2005-11 Model Railroad Management From Donboy I expect the statement that I am planning to hold “operating sessions” on my layout would be understood by most experienced model railroaders as the expression of my intention use my layout to simulate the activities of railroad operating personnel over a small period of time. I enjoy operating sessions and look forward to having them on my layout but it seems to me some of the edge is missing because model railroad operations as we know them moves trains and cars without any measured economic reason behind the activity and of course what a real railroad does has an economic reason. In looking at my perceived missing management problem it seemed that operations would have more of the real edge to them if the results of an operating session was accountable to “management” and making money. I think there are a lot of good reasons to include the management actors in the running of a model railroad. A big factor in the history of management as we know it today is the management structures the had to be put in place to run the early railroads. A model railroad would be a good place to practice and apply management skills, in a world where most people know what it feels like to be mis-managed why not help the general education on management a little? I expect there is nothing like the direction of management looking for profits to create interesting and challenging traffic patterns on the layout for operating sessions. There are a lot of “scaling” issues that are raised when you start to move prototype railroad management environment to a model railroad.  I started writing about how to compress the management environment into something we can use on a model railroad and realized I was writing a book (which I will finish later). What I have in mind is a session between the operating sessions that covers the management activities of railroad. Just like the many concessions we need to make on our operating sessions work, a management environment will require many concessions to transfer it to our model world. The way I see it a management session that would be like a fantasy football or baseball league where the operating crews and a train would replace the sports teams. The management session would get to decide what trains would get run, what equipment would be used in the next operating session and perhaps "management" would line up the crews to run their trains. The management meeting could be held on the Internet if the time and cost of travel is a problem.