Talking Ops with Don Irace - Operations On The MKT with David Heyde

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2:02My name is Rihanna, so glad you could join us. It's time once again for Talking Ops. And joining me to do that is Don Iris Don. Good to see you. Welcome everybody to another month of operations. You've been operating down there? I know it's mids the summer and I know a lot of your snowbirds go away, but you've been pulling some operating sessions off? We've been operating pretty much every week. Well, my winter guys and my summer guys, you know what I mean? Depends on who's around. One couple of guys, well John, he travels a lot. Jeffy travels a lot, so dependent on, you know, during the summer, that depends on who's around. And then I got like this, like three other guys, salted me that will come. So we've been average in about four or five guys, every obsession so far. I don't know. The only time we've missed is when I was, you know, when I was out, my surgery and stuff, I was in that.

3:03We've been operating every week back and forth, trying to go to Johns, back here, back to Johns, back here. Good to see you operating. It was good for, I got to do some operating as well. Got over to Niels Gofield's CP Rail Newport in Lyndonville sub. That was a great time. And in fact, in fact, I took a little bias when folks hear this. We'll already have played it, but that week I played the rewind from Niels as part of that to be able to hear his story once again. It's great to get over there and operate a layout. Speaking of layouts, I've been able to operate. That leads us to our guest who has joined us. I was able to operate his layout down in Texas. Oh, several months ago is, I don't know, sometime in the, I don't know, I think it was September, October, and over some time, I think it was in Texas fall. Nonetheless, joining us, David Hyde, David Good to see you. Hey guys, thanks for having me. Welcome to the show. It's going well and glad to have you here.

4:03It's been a long while since we've had you on the show. I'll share the link to that original show in our show notes. But that last time that we talked, we purposely stopped short when we got to operations, because we knew we wanted to bring Don into the conversation. So tonight, we're going to start into operations. But before we get there, let's talk about some big picture stuff. Just a paint, the picture for those that may not have heard that episode, or it's been a little while since they heard it. If somebody walked into the room for an operating session, having never seen the railroad before, talk about the railroad and what they're operating. So my layout is Missouri, Kansas, Texas, in 1987, specifically spring, May, May-ish of 1987. Right before the Katie was absorbed in the Union Pacific in 1988. It is a, I would call it a medium-sized layout. Certainly not a large layout. It's not a small switching layout. It's a medium-sized layout, double deck.

5:04It's in a one-car garage. I have a split garage, and I come and deared the one-car garage about seven years ago now and started building a layout. Mainly local service, three locals, we used three operators, plus the dispatcher, which is me normally. And I will also run a few three trains through the layout to get people off the main line. The Katie was primarily pretty much exclusively a single track main. We have a lot of sightings, and I make sure that they use those when I have the through trains coming through. But it's, we use Jammar Ice Switch List for now. It works really well, and it's very approachable for people that have never operated before. The layout is, you know, it's a double deck. We got Helix, and it's pretty simple. It's a point-to-point. Where are we geographically on the Katie on your layout? So I grew up south of Dallas, north of Austin, in a town called Waco.

6:06You may have heard of Waco from the Gaineses on HDTV, but long before they were around, I grew up there when Waco was a much sleepier town. That's on the Texas subdivision of the Katie. Minus highly compressed, so we call it the central Texas subdivision. And it's in and around Waco, basically from Bell Media Art, and then we go through Waco, just a little bit south of Waco, and then we go into staging, which is the next crude change point of Smithville, Texas. The portions of the prototype, let's see, basically, you're going to have mainly industry served that were local to the area. There's a little bit of interchange traffic with the cotton belt. Probably the most interesting industry we switch is M&M Mars candy factory, but it's a lot of grain, some oil, rock, gravel, aggregate, cement, stuff like that. So what's the total amount of industries you have on the whole layout from between one and

7:08the other? Yeah, I would say, let's say, one, two, three, I could probably count my head. I would say probably about 20 total at most. Yeah, so there's not a whole amount of switching. So this is the overall size of the layout, so people get perspective on it. Sure, yeah, it's 20 industries. Yeah, it's double deck, and it's 23 by about 13. With a side room for the helix, there's no industries in the side room. When you walk into the layout, the helix is right there, and then you go into the layout from there. There's one little small duck under to get in, and then you're in. That's pretty much, it's probably slightly bigger than what I have. It looks very similar to what I've seen. I haven't seen your layout in person, but from what I've seen online, pictures and video, I would say it's very comparable inside. I've got 12 industries, not space. But I've got two new jobs too, so it's, you know. Yeah, and my yard are not that big. I would say, and I may not have 20 industries, I'm just kind of off the hip here.

8:12He's doing in his head estimation of the industry. Yeah, it's good ball in here, maybe 15. Something like that. We'll dive into a few of them. The fun part is, and the part that most people can't see right now is that David is actually under his layout, talking to us. That's where he's got a little bit of an office and studio space. So we won't make him pop his head up and start actually counting. But we are going to dive into some of those industries, you know, M&M Mars being one of them that you mentioned. But before we start talking about those individual jobs, what did the prototype Katie actually do through this territory that you wanted your operators to experience? Well, we're some of the things that, as you picked up and did the research on your prototype, that you said, I have to absolutely have this on my layout. I really wanted to have a few small aspects that when you would come into the room, you felt like you were in the Katie, you were on the Katie. The first is I wanted to have an area right downtown Waco.

