Year 19, Week 30, Day One (week 1030)

Year 19, Week 30, Day One (week 1030)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-03-19 Saturday

The weather report said 90% showers. We were between two bands of showers, one out in the ocean and one over near the west coast. We had high feathers and spilt milk overhead, with a few puffs heading north. At about 12:30 we got a two minute shower. At about four, blobs came on us fast, bridging the two bands and we got hit with a nice shower for about ten minutes. Tomorrow says 80% rain. Will see what it looks like. 

The day turned out to be nice. I had to go to a few stores so I drove my yard sale route in sections. I went to the grocery store first and got some stuff I need. They did not have one thing I was after. One of the several ice cream experiments I plan do tomorrow is going to be with Lindt 70% chocolate. I found that.
I then went to Lowes and walked several of the isles, and from one end to the other. I ended up picking up a 2x4 that will become rocking horse ornaments. 
I went to a drug store for some items I needed.
I was going to give a food processor to some one.  I happened to notice some food processor blades in the “junk” room. I got them, and found they (sort of) fit the food processor I was going to give away. I brought outside at mom’s house and, with some adjustments with sandpaper, I got the blades to work fine in that food processor. I now have a grater, slicer, a plastic blade (sort of like the metal chopping blades, that I think is for whipping) and two slicer blades. I am keeping that one and giving away the one I used for a couple years. It works nice. Just has the chopper blade. I have three others of that design

When I purchased the 2x4, I was actually after 2x6s or 2x12s but Lowes did not have any. I found a fairly clear 2x4 white wood. I checked when out back and it is a good size for the rocking horses. My plan for the wider boards was to slice them down the middle or even in thirds. The whitewood boards of the larger sized wood tends work as a quality carving wood. Whitewood is soft enough, but it does tend to split when you are dealing with small details. My carvings have lost a lot of noses over the year.
I traced the rocking horse on the wood and went to the bandsaw. I did a lot of cutting with the bandsaw, then drilled out the hole formed by the body, legs and rockers. I broke the leg off the first one I made, and had a good number of cutting errors in it, but it proved the concept works. I then made a second one. I showed that to Mom and she says it is good, it will pass as a horse as it is. I will do a lot more. She suggested using bits of cloth for the ears and yarn for the tail. I will give it thought. I am not that far yet, though I have wood for a carved tail already in the design. I “think” these will be fairly easy to make. I FINALLY HAVE A START ON MY ROCKING HORSES!!! it has been about 4 years since I had the concept!!!!!!

I did not expect any yard sales considering the weather report and I was right. It was a nice drive. I was following behind some cyclist at about 18 to 20 mph.

When I went to Walmart the other day, it dawned on me about how wonderful and colorful the yarn and cloth look in those stores, but if you look at your stock, your stuff is so pathetic in comparison. Of course, the lighting makes a difference, but you usually just don’t have much, or any, of the glorious colors that you saw at the store. 

I was thinking, (I knew I was thinking as I could smell burning wood) what I really need to do is cover my walls with shelving. Nothing but shelves. Then I might have a place to put things where things that need to be at hand......  I might do that for the craft room once I get to that point. Mom has a nice small work bench in the garage she said she would give me. I am strongly thinking that I need that in the craft room. Then build the shelving all around it. One long wall could be just for yarns. Of course, one problem with them being out in the open is they will get dusty and dirty over time, and while it might look pretty good, there are better things I could do for the yarn. 

I will see what I do tomorrow.



Year 19, Week 30, Day One (week 1030)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-04-19 Sunday

The weather early morning was blue skies with a few lonely puffs. It started getting thicker after noon. Radar showed a thin line coming towards us, then thickening really wide after it got to us. We are still in the path of feeder bands for the storm that headed north of us and into the ocean.  It was about 80 in the morning with almost no wind. The wind really picked up when the storm arrived. The highest temps was 91 at about noon. The humidty was as low as 50% at one point but jumped to 90% after the really heavy stuff passed but we were covered with only a light drizzle. 

I did my yard sale route. After I gassed up, I changed my normal route, I would usually take the first turn after I hit the road and head north from there, on a zig zag. This time I decided to head west a bit farther and found a yard sale by surprise. She was unloading her stuff. I got some stainless steel bowls, a keyboard and speaker, a laptop shelf, and on of those trays to carry food or drink. I gave her $5 for all of that and could have asked for change if I wanted. She had a bread maker and talked about it. She said that she was moving to a smaller place and have to unload a bunch of stuff. She said that if the bread maker does not sell, she will keep it and continue to use it. She loved making bread for someone else but her problem was she would eat it too.....

