operating – Page 2 – Notes on Designing, Building, and Operating Model Railroads

May 2025 Op Session

I hosted an operating session recently on the B&O Wheeling Freight Terminal. This was the first session held in my new Philadelphia home and the first session since the spring of 2017 in El Paso, Texas.

Layout Lighting

Several months ago, I started setting up my HO scale Wheeling Freight Terminal layout for an operating session. That’s when I found a problem in the main yard. There wasn’t enough light.

Boomer Operator – Central New York & New England

I recently attended an operating session on Jim Leighty’s HO scale Central New York & New England Railroad. I kept busy through much of the session. Jim has several industrial switching areas on the layout that will keep a crew member busy.

Celebrating a moment

It was a special day recently on Perry Squier’s HO scale Pittsburg, Shawmut & Northern layout. He had been holding regular op sessions using the 1923 calendar. The most recent session coincided with the October 8, 1923, operating date. A one hundred year celebration was held to commemorate the moment. The first train ran with bunting and banners!

Shawmut scale test car

Several months ago, Perry Squier shared photos of a scale test car he was building for his Shawmut layout. He shared photos and notes of the finished HO scale model recently. It is frequently used in his operating sessions. Here’s Perry with the details.

I model the Pittsburg, Shawmut & Northern RR (the Shawmut) in 1923. The railroad at that time had three scale track locations: St. Marys Yard, Prosser at the junction of the Olean Branch, and Moraine at the junction of the Wayland branch. All of these locations are included on my layout but I never modeled the weigh scales.