9:15There's the Brasus River and there is a large span bridge there. I have a slightly condensed to spans. And next to that bridge is the cotton belt bridge. And so I had that cotton belt bridge photoshopped in under my backdrop. So when you look at the Katie bridge, you look over in the cotton belt bridges there. And then you also see this suspension bridge, which was the oldest suspension bridge, west of the Mississippi for a long time, back in the background. If you look really carefully, you can see it back in there. And then stuff like the tallest building in Waco, which is called the Alaco building, which is a life insurance company, that building has been photoshopped into the backdrop too. But I wanted to have the Brasus River. I wanted to have an industry down by where I grew up in a small little suburb called Huat, called Davis Ironworks. So I have that depicted on my layout. It's basically just a gravel yard with some cranes and a bunch of iron out in a gravel yard.

10:18And then really, what I did is I went through the track charts, the, you know, where they call them the Z-maps or whatever they call them. Everybody has a click charts, whatever they call them. But I went through and I found the industries off of the charts and I tried to really just give a flavor of what those industries would have been. There's a scrap yard, there's an aggregate dealer, there's an oil dealer, all kinds of stuff like that, several grain elevators. I wanted to have all of those depicted on the layout. So when you look at the layout, you're confined by space. So you really want to make sure that you just get a flavor for it and you have these industries represented. So that was really my goal was to represent the Katie in that area, not necessarily to painstakingly match exactly what it looked like in that area. Number one, I don't have this space. And number two, I just want to run trains and get going and have something that looks nice and everybody enjoys

11:19more than really looking at it and making sure it's, you know, to a tee prototypical. So when you designed the layout, did you design it for operations or did you have something else on your mind when you started all this? Yeah, so this is my first real layout and this thing grew like like a bad nose hair or something. It just grew and grew and I originally in this garage, I had a car parked in here. So I just had an upper level because I wanted to be able to open close doors. So I could drive the car under the return loop basically into the garage. And so I just wanted a layout to run some trains, do a little switching. I had no idea how deep I would get into operations at that point. And it's like a, it's like a, you know, operations is like a, it's a great drug, man. It's once you're in, it's like it's like the mob, they're never going to pull you out. Once you're in, you're in. So I really, I got sucked into operations after a few years of kind

12:25of being bored of running trains in a circle. And it has added 10 fold, my passion for the hobby, you know, going into operations and operating in other people's layouts all over the country. But what happened is I sold the car and then I added a peninsula in the room and we framed out the side room where the helix is and then we added the bottom level. So, you know, most people that they start with the bottom level, well, this layout, it was kind of opposite. So are there things that I would change on this layout? Absolutely. But, you know, for I am in my life with, with, with children in my house, my kids and three jobs, it's just like this is, this is enough for now. So you use the analogy of drugs. I got to ask who's the pusher? Who got you, who got you hooked on all this David? Who knew who you blame for all of this? Oh, man, you know, that's a good question. There are several guilty parties here locally. I mean, speed, everybody knows speed, right?

13:27Yeah, Mr. Namibian speed. He would be a part to blame Chris Ackins, another guy in town that that would that would be to blame. And once you once you once you friend people in your in your area and they say, hey, come operate. And then you start to operate and then they want to come operate at your house. And then you make connections with other people and they invite you to other places and you just start to operate at other people's, you know, places all over the country really if you have the time. So it just, I don't know, it was kind of like a steady crescendo. It just kept, you know, we kept doing more and more. So, I mean, I mean, that's how it starts. I mean, when I get into the hobby, it was just me and my father, you know, and I just had something supposed to me and him and then my wife was a hairdresser. I told the story before and they're, they're Cosmos husbands were in the model railroad and they found out next thing they were my house. And then by the time I was all set in Dumbledore, all that, everybody else had 15

14:32operators in my house. Yeah. And I mean, I'm like, you know, after I had five operatives, my father going to make this thing bigger. It's just too small for five people. So we built a whole little layout on top of the old layout. And it does, it just explodes. It does. And and as soon as someone finds out you have a nice layout, it's like shark smelling blood in the water. All the operators in the area want to come and operate at your house all the sudden. They want to see it, they want to operate on it. And then they invite you once they've operated. So I don't want to say it's like a club or something. It's just you make friendships and and you know, you have these like interests and and it just kind of blossoms from there. Yeah. Don definitely qualifies as a pusher. He might he does, he does the stuff he sells, but he's also he's a bigger pusher than a user. That's for sure. So David, you now you're hooked on this whole operations thing. Talk about the changes that you make operation minded to the layout to be able to host and have folks and do the

15:35same things that you're able to do with other folks places. Talk about that process. Yeah. As I started to operate at other people's houses, you know, it was actually around the same time where I decided to put the peninsula in and the lower level. So by then I'd started to learn, you know, where to put switches, how to leave enough room for for switching duties, stuff like that. So, you know, as I built the layout, the top the top is it's fine. We make it work. The bottom is a little bit more organized as is the peninsula. But you know, I remember we decided to use JMRI because it was a fairly approachable. It's pretty easy to understand. It's just takes a little bit of time with the keyboard and measuring everything out and you know, entering the cars and everything. But once I had that initial operating session, which was kind of nerve-wracking, right? Because you want to have a good first operating session. But I would get feedback from

