Part 105 - How to be a yardmaster on a model railroad! #hoscale #operations #train #yards #art

Do you enjoy railfanning the BN in HO scale? Do you know what it's like to be a yardmaster during a busy model railroad operating session? This video shows the continuous action in Seattle's Interbay yard, during a busy operating session on Burr Stewart's HO/HOn3 scale "Burrlington Northern" model railroad layout, while Burr lightly narrates the video. In the background you can see and hear the chatter and banter that normally goes on during an operating session like this one, with 15 people running trains all over the basement. Scott Wiesemann holds down the fort as the yardmaster while many other train operators come and go, all demonstrating key aspects of the skills and best practices involved, and making a few mistakes as well. It's a long and slow-paced video, but with lots of fun and insights along the way.

Burr's HO/HOn3 model railroad is set in the BN's Seattle region in 1973, three years after the 1970 corporate merger that created the Burlington Northern (BN) Railway out of the Great Northern (GN), Northern Pacific (NP), Burlington Route (CB&Q) and the Spokane, Portland and Seattle (SP&S) railroads. Playing smaller roles on the layout are the three-foot narrow gage (HOn3) D&RGW fictitious "west coast extension", the Milwaukee Road (MILW)'s western extension and the Union Pacific (UP).

For even more "fun with trains", and additional detail on the layout, here are links to some of Burr's previous videos that focused on them:

For switching Interbay yard, watch these:

For highlights from other op sessions, watch these:

For narrow gauge operations, see:

For completely different "onboard" tours of Burr's HO scale model railroad layout, see two "cab view" train ride videos:

Many other videos about Burr's HO model train layout (and other layouts that he's visited) are on this channel @muchfunwithtrains, which includes both model and prototype footage of trains, mostly in the Seattle region. This video's footage was taken on an AKASO V50 action cam, and edited with Davinci Resolve 19.1.1.

0:00 Introduction
1:47 Ballard local departs
2:41 Is everybody happy?!
2:57 Tramp switching
5:34 Yardmaster job description
7:03 Track nomenclature
9:30 Yard overview
10:03 Hostling engines onto a train
11:58 The "Oiler" departs
14:20 Inbound train delayed
18:13 Getting power for the southbound train
21:07 Bromine tank car admiration
23:00 Multi-tasking
23:34 "Beer can" tank car coincidence
24:00 MILW coast route train arrives Bellingham
24:26 "Rock train" passes on mainline
26:06 Back to switching
26:18 ScaleTrains red CB&Q GP-30
27:36 Manifest train arrives
30:25 Switching continues
42:40 An incident on "one-rail"
46:00 An empty yard!
56:26 Making up the "Fern Turn"
1:02:13 The "Oiler" returns
1:07:14 More engine moves
1:13:00 The Ballard local returns
1:18:25 The "Fern Turn" departs
1:24:24 A double-bang!
1:29:30 More engines!
1:29:45 Fern Turn on the high bridge
1:31:00 Conclusion

[jimd.]

Great video from a rail fan point of view. Not only do I like the colorful loco's, but the different make and models a well. Best 1 1/2 hr. spent today. Thanks!

[JoeyBPhotography]

This was fun to watch and informative, thanks for sharing your ops sessions!

Im not an expert on bromine, but I do know that it was used in flame retardants, pesticides, and even photography chemicals.

[edwardstd]

Fun video. I had to watch it in two sessions, but that was no problem. I was checking the "bangs" and I don't think you missed any. 😄👍

[Justforday]

22 degrees here..i'm railfanning your layout next to my fireplace ...enjoy your videos and narrating ..those Alco NP engines are nice.

[ronaldrondeau]

Thanks Burr, I watch 2 times cause to fun, your guys are to much bangs they need formation, see you next time

[MikeG]

A busy day of yard operations on the Burlington Northern. Some yards on layout's are just mainly for storage of rolling stock (like mine) but your layout functions like the prototype which is more interesting and fun when you have a crew with you. I like all the coupler "bangs" featured in this one and the near collision in the yard after someone forgot to throw a switch.😆 Great video Burr, I had to watch it in multiple viewings.

[KandWRailroader]

Excellent and informative video! Thank you!

[cpproductions]

I wish we had a layout like this to operate on near me. The closest we have in the Lakeshores Division of the NMRA is the layout that I am operating on Sunday afternoon which has 3 active yards. There are a couple others but their yards aren't that active or there's only one. This operating session will bring me up to 24 hours of operating experience in a year.

[Ken-Kaef]

Merry Christmas Burr and all the Burlington Northern Seattle Division crew. I enjoy running a yard during ops sessions so I enjoyed this video even though it took me two weeks off and on to watch the whole video. I noticed 3 green BN locos sitting on a train in the distance on the middle level they seemed to disappear around 48mins to 55 mins but otherwise were there all the time. What were they doing? 😀 Cheers Ken

[mic-drop-]

I'm a CN yardmaster, this just scratches the surface with amount of BS a yardmaster deals with.

[MikeG]

1:24:18 and 1:24:22 double bang on a tank car 🚃🚃💥🚃🚃🚃🚂

[scottsmith]

Learned a tremendous amount, thanks...new sub, notifs on. 👍

[tsitracommunications]

In terms of length how longvshould a railroad yard be?

[IMRROcom]

This was too easy, I spy the Blue LDRR box car in the opening shot, Now what will I do for the other 91 minutes of the video....