tom! I put a whole lot of thought into layout and operations planning so it's been great to see the vision realized.
Brilliant video! really well presented.
Thoroughly enjoyed your operation, even the part, getting bugged .by the VIP movement!
thanks Ruben
Thank you for posting these ops vids. I still remember running with "the James gang" a while, while, while back. Time sure does blow by when you're distracted by stuff you NEED to do!!
I'll get back one day n get hold of you. Love your layout. It is AWESOME!
JEFF KEANE
theses will always be the best operating season videos
Always enjoy the joint line!
Love all the Northern Pacific units and operations!
This is the first time I have watched a yard operation since I was a young boy and I got to watch them operate on the Milwaukee Road at Avery, Idaho. I would stand on that bridge and watch for what seemed like hours. was so fascinated!
You guys do a great job. I like hearing what is going on while I'm watching it.
Thanks for a great video 😊😊
I love it because I am modeling both NP and UP !!
Great operations on this layout. I was reading RMC today and found out about your TH-cam channel.
Well that was a lot of fun. Really got a feel of operations on the OJL
This is great, it is definitely real railroading in miniature! I love it, " Okay, another 12 hour day on the UP..." When I see videos like this it really tempts me to do N scale. Great video.
Thanks - N scale is great for long trains dwarfed by the scenery, but reading cars numbers and installing sound decoders are more difficult.
LOL! I have enough trouble doing that in HO scale!!
Great vid, thanks for sharing. Very interesting to see how you run this yard.
Please keep making these videos.... I've watched this same video many times.... I love the way you narrate the scenes and even adding some drama
This was actually super dope! I normally hate watching operations video, but I really enjoyed the action, the voices and activity. Very well done!
Thanks Cody!
No problem,
I went to watch other videos you uploaded as well,
definitely helped kill an hour and a half of work. My work stuff can wait until tomorrow.
Hi Dean - I love the "Oregon Joint Line" intro jingle. You have created a very realistic operations video and I like the variety of challenges that you weave into the switching duties .......... especially liked the reprimand related to the business car. Your layout looks beautiful in the video (and also in person). Thank you for putting this great video together. Mike
Thanks Mike, I personally experienced all those challenges during my time as a real yardmaster. Imagine you had plenty of "challenges" over in the Engr Dept as well...
Very nice editing, let’s one understand your way of doing operations very easily!
I just absolutely 👍 love this layout !!!
I especially like the landscape. Very real.
wonderful display of operations, keep up the good work !
thanks Doug!
Excellent video I would love to see more!!
THANK YOU SO MUCH. I enjoyed this one very much. I hope to see more in the future.
Mesmerizing! Thanks for putting this video together! it's a great look at the ins and outs of yard work
outstanding all the way around ..... keep up the good work
great vid the layout and operations is looking great
thanks Gary!
Please more videos like this! I have yet to find videos like yours anywhere else. I love the stories, the realistic drama including that terrible superintendent guy. Please moooorrrreeee!
Fun way to spend the day playing around.
I would really like to work that yard job. Great operation!
Oregon Short Line-- Make Me Happy! Done!
This was really enjoyable and inspirational for my upcoming n scale model railroad I'll start building this year. Still working on track plans and operations like this would be really fun to conduct. Thank!
thanks, glad you liked it!
Great video. Can't wait for the next one.
Great setup.
This was entertaining.
This is a phenomenal video. I want to design a rail yard for my layout very new to this. And I was looking to see how they were designed and how they're operated this is great
Thanks Brian - glad to help!
i can't stop watching it its so awesome pls make more
very enjoyable, thanks for showing
Love the details
That was really fun to watch! I hadn't heard of the Oregon Joint Line. Please tell me more about it.
I learned about the Colorado Joint Line from Kevin's "Scale Model Trains and the Colorado Joint Line" TH-cam channel. Thanks. Cheers, Dan
thanks Danny. I have several more videos on my channel including a layout tour th-cam.com/video/OcSPatbpAG8/w-d-xo.html
I've now watched this video - along with your videos of ops at the other yards - several times. I'm not planning on doing yard ops on the layout I'm currently planning, but this is quite fascinating. And I love all the various "characters" you have on these videos! BTW, as I commented on one of your other videos, Superintendent George W. Thompson the Third needs to be taken down a peg. :)
These are the most entertaining videos! Just love them! Also just subscribed!
thanks!
awesome stuff! thanks!
Do the helper units actually help the trains or just for show?
nice video and Op´s ....