16:37experienced operators. And a lot of it was very positive feedback. There was a few little things you should try this. You should do this. No, you can't add another operator. It's going to be too crowded, you know, stuff like that. And they're right. And yeah, you just don't want people bumping into each other the whole session. But I made some tweaks, you know. We have a full signal system on the layout. It's ABS, which I think adds a lot, you know, and we tell our operators, he'd those signals because they're not lying to you. They're very accurate and we have resistors on all the cars. So if you leave a car on the main, it's going to give you a red ahead of you. So the signal system has helped. It's a passive system. It's just ABS. We have a lot of plans in the future. But for now, you know, we're making some changes right now, which we can talk about later. But once those changes are implemented, we have some bigger plans with the layout. So how many operators total? Three. We have three locals. One train upstairs, which is where Bell

17:43Meadyard is. And then I staged two trains in Smithville, staging to start. The two trains that that are start in the, the, what do we call the south side Smithville, those trains departs Smithville at different times. We try to adhere to a fast clock. It's, it's still working progress. But they depart at different times and they go up and they switch various areas of Waco. And then there is a one train that leaves Bell Meadyard, which is the northern end of the, of the railroad. And it heads south. It goes all the way through Waco and it goes downstairs under the lower level, do the helix, the lower level and switches what we call south west Waco, which is the candy factory and a couple other industries. That's the area that Ray got to switch when he was here. Oh, so that's the one I messed up. Okay. Now I remember. Yeah. I don't think I ran any signals. I didn't have time to do that. Yeah. One of the, that you mentioned is Bell Meadyard. And during that conversation, I asked you what you would change if you waved a wand and you

18:48immediately said the yards. Let's talk about yards and you're, you're feeling about them. And is that part of a potential change of your layout? Yeah. This is one of my rookie mistakes, right? And we all have these, these mistakes that, that, that we make because we want a lot of railroad, right? We want to bite off a lot of railroad. And I quite like Bell Meadyard. I like how it looks. I think it looks very nice, but it's a stub in the yard. And it's in the wrong place. It's just in the wrong place now. And why it's in the wrong place? Well, like I said, this kind of grew organically. And I added that yard thinking, you know, we weren't necessarily going to do the lower level yet. So I wanted a yard to start kind of the layout in. And now we have to kind of double over that yard. You have to pretend when you pass by at a second time, it's just farmland. It's not a big deal, but we don't really use it in operations. The yard itself, it doesn't get

19:53switched during operations because of the the aisles, you know, you can't have a guy standing there switching the yard while another guy is on the lower level switching. So it just gets too congested. So we, we, the yard is basically static. And I don't like that because it takes up a lot of room. You know, I have a diesel service facility in there. I've got a beautiful Katie Santow or in there. I've got a caboose track. I've got, you know, seven or eight tracks, yard tracks with, you know, lots of storage for a layout to size. But it just doesn't get used in operations. And I really like to have a layout when you operate it, all parts of it get used. And it just doesn't get used. The arrival and departure track gets used. And, you know, I can build another train really quickly, you know, if I need to, you know, while they're switching. But in an ideal world, if you have a yard, you really need to make it useful during an operating session. And I really think that

20:59in some ways, and you may disagree with me, Don, but you've also built many more layouts than I have. But I think a yard is kind of an advanced thing in many ways for a layout. You could just as easily stage trains across the layout. And just, you know, when crew change point comes, you know, they time out a new crew comes and that's where the trains are staged. And then you go out and do your work. And maybe you have one yard on the layout that's a staging, you know, if, if, but there's just so many ways to do it, I would say probably that would be one of my biggest regrets that I put that yard there. It's not bad. It doesn't look terrible. Nobody complains about it. But would I rather have like a big, would I rather have the Owen Illinois glass factory glass plant that was in Waco? I think so. That would be a really cool switch. And I just don't have the room for it on the layout. And that would be a great spot for it. So, you know, one of one of my biggest helps

22:05who you guys might have heard me talk about Bob Shable, he's kind of my right hand man. He helps me on the layout with electrical. And he has a big say because he's put a lot of sweat equity into this layout with me. And he's just like, no, no, we're not going to change it. We can't change it. He doesn't want to change it. So he just needs to listen to my last podcast. Yeah, yeah. I will. But, you know, we're in the middle of changing something right now. And it's going to turn out way better. So I want to go back to that though. I mean, if you're having trouble with not operating that yard because it's congested in that area, we'll adding another industry resolve that or we'll just compound that problem. That's a good point. And it may not, right? We would have to stagger the trains a little bit more. I have to really sit down. I mean, you really have to plan out your operating sessions. I think when you come in and you come to an operating session and it's not planned out well or it's not designed well and you're really

23:07struggling to get around people or wait on people to move out of the way. That becomes frustrating for the operator. So I've I've aired on the the side of caution or many of this these things, you know, to make sure that people have space in my relatively narrow small room. They're not running into each other all the time. They're not having to get around each other. So, but yeah, you're right. Sure. And who knows? You know, the yard, you know, on the opposite end of the layout is Smithville staging. And that's a really long staging yard. So our next plan after this current project is we're going to shrink down that staging yard and have a one tail track at the end for engines to go down and then and then reverse out. So they'll drop your train out, run around their train. And that's going to create even, you know, a little bit more room, either negative space or maybe another industry where the yard currently starts. So the staging yard.