Today, I cut out eight blocks of wood and drew on them the rocking horses, and then drilled the holes to help daylight the space between the legs. I decided it would be much easier to do this drilling before anything else is done with the wood.  When I finish making the design, the sides are angled which makes drilling straight tough. 
I spent most of my time talking to my brother and decided not to run the noisy bandsaw to cut out the rest of the rocking horse bodies.
Next Saturday, I should roughly cut them out and then have a bunch of blanks to work on with the knife. 
I am kind of excited about getting these started. I tried many designs to make the rocking horses and none seemed to work.  I looked at trying to carve them out of a two by two, and they looked better as dog laying. I was going to build them up using slats or edge molding and besides not getting started, it felt like it was not going to look good.  I considered larger pieces to glue up and time and situation said no. 
Having gotten a start on these is really something. These will work. I still have the balloons and the steam engines to make a bunch of, but I need to come up with one more design. The steam engines are not the most easy to do, though the wood I have right now seems to be softer than what I was playing with last month or so. Starting now was big. Other than the first year where I started very early in the year, I don’t remember getting started before mid September. 
I am finding that as whitewood weathers or gets old, it gets harder to carve. It resists the knife more. 


I made four kinds of ice cream today. I made the Lindt-chocolate ice cream, some rocky road ice cream, some strawberry ice cream, and strawberry ice rocky road cream where  I added nuts and marshmallows (part of rocky road) 
I had made more strawberry than I planned and that is why there were two kinds of strawberry ice cream. I used a larger pan for the rocky road, but used small loaf pans for everything else. 
I nuked the Lindt chocolate then mixed it with fresh bananas. It mixed quite well
The Lindt tasted sweeter with the banana. 
I nuked semi-sweet baking-morsels (chocolate chips) for the rocky road ice cream. I used too much nuts and marshmallows and chopped them way too much while the ice cream was in the food processor. What I should have done is kept them in larger chunks and used a spatula to mix them. Either that or use just a small amount
I chopped some marshmallow alone with the idea of just using them and it became a couple globs that stuck to the blades, since the insides of marshmallows  are sticky.  I gave up on that idea. Tasted good anyway.
I had a 13 ounce jar of jam and used about half of that for about six bananas. This became the strawberry ice cream. What did not fit in the container got nuts and marshmallows and that went into the freezer.
These ice creams were frozen, then cut into chunks so they could be tasted in small quantities. I use them mainly for a way to eat bananas when I have leg cramps at night from over-doing it. Flavoring the bananas makes them easier to eat and they go faster. 
The Lindt chocolate ice cream was very good. The banana added enough sweetness to make it delicious. The strawberry ice cream tasted like strawberry, the rocky road was good but a bit too much crunch, and the strawberry rocky road just tastes like. There was way too much of them in there. Textures of the ice cream was good. 
I will do this again when I run out, but will cut down on the nuts or even go without them. 
If I really wanted to do this right, I would have a container to put them in and scoop the ice cream out into a bowl. Of course if I had an ice cream maker, I could make it really good, high quality texture. But these are coming out is good enough for me.

I hope to work on the rocking horses next week.
I will see what really happens next week.
1871

rocking horse blank bottom

rocking horse blank

rocking horse blank

mostly cut out blank

rear foot broken off

broken and second design

board blanks drilled for the space between the legs

Year 19, Week 29, Day One (week 1029)

Year 19, Week 29, Day One (week 1029)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-27-19 Saturday



High feathers and ripples, with some lower puffs. 91 degrees as the high with a humidity around 62%. There was a light breeze. Some thunder heads appeared in afternoon, but missed us for the most part spending the vast majority of its energy over the edge of the Everglades. 

