Firstly, I do not believe in TK's (the MR author) premise that dispatchers, fast clocks and multiple operators are the only way to go.
I haven't read the article. Did he actually say that was the only way to operate a model railroad? Or did he say it was the way he prefers? There's a big difference. I'm OK with the second approach, but definitely not the first. If your idea of fun is running your train in circles on a 4 x 8 and watching it go by, then by all means, have at it! It's YOUR railroad.
BTW, I used to do some two person operating sessions. Engineer and conductor. We'd pick up some cars at the interchange track, run them out to industries and pick up the empties which we returned to the interchange. I guess you could say it was a shelf style layout, linear with about 5 switches. Pretty basic really. It usually took about 4 hours per session, and the whole thing was done by just two people.
Was it prototypical? Well, the track was 4 feet 8-1/2 inches wide (give or take) and we interchanged with the BNSF, so I'm going to say yes.
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