24:11So how did you actually develop the plan that you have now? You know, I looked at the track charts and I and I kind of devised and I also just remember growing up there and also driving the line as I got older now. So much has changed in that town. And when the Union Pacific comes in and takes over a railroad, they pretty much take all of the old railroad out that's not needed. You cannot tell it's the Katie. There's nothing left that's Katie. Maybe maybe a few great crossings. But I would look at the track charts and say this would be a good place for this track. This would be a good place for this track. This was on this side of the main line. This was on this side of the main line. And so I tried to accurately represent that in some way. And I didn't put every industry in there because you can't do that. But I put ones that I felt like I had to have a representative car fleet. So I don't want to just have grain hoppers on my railroad. I want to have tanker cars. I want to have gondolas. I want to have

25:16flat cars. I want to have a I've got a lumber yard. I want to have that. You know, I want to have box cars. I want to have a good representative aggregate cars, corn syrup cars for the for M&M Mars. All of these cars, you know, I want to be able to have on the layout, you know, an off spot that maybe I can put, you know, a car that might be a little different than what you see on the layout. Maybe an interchange, you know, you bring in an auto rack on the interchange and then you take it over to the yard, something like that. But I really wanted to have a varied kind of car selection. So we weren't just staring at box cars or, you know, grain hoppers. So how does this convey to the operations, the layout right now? It was basically we really wanted to make sure it was space dependent. We did it in sections, basically. I have three locals. One service is Waco proper and North Waco. So that is one stretch

26:17of railroad. I had another section that does what we call South Waco, which is another area of the layout. And then we have a third local that does Southwest Waco and Troy. So basically we have these three distinct areas that we have three locals that go out and switch. So it's not unlike a big layout where you get the switch job, you get to do the local and you're out by yourself on a branch line and nobody's bugging you. It's kind of that way where we want, I don't want, you know, I don't want everybody to be on top of each other. So I just partitioned the railroad out basically into three areas. So for instance, in North Waco and Waco proper, you're going to deliver scrapgons, you're going to deliver mostly box cars, you're going to deliver oil to the oil dealer and you're going to deliver grain hoppers and a little bit of aggregate in Gondolas. And then in Southwest Waco, you've got lumber yard, you've got a couple box car warehouses,

27:22you've got a cement factory, cement aggregate factory. And then in Southwest Waco, you've got corn syrup, you've got box cars, you've got flat cars, all kinds of stuff, iron steel flat cars, you've got tractor delivery for the farm center, you've got fertilizer, all kinds of stuff. So we really tried to vary it. So when you get a train, you have definitely kind of an eclectic group of cars. You're not just delivering one kind of cars somewhere. So I'm listening to what you're saying. And I'm thinking, what is the time frame for basically how long does it take on operating to do these particular jobs at a pretty close at the same amount of time? Because I got some thoughts in my head that I'm just trying to, before I say it, I just want to get an idea of, you know, so our general sessions, they run about two hours, two to two and a half hours. It's actually more than you think, I've got some things on there to slow things down.

28:24You know, we use proto-throttles that helps slow things down a little bit. I've got derails on the industry. So they got to flip the derails, you know, that slows things down. There are some reverse moves you have to do. You have to run around your train occasionally. It's not an easy switch job all the time. You have to plan out your moves appropriately. You're not just going to, you know, do all, you know, trailing point switches. You're going to have to run around your train occasionally. There are sightings and you're going to have to run around a little bit. It does take some time. Now, some of my more experienced operators that have been here many times, they can do it a little quicker an hour and a half or so. And sometimes an hour and 15, you know, speed is speed. So when speed comes over, he's operated here more than anyone. He does it pretty quick and then I'll get him another train and he'll go out and do something else and he's going to quite happy with that. But these guys would never, I don't know, I think I've been to a layout yet where I haven't seen every operating same aisle. No, they do get into the same aisle. I try to keep that to a minimum,

29:25but we do have meats and they do have to talk to each other. And so there are times where one train is done switching and the other train is going to have to get off the main line and then we talk it out and we work it out. And that local pulls into the sighting and we let the other local buy so he can go back to the yard. And then if people are done quickly, then I have them switch their cars out in the staging yard and put them on the appropriate tracks. So they do get a little bit of yard work at the end if they want to. So I was, the reason why I asked that is because you were talking about the yard that you were talking about and how you think you'd have a, you'd like this other industry there other than the yard. And I'm thinking to myself, well, is it possible, is that possible? And is it possible to stagger them jobs where the guy that's wicking that industry I'm talking about is then there's not a guy underneath them and then he finishes up. Then the guy comes in underneath and does his work and the guy ain't on top of them. You know, is that possible scenario? I think it could be. We haven't thought of it that in detail yet because I haven't actually decided to pull the trigger to rip a yard out yet. But the thing is

30:30and in, in Ray's been here, but the area that gets the most congested is over by the Helix when the trains are actually coming up for the first time. We've tried to alleviate some of that. Also not having to go into the duck under to go to your Helix. We put in a camera battery powered wise camera, w, y, z, e. And then I have it streaming to my iPad and the iPad is mounted on the fascia. And so you can watch your train for any kind of funny business derailments, anything. You don't have to be out there to watch it. Of course, we don't want to eat the railments in the Helix, but generally there aren't any, but, but stuff like that to help facilitate people kind of staying out of the way of each other. But it's a challenge. I mean, and, and, you know, I'm sure Don, you would have some suggestions because our layouts are about the same size. But, you know, narrow, narrow or aisles can, can present a problem if, if you're not careful. But, you know, we try pretty hard to space out the trains based on the timetable that I give them. So what,

