06-10-2012, 11:47 AM
Thinking about U50s got me to trying one with a Walthers DL640, which probably happened now and then. In fact, they do run well together.
I have DVDs and photos in books of U50s running as single units on work trains and on locals, so I wouldn't be squeamish about how you use yours, though it certainly would be MUed with just about anything especially later in their lives.
It seems to me, looking at your track plan, that you would have two (maybe three) trains as part of regular operation: a switch job, which you suggest with the FM switcher, and a "hauler" that would bring cars to your yard from the rest of the world -- given your track plan, the "rest of the world" could just be certain tracks in your yard, and the actual yard from which your switch job picked up cars would be certain other tracks in that same yard. But I think you also have the oppurtunity to subdivide the local work into a switch job that switches the yard and the busy half of your layout, and a local that runs around the whole circle and switches the other industries. The U50 could run, with or without other power MUed, on anything but the switch job. However, in the 1960s, the UP tended to run a lot of power on its trains.
I hope you'll give this some thought -- tastes differ, but I think operating is fun, as it gives a little bit more of a rationale for what's happening on a layout, and there's no requirement that all the scenery or whatever be done before operation can start!
I have DVDs and photos in books of U50s running as single units on work trains and on locals, so I wouldn't be squeamish about how you use yours, though it certainly would be MUed with just about anything especially later in their lives.
It seems to me, looking at your track plan, that you would have two (maybe three) trains as part of regular operation: a switch job, which you suggest with the FM switcher, and a "hauler" that would bring cars to your yard from the rest of the world -- given your track plan, the "rest of the world" could just be certain tracks in your yard, and the actual yard from which your switch job picked up cars would be certain other tracks in that same yard. But I think you also have the oppurtunity to subdivide the local work into a switch job that switches the yard and the busy half of your layout, and a local that runs around the whole circle and switches the other industries. The U50 could run, with or without other power MUed, on anything but the switch job. However, in the 1960s, the UP tended to run a lot of power on its trains.
I hope you'll give this some thought -- tastes differ, but I think operating is fun, as it gives a little bit more of a rationale for what's happening on a layout, and there's no requirement that all the scenery or whatever be done before operation can start!