After breakfast, we saw a sign for a yard sale but they were not set up. I got home and then headed out on the yard sale run. I found four yard sales. There an area on Dixie highway where there are some empty lots. People sometimes set up some yard sale stuff there. Today, a guy had all sorts of tools, a lot of them were new in-box craftsman stuff. He was selling them at half price. I considered a 10 inch high work-bench drill press but was not about to go the price he asked. I would rather have a floor model.
I had headed south first, then came up north on the back roads. I did not find another yard sale until I was almost at the northern part of the route. There a woman who has periodic yard sales had one with several of her friends. There was a lot of interesting stuff. I ended up buying a Kindle white-paper text reader. I gave a moment consideration for one of several guitars but I decided I am not willing to go through the effort to learn to play one. 
I found another yard sale that had some kitchen stuff and some furniture. Nothing I really needed. 
I got home, then went to the yard sale we saw in the morning and gave everything a good look. They had a scale where the gauge is on the top of a post. The needle spins around for each 50 pounds (I think) and a dial rolls for each time it spins around. I gave it a very long  thought, then left, knowing I could come back later. I never did. 

The kindle works. He has some books on there that I would not read. I need to clear it of his amazon account and load mine in. 

After a little bit, I went out back and looked around. I did not feel like pulling the lathe out. I ended up emptying the work bench and sorting through everything. I consolidated a lot of stuff. I did not find what I was really looking for, but I did find some stuff I forgot I had. I THINK I can find everything a little bit easier. We will see about that. I really wanted to be finished with this project as noon came around, but I finally got it done at about One. 

Mom’s neighbor got home from running around and found the house warm. He said the AC worked great last night but this afternoon it was not working. He opened the windows and is running the fans. It cooled it down some more. Older Florida homes were designed to be “cooled” without Air conditioning. In some of the older homes, the air conditioning was added later. Open the windows and air passes through, carrying away the hot air, and run some fans keep you cooler. 

I checked to find out what ornaments I did last year. I had made tea pots and gingerbread houses as last year’s ornaments. Those I got them done before Christmas. After Christmas I tried out hot air balloons and steam engines. I gave them out to a couple special people but never got farther. . I need to make enough of those two for this Christmas. I need to seek out some new designs to make.  Now is the best time to get started. I think I might pick up a stick of good two by two wood or a two by twelve (which tends to be a better wood for carving.) 
There are a few designs I did years ago that might be nice to do again, but will have to think about them. It is always nicer to come up with brand new designs. Those who received ornaments before, won’t be disappointed, and it is a bit more interesting to make also. Also, one must avoid any designs that have been done several times in variations. No more snow men, no matter how good a design might look. I may have done five designs of them over the past 19 years. That is enough.
I avoid simple ball shaped ornaments because that is more lathe work than carving.
Years ago, I thought about Rocking horses as an ornament. I still have not come up with a way to make them. Every design I tried failed for one reason or another. I had a possible method last year but ran out of time.
I started carving in the year 2000. During that year, I saw in one of Dad’s magazines where they wood-turned some Christmas trees, snow men, and Bells. I thought it would be fun to try. Dad had a tiny Craftsman lathe. I started turning with that. It would run a little bit and then die. A period later, it would run a bit then die. I finally gave up (mostly after I took it partially apart and then it refused to work). It dawned on me that I could carve them. I added a sleigh to the designs, and I carved a whole bunch of them and decided that I could do 12 of each. Half way through the project, It dawned on me that this was 48 pieces, and that was intimidating. By December, I had them done and took them to work. Some sold so well that I had to make a bunch more of them. 
After that, I was hooked and each year made a batch. In the past ten years, life got in the way and have struggled to get 4 designs or even make 12 of the designs I did have. Last year was the first in a long time that I had gotten seriously into making ornaments again.
Coming up with designs is the toughest part. They have to be simple enough to produce a bunch of them in a short period of time. They also have to fit within certain parameters. Generally, I prefer to make them out of two by two whitewood you can get at a hardware store. That places a limit on the size. I have used other woods and other sizes but my aim is to use whitewood. 
A lot of times, I will do the carving in stages. Rough out a bunch, getting the basic shape. Then add details to them, and then do the final finishing of them which will likely include painting, signing and adding a coat of varnish. 
I prefer making them by a knife but I will use a bandsaw, a lathe, dremel, etc. to remove the worst of the wood. I will also glue stuff on, though I do not like that kind of design. Some designs are strictly on the lathe or some other method if needed. 
What I need to do is to go on line and search through ornament design and see what is available. See if any ideas pop up as I search. 

I will see what I do tomorrow.


Year 19, Week 29, Day two (week 1029)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-28-19 Saturday

Early morning was blue skies, then puffs appeared randomly, then gathering friends. At about noon, thunder boomers showed up on the radar. They sort of skirted us and then disappeared. Yesterday, one of the thunder boomer cupped us on the Everglades-side and then faded as it slid west. Mom did not get the rain she was hoping for, for the plants she has in pots. 