31:33what, what your aisle spaces? What is exactly? Yeah, the narrowest I would say is about two feet, which is pretty narrow. I would say one side of the layout is a little narrower. Luckily, that side really only one person is ever over there. So it, that narrowest part of the layout generally is just one person standing over there operating. The other side is about two and a half to three foot. And then the, the area around the curve of the peninsula is, it's plenty wide. So I'm going. So circling back to this whole Bell Mediard, I gotta ask, you, you, you, you, have this plan. You think that you could put an industry in there that you'd love, but it's still there. And you're not necessarily don't hate Bell Mediard because it seems like you enjoy parts of it, but you don't find it to be useful in operations. And you mentioned you haven't pulled the trigger yet. What's keeping your finger from squeezing back and getting this thing done? What, what is your big hesitation in all of that? What do I think to tell you? How do we get you to squeeze

32:41it? You're here. But no, mainly it's really good to know because I know, and we went through the, so that we did on changes. And we talk about that. It's not easy to do. So I'm wondering, you know, for you, what is that thing that that's holding you up? I think it's right now it's, we have a list, right? Everybody has a list on your railroad. And we have a list of priorities right now. We're replacing. And this is what I alluded to earlier. We're replacing kind of what I call the diamond area going into the helix. We had a, we had a return track that was not used in operations. Basically, the layout looped over itself at the top level. So if you wanted to run a train up, you could just run it around the top level and then run it back down without having to run around your train. But we, you don't use that in operations. So we've taken that track out. And then in addition to that, we, we were having some problems with kind of a tight radius. We were kind of trying to bite off too much in an area more than we could chew. So we, we expanded the radius and

33:45made a custom crossing, curved crossing. And so we've ripped out, basically the whole U, where, right, where you come into the layout and duck under, that's all been ripped out as of last week. We're going to lay track probably in two days. So we, we cut out all the foam excavated it all the way down because we, there were several issues with it. It was dipping. It was too low. We were, we were having issues with derailments. We were having, and this is a perfect example about changes. If something's not working, just rip it out, right? Yeah. Rip it out because why, why keep it like the amount of money that I had to spend to make this right really wasn't that much, you know, maybe it's definitely less than a locomotive, definitely less for a large section of the layout. So rip it out. And so we ripped it out. And it, the layout is not running right now. And that's okay. It's not going to run for a week and a half. And then we're going to have it set back up. And boom, we're going to be so much happier with how the railroad

34:49runs. And also how it looks, because I know that, you know, as you do this more and more, your skills get better and better. We have a saying in my profession, the more you practice, the better you're going to get at it. And it's true. I tell my students that all the time. And it's the same thing for model railroading. The more you do it, the better you're going to get at it. And so we're pretty excited about that. Once that's finished, you know, then we're looking at Smithville staging yard shrinking that. But maybe Ray and Don, maybe we go to Bell Meet next. Maybe those are the big things, right? And, and I think a lot of people are like, well, I just need a bigger room. I just need a bigger room. No, I don't think you do. You don't. You just need, you need to feel like it's Europe. You just, it just gets burned and then they rebuild. And it's different. And they've gone through lots of wars there. And things change. And, you know, you have the cathedral next to this modern building made out of shipping containers. And that's just how it goes. But I think your layout

35:52can do that. It can evolve over time. And so I'm not saying it's not going to happen. It probably is going to happen. One of the biggest eye opening experiences for me, I was at the St. Louis RPM. And I went and I spoke with Alan Bell, who runs a control train component. He builds those beautiful CTC panels. And, and I really was interested, right? Because the part of the Katie was CTC. Not necessarily my area, but, you know, maybe I can change areas. These are beautiful panels. So I, he's like, can you sketch out your layout for me? And I sketch it out. And he's like, well, you can't, you can't do that. You can't do this. This, this doesn't fit here. You can't have this loop coming back on itself, you know? And so after I, I thought about it, and I wasn't disappointed or anything because I wanted to, the constructive, and he was very nice about it. But the constructive feedback. I went home and I thought about it. And that was one of the reasons why we tore out this return loop because it's just not, not a real railroad. You're not going to have that return

36:53loop there. So, you know, but then I started looking at it. And I was like, this is not really in good chronological order. And that yard is really not in the right place. And so that was one of the first kind of light bulb moments for me that I thought, that's probably going to eventually have to come out. And so that's okay. You know, it's, it's just track and switches and, and, you know, that stuff, some of it we can reuse. But I, I feel like, you know, the layout is just like how I build it organically. It can change organically too. And if that means you have to rip out, you know, a large section of it, you just do it. You seem like someone who really thrives on feedback. And you mentioned in our first episode that you'll have operators, you'll sit down after a session, you'll talk about that, talk about getting that feedback from operating sessions that helps lead to these projects and how you're able to take that information and apply it.

37:57Yeah, I remember the first time someone gave me feedback. It's like, you need clips right here. You need clips. And, and so I was kind of taking a back like, geez, okay, you know, it's kind of gruff. And this was an older gentleman. And, and, and, but you know, you know, what we did. You know, I thought about it. I was like, okay, we need clips. We need to have clips to hold the clip boards here. If they want to have their clip board, you know, on the fascia. So, all right, let's add clips. And I think even something as little as that where you go on Amazon and you spend 10 bucks and you have clips on the layout to help the operators. That's great. That's fine. And I'm in a business where I'm told how to do things all the time. And I have to tell my students that all the time too. And so you can't take it personally. You, you have to say, okay, I'll do that. I guess that's, and you don't have to always agree with it either. We're always taught when someone's, when the, when the boss says something to you, you just nod and say, yes, even if you're kind of,

