cv_acr
Well-Known Member
A little of both, sorta.
Like others, at our club layout (I don't have my own layout right now, but I do a lot of the pre-session setup of trains at the club) certain trains get certain types (the locals out of Sudbury pretty much all get RS10 and RS18 units), the rest is assigned based on what is available, trying to balance power needs with the length of the train and ending up with a proper balance of units at each staging location when the session is completed.
Some secondary considerations for assigning particular engines to particular trains are based on characteristics of the engines themselves. In our time period, SD40-2s were still brand new, so those get assigned to high-priority trains; CP's F-units did not have MU capability on the nose, so they need to be either first or last unit in the consist, with the rear end coupled to the rest of the set. There's also one train that could sometimes be seen with Penn Central/Conrail power borrowed off a train into Toronto, and since we're more power short than the real CP, our PC/CR engines that we have for spares/rental units draw almost permanent assignment on this train. We're trying to get more engines in service, including some proper, era-appropriate lease units that CP was running during the 1970s. (There's a pretty good list to pick from!)
Like others, at our club layout (I don't have my own layout right now, but I do a lot of the pre-session setup of trains at the club) certain trains get certain types (the locals out of Sudbury pretty much all get RS10 and RS18 units), the rest is assigned based on what is available, trying to balance power needs with the length of the train and ending up with a proper balance of units at each staging location when the session is completed.
Some secondary considerations for assigning particular engines to particular trains are based on characteristics of the engines themselves. In our time period, SD40-2s were still brand new, so those get assigned to high-priority trains; CP's F-units did not have MU capability on the nose, so they need to be either first or last unit in the consist, with the rear end coupled to the rest of the set. There's also one train that could sometimes be seen with Penn Central/Conrail power borrowed off a train into Toronto, and since we're more power short than the real CP, our PC/CR engines that we have for spares/rental units draw almost permanent assignment on this train. We're trying to get more engines in service, including some proper, era-appropriate lease units that CP was running during the 1970s. (There's a pretty good list to pick from!)