Yesterday, the neighbor’s A/C died. My brother had stopped at a job in the morning before coming up and then came here directly in his truck rather than ride up with his daughter. I told him about the A/C. He checked it out. He first put a vacuum to the drain pipe to see if it was clogged. Nothing came out. It was clean. We then went out to the outside unit. Checking, he found that the capacitor had died. He said that the regular lightning we have around here does little bits of damage over time.  He said that the burned out capacitor was Chinese. The one he replaced it with was a much more expensive American made one. He has found through experience that they last a lot longer. My neighbor has air again. It turned out to be under warranty as he put the AC in earlier this year. 

My brother and I just sat outside and talked model railroading. He saw a video of a model railroad convention. He said it went on and on over the hundreds of manufacturers involved in the hobby.  
We got to talking about problems we had with running our model railroad and how things have changed in technology. They now have radio controlled engines, switches, and other controls. Some send the signal through the track, some send them over the air, some are operated by a computer plugged in, some are dedicated devices. 
They have battery powered engines that can go for days without replacing the battery or charging them. The remote control engines might have the track powered to full and the controls are on the engine itself. 
One of the big problems we were having was to keep the tracks clean and operating properly. They need to be kept in a surgical clean room for best results. You cook, you use a cleaning product, you wear deodorant or perfume, the vapors will waft into the air and settle on the tracks. The wheels are running on a square mm or even less surface area on the tracks. A tiny bit of dirt will break the electrical contact, especially if you are running really slow with very little power to the tracks. We never had a solution that would work well over several weeks. 
Back in the 90s, when I was really hot and heavy in model railroading, the cameras were just getting into HO scale engines. That is about 1/8th inch equals a foot. Now they have them in N scale engines, which is 1/16th inch equals a foot. I heard they are getting them into smaller trains. The remote control
We then got into talking about operations we experimented with, then with how we would do the layout differently. While it is nice to see trains run in circles, we found that operations is more enjoyable and we worked out what we would do different if we build it over again. We have some ideas. Running laps is nice, but Model railroading did not become really enjoyable until we were placing cars in front of businesses and picking others up, and placing them on the train where they belong, in essence, switching train cars was when we really found joy in having a train set.
I have a simple oval, with an oval inside and siding tracks inside that. We experimented with many methods of operating trains. Our layout could be anywhere in the country. We had passenger trains meeting, going in opposite directions, We had freight trains doing the same, but exchanging cars with each other, We operated trains where one of us would work the throttle, and the other directed the train and placed the cars. 
We had operating sessions where we had to drop off a car if we picked them up, or we simply decided what cars to swap. We also made up order cards that told where a car was going to go and have to follow those instructions on running the trains. That was fun as we were not making the decisions having do deal with what the cards required. The cards at the industry told us what had to be picked up, and the cards with our trains told us what cars to leave, and in some experiments we did, some cards had the cars go to another industry or stay until the next train. 
With these sessions where we did operation, we were totally focused on what we were doing. A train running circles could be ignored. If you had to do a select number of laps between stops, you had to watch the train and keep track of the times around, but swapping cars forced you to pay attention to little else. We would run our trains at scale speeds, walking speeds for the trains. If you missed your turn, reversing until you could take the right route ate a lot of time. 
We did one experiment with a railroad layout with just two sidings. We had simple rules for that and following the rules, swapping cars and such, ended up taking us 45 minutes. That was swapping out two cars, then reversing direction and swapping out two other cars.
When we started, we thought you needed several real miles of track with hundreds of switches to make a layout interesting. As we gained experience, our needs got smaller. My layout became the perfect model railroad layout. I have never seen anything better. BUT, that experiment we did proved that you did not need a lot of railroad layout to be totally involved with the layout. 
I read in the magazines that the modelers would build elaborate layouts, scenic them in super fine detail. When they decided it was done, they looked at what they had and started over. Reading the way they operated and looking at their plans, they were just running trains in circles, not switching cars to industry. My layout has no scenery, though I have a lot of buildings that could go onto it. We found that scenery was in the way of our operating sessions. It was not needed as our concentration was on the action we were doing, not on impressing people at the job we did. 
I’ve taken up other hobbies and changed my work times so I no longer have time to work with the trains. That layout, right now, is a good shelf for stuff I have no place for. 