39:00you know, saying something else under your breath. And I think that's kind of what you have to do sometimes as a layout owner. You say, okay, and then, and then you think about it. And a lot of times these experienced operators have operated a lot of places and they've seen the best layouts in the country. And a lot of times they're right about what you, what you should change. And it's okay. This is, you don't have to be perfect, man. It's, it's just like you go with the flow. And if something's not working, if something's not great yet, that's okay. Just, just work on it and think about it. And to make changes. I mean, you know, I gotta say, I have no issues with my operators coming up with other ideas of stuff to me we should do. I mean, recently, I've had a couple and we've done it. We've implemented those changes, you know, which I know in back of my mind, I should have done it in the beginning. It should have been done the way it is now before. But I, you know, I, I say

40:02it all the time that that that operator's feedback that a host has probably one of the best things a host could have, you know, because sometimes you just need another pair of eyes to see what you can't see. You know what I mean? Because I know layout, you operate on your layout, right? You operate. Well, sometimes there's guys out there that do not operate on their layouts. They have six, seven, 10, 15 guys over there. But all they do is walk around, you know, looking and see what everybody's doing. So they're just grabbing a throttle and having some fun, you know. And sometimes those guys, the problem is they don't see what the operator's see and the issues that it's there. And it's just a suggestion to try to help. I mean, if you don't make the operators happy, they're not going to come back. Yep. That's right. That's right. That's right. The nutshell. If I'm not happy coming to you, ho, layout, and I didn't have fun, well, Dave, nice knowing you, you know, that's just the way it is, you know, because I'm not going to travel all that way.

41:03They're not have a good time. So that's never happened to me. I've, have you laid I've ever been to? I've had a great time. Yeah, that I come up with some ideas that maybe, and I might have passed some of them along. I don't pass them all along. I might pass some of them along. And most of the time is when I get home, I'll just send an email. I'll say, you know, thank you for having me. I really enjoy myself. I was over here, you know, and I was having trouble with this, you know, and maybe you might want to try doing this. And then that's just a suggestion. They don't have to do anything. You know what I mean? That's right. But feedback is a good thing in this hobby. It is absolutely. And it's funny, you know, I, I've been very lucky and privileged to be able to go to Denver area and operate at John Parker's BNS have this full river subdivision, right? It's an incredible layout. I mean, it's, it's just incredible. And I've been there four or five times now. And we finish a session. The sessions are four hours. And you finish a session. And I feel like I could operate another four hours. But he says to everyone, he gets a crack. There's

42:06everybody together at the end. And last time I was there was 21 of us. And he says, now, were there any, any problems, any suggestions, anything I need to know about, you know, and we're all just like, are you kidding me? But even he will take those suggestions. He will take, he wants to know if anything didn't work out well. And I mean, that, that, that just, that just, to me, solidifies what we're talking about here because someone at that level that still wants feedback that, that should be enough for everyone to go that direction. And, and I definitely, you know, I've had, I'm lucky enough to be in Dallas for worth. And of course, BNSF is based here. And I have a lot of friends that work for the BNSF that are dispatchers. And they will come over or they were executives for the BNSF. And they'll come over and like, guys, come on, tell me, you know, what do we need to change here? Please tell me, I want to know like, do I, should I do timetable trainwrecks? You know, they're like, no, no, it's fine. You know, it's fine. Should I do track warrants? Well, you can maybe do track

43:10warrants, but you know, I don't think the Katie, you know, they didn't have track warrants. You know, but they're so nice about it. And they have fun when they're here. And, and I think that's really great. You know, but I actually want them to tell me like this sucks, but, but they, they won't do it. They're too nice about it. So we'll have me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You hear it. You'll hear it from there. But you're going back to John Parker. And you mentioned that the feedback that he craves and continuously gets. And I would say isn't that probably the reason why it's also so great is because he's responsive to those operators. Absolutely. Yep. I've had the opportunity to operate on John's layout. And it's just totally incredible experience. It runs like it's wise. I had my only suggestion would be that it's in Colorado. And it needs to be more on the floor. Yeah. Well, I'd say up here, right? And you just get that picked the whole thing up and move it out here. But no, it's a phenomenal layout. But going back to that feedback. So David, talk about some of the feedback. Otherwise, that you've received that you've obviously

44:14are soliciting that advice. What's some real solid advice you've received from operators? I think most people, you know, most people are so nice. I mean, they've told me little things like, hey, you know, this car is doing this. This car is doing that. But they don't never tell me like, you know, your office is not working. You can't do it this way. And I'll get little things from people. You know, they'll agree with me when I say something like, yeah, I don't think that's worked. Like, yeah, you could probably change that. You know, people are very polite when they come to your house generally. I've had a few grumpy people. But, you know, when I have a really experienced operator come, you know, by and large, they just want to have fun. You know, I feel like operations is, you know, you want to have fun and be serious about it. But part of you wants to, everybody's kind of like drink a beer and joke around and have a good time. But at the same time, you know, till the point where you're still being fairly serious about getting your job done.