I like that radio traffic!
great video thumbs up!
New subscriber, awesome video. Thanks for sharing-Ed
This layout is awesome 👍
THANK FOR VIDEO AS GREAT DETAIL IN OPERATION ON BUSY YARD WORK OUT AS LOOK GREAT DETAIL LAYOUT BUILD THERE.
Love it! Hopefully I can get a layout like that someday!
great video!
however I do recommend putting a some signals at the north and south end where the yard branches off the main line. This is way more realistic as train drivers often do not know when and where the other train crosses to track 1 and having them do real slow speeds is inefficient.
thanks for the feedback Bart. The mainline through the yard area is considered "yard limits" which basically means stop before you hit something or run through a misaligned switch (google it for the full definition). Yard tracks are considered "Other than main tracks" and carry a 10 MPH speed limit whether they're signaled or not (although I can think of a few rare prototype exceptions). As a 23 year railroad employee I might have a pretty good handle on what is realistic...
Terrific video, Dean! Thanks! :-)
This is a really cool operation. Job well done. One thing at 7:45, I would of told that George W. Thompson Superintendent, to take a Flying Fuck in a rolling doughnut, and hung up on him. That would add some prototypical railroad language.
You always want to run trains through the yard!
Nice layout and good operation.
Is this N scale and what kind DCC system use for this layout?
yes, it's N scale. I have an NCE radio system.
Hi oregon joint line ive enjoyed your videos time and time again i was wondering if maybe you could do a session on the emigrant turn with the np lumber and ballast love to see that
Like what you did with the up local
I love this whole channel! I love how entertaining you make your operation videos! Definitely inspiration for my own TH-cam channel. Subsrcibed!
Thanks! It's a fair amount of work putting these videos together so it's comments like yours that make it all worth it!
Very Cool
This is awesome!
Great video! Is there an uncut version?
This is the uncut version!
@@oregonjointlinemodelrailro4125 I mean not cutting out the full trains rolling by and such.
sorry - it wasn't shot continuously - most of what you see is what I shot.
MORE... I NEED MORE!!!
How do you know which cars go with which trains? Are you still using car tabs, just not showing them in the more recent videos? Thanks for all of the work you put into your videos - it really shows and they're quite possibly my favorite operations videos.
Hi Adam! Yes, in sessions we use car tabs but I've pulled them off for the videos. A lot of traffic stays on the same train from one end of staging to the other end so there's never a need for tabs on those cars. Typically in a session I'd say about half of the cars have tabs.
Appreciate your kind words - it's not easy squeezing three hours of ops into a 15 minute video. Hopefully I'll find the time to do some more this Spring.
Ok that great layout
Where is CK&S Kinzua? You show a brief shot of the UP Burns local on what looks like a wye, switching Kinzua, but I thought the trackage immediately south of Silvies was Humboldt Jct and Harney Staging. i.e. not place for Kinzua to be!
Would be great to see a track plan.
Cheers!
the junction to the Kinzua line can be seen at 13:27 - it's branching off Harney staging. This was a late addition to the layout as a result of space opening up when we had the new dispatcher's office/workshop built over the stairway. You can also see Kinzua in the distant background at 5:09. I've never actually done a track plan reflecting the Kinzua addition!
how did ya'll manage to get that put all together and running
I absolutely love your operations videos. Which DCC system do you use?
thanks. I'm using NCE radio. Handles at least 10 throttles without seeming to break a sweat.
Would it be at all possible to get the radii of the curves in the yard? I'm working on designing my own HO layout, two hollow-core doors in an L shape, and I really want it to be, basically, a single yard. I really enjoy the idea of classification (and greatly enjoy your videos!), so I want to make that be the focus of my layout. Just struggling a bit with designing a yard on a curve. I know your layout is N-scale, but getting a better idea of how this yard was designed, I hope, might help me with designing mine. Thanks for any insight you can provide!
If I remember correctly the mainline is a 30" radius and then tracks are spaced at 1.5". So that would make the sharpest curve on track 5 at 22.5". The equivalent curves in HO scale would be fairly broad (41" to 55") so probably not do-able in your space. I would caution you that I have an HO friend with a curved yard and it's very frustrating because couplers will not line up on his sharp-ish curves (21"-25") - especially with the longer modern equipment he likes to run. You might consider running some tests with your equipment and the curves you have in mind before you permanently lay down track.
Thanks for the insight!
Excuse me but, do those pines match the desert-like scenery?