45:14So it's like golf. If it's like golf, if I can have to go out and play golf and be serious, I ain't having fun. Exactly. If I want to shoot a wormburn across the court, now I'm having fun. The real laughing, having a beer and everything. But you got to have fun. And that's what this is all about. You know, and I mean, those guys that say this stuff, that those guys come back, they all out. Everybody always wants to come back. Everybody's a fine. I don't have any operations. Good. Feeling a roster. Yeah, I have no problem. You know, not mainly because it's a small layout. But it's, you know, everybody has a good time. I have drinks here. I have snacks sometimes. And I like to, I like to operate around a meal. So maybe we operate for two hours and we go out and, you know, have a good time and get some Mexican food. That's exactly what we did. We actually had the Mexican food first. Then we went and operated and had a great time. Yeah, I think it's also part of feedback. I think that many experienced operators are ones that will

46:15hold back their feedback until they've operated at a multitude of times. I know I'm one of them. I know Don will have a few comments. But you know, when you operate, you need to see it two, three, four times run different jobs to really start to provide a lot of that feedback. I jokingly and only half jokingly say, I also don't give feedback on the first time because I'm also trying to set myself up for another invite so I can see it a second time and third time and solicit that. But I think that may also be it that just, you know, getting folks in front of it and seeing it a multitude of times. Or the fact that it really is good. And maybe it's just a thing where, you know, you're looking for improvement. But there may not be a whole lot you've done a really good job by the sounds of it. I know I had a great time. I think it's, I think it's a good first effort. I'll give you that. And I think there's once you start to operate it on masterpieces, like Johns and other places that I've also been to Niels Kofields. And you know, once you see some

47:18of these other rare roads, you start to, you know, the wheels start turning, right? And you start having these, okay, I should have done that or I could do that next time. I'm going to do this next time. And so you start to improve in your mind about what your layout should be. And that's why you know, we're talking about maybe ripping out stuff because we want, we want it, we want, we crave that, you know, we want to just keep getting better. It's like everything else. We strive for perfection. We strive for not perfection, but for really a high accomplished layout. And I think you want, you want your layout to be well regarded, not just in your city, but nationally. And, and, and you want people to have a lot of fun when they come. And so I think it, it's okay to rip things out. It's okay to take that criticism. And it's okay to ask for it too. Like, like Don, come on, man, be honest with me, you know, and, and, and get Don to, you know, shoot some bullets at

48:23me. So, and that, and that would be good. It doesn't, it doesn't really take that much to get at it. It just, you just say, hi Don, welcome. That's all you need to say. And you'll get, you'll get, but it's, it's all good feedback. And it's, and it's from experience. But I think it will make you feel better to know that your layout actually inspires and inspires me because you see what you're able to do in the space that you've been allotted. And you've done a fantastic job. You really have. And I had to, like I said, a great time. But I think that's all part of it. You see these other layouts and they're influential and you want to have yours, but just know yours is influential as well. Well, thank you. I, I, I, I really want operations to be approachable. I think a lot of people in our hobby are kind of scared of it sometimes. They, and I think they may be they've been to an operating session. And it's a lot of information the first time, especially if you don't know their system. And I've really tried to make it very approachable for people that come for the first time

49:27that have never operated before that, that, you know, just follow the switch list. It's going to be super easy. And, and it's kind of what I call intro to operations. And, and just, and then I also want to make it also at least more difficult enough to where the experience operator's still having a good time with some little bit more complex switching. I mean, so I'm going to say this, you can, you can't compare, say, John, pocket layout to your layout because or anything. Or any layout. Not my layout, because when a first time operator comes into your, you comes into your, your operation, they have, they have the same clueless thought that they do when they go to anybody's layout. They don't know what your operation is. They don't know how it works. It's a learning curve for them. And you're going to learn it. I mean, I've been to this thousands of times and all the layouts I've ever going to. I've never walked in to a new layout like, well, you'll just look at it. And it's like, hmm, geez, I was just going to work. You know, I mean,

50:28it doesn't do, but you don't know. You know, that once, that once you start getting into it, it just kind of just does it. You know what I mean? And it works. So you happen to get time. You start to understand it. You know, the pen that would you use for cod forwarding systems or use switchless or carcads or, or whatnot using what ops code as that was I would you're using the JMI. JMI. Yep. So now, so now I'm starting, I'm starting to, until I have switchless and I have my own switchless in Excel. But now I'm starting, I'm starting to wean into that because there's a guy one of John's friends, Mike O'Neill and he's helping me. He's helping me with that. I call him Rodney Black, Jr. Because Rodney is the king of the ex cats and this kid is Rodney. Yeah. And I think I've met, I think I've met him too. And he's a good kid and he's smart and he really, he's really helped me. I mean, he's helped me a lot. So because I mean, I can, I'm good with the physical on hand stuff. You know what I mean? I can come up with a scenario, I can build stuff, I can do electronics,

51:32electricity, I can do awesome. When it comes to trying to figure out how to set ops pro up, I just go, well, you know what I mean? I just can't, I don't forget, I'm lost. I'm already on my tent try with that ops pro. But now I got something to help me. And then I just found out what my operations just did it. So now I got two guys to help me. So I always solicit help for stuff that I struggle in, you know, is we all struggle somewhere. And I don't know everything. You know, but like I said, you're, you're layout to me would be, I miss the opportunity to come to you layout. I'm doing the convention. And hopefully I'm going to get back there again once, when you guys have that, but every, every two year, three year, it's coming up this weekend. Yeah, it's coming up this fall. I should have said this, it's the Halloween weekend. Because me and Mark have a talk about where we're going to fly. Because we went to Colorado for Rocky ops. And now we're going to figure out where we're going to go for the next time. But, no, I'm, you know, I'm sure you're doing the right thing, you know, as far as making changes,

52:37you've got to prioritize that stuff. You know, I mean, I made changes on my layout in the last month or so that I should have done months ago. And we, and we tried it for the first time this past year. You know, it was like, and God, this is done because it's so much nicer now, you know, I mean, I actually have another place to put a train around a train, rather than just one place. David, last time we talked, you called your layout a learning layout. And now I'm starting to think that also applies to operations as well and the things that you've learned. As your definition of a good operating session changed since you first started hosting them. Yes and no. You know, you want, for me, a good operating session on my railroad. Number one is everybody had a good time. I see smiles. I see joking around. I see, I see fellowship and fun and all these things that we all like to do. You know, we all get together, have the shared interest of model aeroding and operating your model railroad. So that hasn't changed. I was really kind of

53:38stressed when, when we first started. Everything had to be perfect. And now I've kind of just, okay, that car is coming off the track. All right, fine. Put it over there in the bad order. I'll take care of it later. Right. And I'm okay with that. You know, whatever it's a railroad, it's a model railroad. It's stuff's going to go wrong. We haven't had any disasters, right? We haven't had any total meltdowns. You got to, you got to roll with the punches sometimes. I remember early on like I was pretty stressed out when the national was here because I had been building this layout and we were only about four years in on it. And they were like, we really need you to open your railroad. We really want you to operate, have some operating sessions and have some open houses. And man, I was like, man, everybody from the country is going to be in Dallas for worth in August. By the way, the worst time of the year to be in Dallas for a lot. As it is right now. But you know, once that was over and the more friends I've made, I had someone visit this week

54:40and the railroad's down. It's torn up. And they really wanted to see it. I said, yeah, sure, come on over. I'll show it to you. And then I took them to our club layout and showed them the club layout. And they had a great time. You know, they came along with their wife and they had a great time. And I made a new friend. And that's great. Which I hope. Yep. And I don't think anything's really changed, right? I think it's, if anything, I've gotten a little bit more relaxed about it. But at the same time, I've really enjoyed going to operating weekends, going to other people's railroads to operate. That is so much fun. And it's like what Don was talking about earlier. You kind of get butterflies when you walk into a railroad for the first time, especially one that's held in high regard because you don't want to mess up number one. But also you really want to make it, you want to be asked back like we talked about earlier, you want to be polite to the owner, you want to thank them, you want, you want to have a good time, and you want, you want to have a

55:43new, a new friendship developed. So, you know, most people that come are that way, you know, and the ones that aren't, they don't get asked back. Yeah. Don is the author of the book. Things I'll never do again. It's a New York Times best seller. It's basically because it's got 50 blank pages to write notes in. But for you, David, you mentioned in our last episode also that someday you may build a bigger layout. What are the lessons learned from this learning layout that's above you right now? What are the lessons that you'll take some of the things that you would like to repeat? And then some things that you won't repeat if that day comes. Lesson number one, it's easy. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Just don't do it. Space things out. You know, if you have a small room, you don't need two yards. If, you know, you have to have a certain stretch of railroad, you know, you got to make sure that you hit the highlights and you don't put in every square mile, right? You don't put in every length of track.

56:47You know, hit the highlights. Don't do too much. And that's a pretty common thing that a lot of so-called, you know, big weeks of the hobby experts in the hobby have talked about. Also, don't overlook the comfort of the room. One thing that I really am glad I did, I invested in putting carpet into the garage, running air ducts for AC and then adding a separate AC unit that runs outside through a door. I cut a hole in the door and we vented it out through the door. Really making it comfortable. You don't want to be in a room that's not comfortable. And also, I think if I were building a bigger layout, I would really think about trying to avoid stub-ended yards. I really like to have it in, you know, a full yard. So if you're going to put a yard in, I really think it's much better when you have both in east and

57:50west or north and south end of the yard. So you can have, you know, make it useful. Other than that, you know, I think point to point is the way to go, especially for operations. It's the only way to go. The only way to go, yeah, exactly. And you really want to be able to have that point to point and just have room to run around your train if you really need to to circle back around. But I think that is the only way to go for operations. And then don't bite off more. You know, you go to some of these people's layouts and they're gigantic. And only a very select few people have ever really finished them. You know, I've really got them to a place that is really, really close to being completed. A railroad's never done. But you don't want to go to a railroad where they have, you know, it's 8,000 square feet and 4,000 square feet of it run great and the other 4,000 square feet run like crap. Well, just plan. Yeah, and it's just, it's just not fun. It's not as fun. If a layout doesn't run well,

58:55it's not a fun railroad to run. So you're better off doing a little bit less and making it run like a Swiss watch. Absolutely. A great layout to operate. I'm so glad I was able to do that. I know Don will get planned soon to get over to your MKT central Texas sub and check out that amazing layout that you've built in a compact space, but some really great operations. David, thank you so much for coming on around the layout and telling us about your operating. Thank you, Dave. Don Ray, thank you very much for having me. It's always a great time. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Around the Layout. Learn more about today's episode. Check out past shows and much more on our website around the layout.com. Show your support by becoming an operating crew member at around the layout.com slash crew. Follow us on social media around the layout.com slash social and send us your feedback around the layout at gmail.com.

59:56Thanks for hanging out with us around the layout. If you're into operations, I'll space is the most important thing you could have in that room. So people can get around each other. As someone with 24-inch aisles in some spots, I agree 1000%. That's the biggest thing in design layout is the aisle space. I just can't push that one. You don't want to brush up to another. You don't want to brush up against another guy. Generally, it's a season. I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah. Boy. Well, in the day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let me wrap up after that now.