This is typical of eastern Oregon, the lowlands are often barren, the higher elevations are covered in pines and other conifers. In between is a transition zone.
Very well done. MRC article was great. How do you make it sound like you’re talking on a radio? Especially the chop sound when the mike closes. Do you just record it from some type of 2-way radio? Or is it an app? Or post-production editing? I’ve been trying to come up with this for a long time! Thanks for any help!
No Meal Period? This is real railroading.
Can you please do a 2nd silvies yard op
Like the trains
Muito legal as manobras !
Dean,
I’m thinking that as there are no tabs on your cars and apparently no card boxes on your fascia that you’re using switch lists to run your railroad. Is this correct?
If so, and considering that you’re running some pretty descent length trains, do you find it time consuming, in terms of the setup, to use this method (if, indeed, that is what you do)?
Thanks and love your videos! 👍
I do use car tabs, but I pull them off for the videos. The great thing about the tabs is that it allows me to completely change the operating scheme on a whim and set up all sorts of one time scenarios.
Oregon Joint Line Model Railroad
Yeah, I felt sure I had seen other videos of yours that had the tabs on car system.
I’ve only used that system once before and that was a looong time ago on an unfamiliar layout. I remember I was assigned a small yard and the tabs made it quite easy to do a decent job.
I imagine on your layout, with so much yard action, that the tabs work really well. They certainly help you to assemble the train with sensible blocks.
When is the next video?
Please make more videos, even if its just different dialog
appreciate your enthusiasm - the last couple videos haven't done that well. Considering the amount of time I put into them making more isn't high on the priority list at the moment.
What's a switch engine? Sorry im new to railroading.
thanks for your question. Switching is the railroad term for sorting, and the sorting process typically takes place at a railroad yard. A switch crew will perform the sorting using a switch engine - typically never getting over 10 MPH in the process. So switch engines are often geared for low speed with enhanced pulling capabilities.
It's been a long time sense I've done model trains, how is it that two engines on same track can run independently?
Thanks Skye - the technology is greatly improved in the past few decades with the introduction of Digital Command Control (DCC). There's a "decoder" in each locomotive which can be programmed to specifically respond to throttle signals for that locomotive but ignore signals for other locomotives (that's the greatly simplified explanation...). You can now run several locos (or groups of locos) independently without having to electrically isolate each section of track. Even better they now make DCC systems that are radio controlled (like mine), where you can follow your train around without even having the throttle plugged in. In the videos I am often controlling three or even four trains at the same time by myself! Here's some additional information dccwiki.com/DCC_Tutorial_(Basic_System)
Oregon Joint Line Model Railroad thank you so much for explanation. Last I had a model train set, I was 12 and had to move and was made to leave everything behind except some of the cars and engines HO scale. Now I have a few cars but no engines that I have started to collect sense moving a few times. So I am by far out of date on technology. I assume these things can be Arduino controlled? Btw I love the format of your videos
Is that N scale?
nice layout wich gauge is it? kinda looks to big for N but too small for H0.
thanks. It is N scale.
What is with the jingle in the intro
Do u have a big boy union pacific n scale engine
Is that DC or DCC?
North Coast Engineering radio DCC
I know it's not convenient, but there's a bunch of pissed off Carmen waiting for those inbound cuts to quit moving so they can inspect em. Leave 30/45 scale min, if you want to add challenge, have an take it longer for repairs, or randomly tag cars for your closest rip track.
And lace, handbakes, and air test those outbounds.
Appreciate the feedback Patrick. The yards I worked in that were this small typically would not have carmen performing inspections - it was up to the switch or road crews to bleed, lace, and inspect. This was usually done "under fire" with no blue flag protection so it went pretty quick (e.g. switchman would start bleeding the inbound train as the switch engine tied on, and pull the pin on the first cut; or lace cars as they were being kicked into outbound tracks - highly dangerous but very efficient). We'd only bad order the most obvious cars needing repair and send everything else out of town.
Wided that space where all the the trains stop at to make more room
Is this a N-scale group?
It's an n scale layout.
Am I the only one who can't tell if this is ho scale or n scale
Update i finally figured out if n scale
Is this HO scale or N scale?
N scale!
Nice video.can you make a yard operation at the other because I have watched this video 10 is 2 hours it is very realistic and very interesting great youtube channel and layout.
I live in Oregon
"Oregon Joint Line....." You need some more custom music Dean... "I'm a thousand miles from Oregon Joint Line....."