Nothing else was done, but we had a lot of fun talking.
I will see what I do next week.

2423

This is my model railroad layout.

The tracks at the top (switch yard) were to store trains to come onto the layout and go off again.

the ovals is the best design layout I have ever seen.

the lowest tracks on the switch yard is a barge port where cars can be taken off of and added to the layout

this was the simple layout we tested. swapping cars makes for a fun operating session.

Doing laps around the layout, the first switch is the one you can back into.

You have to take the first car.

then you do some laps and then stop at the second track.

there you have to run the train around to the back of the train to swap the car on the end of the track, leaving the first car on the track.

you run the train around again to the head of the train and do some more laps.

You stop on the end of the oval and then run the engine on the other end and then do the same thing you did before.

swapping four cars with four cars on the train takes 45 minutes without even trying.

Year 19, Week 29, Day One (week 1029)

Year 19, Week 29, Day One (week 1029)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-27-19 Saturday

High feathers and ripples, with some lower puffs. 91 degrees as the high with a humidity around 62%. There was a light breeze. Some thunder heads appeared in afternoon, but missed us for the most part spending the vast majority of its energy over the edge of the Everglades. 

After breakfast, we saw a sign for a yard sale but they were not set up. I got to mom’s and then headed out on my yard sale run. I found four yard sales. There an area on Dixie highway where there are some empty lots. People will sometimes set up some yard sale stuff there. Today, a guy had all sorts of tools, a lot of them were new in-box craftsman stuff. He was selling them at half price. I considered a 10 inch high work-bench drill press but was not about to go the price he asked I did not have it to spend. I would rather have a floor model anyway.
I had headed South first, then came up north on the back roads. I did not find another yard sale until I was almost at the northern part of the route. There is a woman who has periodic yard sales. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. This time she had several of her friends displaying stuff. There was a lot of interesting items. 
I gave a moment consideration for one of several guitars he had but I decided I am not willing to go through the effort to learn to play one. Now if one was electric, I might have gotten it for a friend. I ended up buying a Kindle white-paper text reader. I have a couple of them and really have not had the time to use them.
I found another yard sale that had some kitchen stuff and some furniture. Nothing I really needed. 
I got back to Mom’s, then went to the yard sale we saw in the morning and gave everything a good look. They had a scale where the gauge is on the top of a post. The needle spins around for each 50 pounds (I think) and a small dial rolls for each time the needle spins around. I gave it a very long  thought, then left, knowing I could come back later. I never did. I just did not need that heartache just yet.

The kindle works. He has some books on there that I would not read. I need to clear it of his amazon account and load mine in. If you are selling something like this, It might be good to clear it first. He did not have a charger so he had no idea what was on it.

After a little bit, I went out back and looked around. I did not feel like pulling the lathe out. I ended up emptying the work bench and sorting through everything. I consolidated a lot of stuff. I did not find what I was really looking for, but I did find some stuff I forgot I had or did not know where it was I THINK I can find everything a little bit easier. We will see about that. I really wanted to be finished with this project as noon came around, but I finally got it done at about One. It always takes longer than planned. This is not the place for this stuff but I have to empty out the shed and see what is in there, and figure out what I can relocate before any of the stuff on the workbench can be put away, if I can make room anyway....

My neighbor got home from running around and found the house warm. He said the AC worked great last night but this afternoon it was not working. He opened the windows and is running the fans. It cooled it down some more. 
Older Florida homes were designed to be “cooled” without Air conditioning. Sometimes the air conditioning was added later. Open the windows and air passes through, carrying away the hot air. If you run some fans, you can keep the house cooler. Many times what I will do is have a fan blowing into the house from a window our out a window. The air has to go somewhere and there is an exchange of the old air. 

I checked to find out what ornaments I did last year. I made tea pots and gingerbread houses as last year’s ornaments which I got done before Christmas. After Christmas I tried out balloons and steam engines. I gave a couple of my test examples out to a couple special people but never got farther.  I have worked on a couple so far this year but really did not get far.  I need to make enough of those two designs for this Christmas. I need to seek out some new designs to make.  Now is the best time to get started. I think I might pick up a stick of good two by two wood or even better, a two by twelve (which tends to be a better carving wood.) 
There are a few designs I did years ago that might be nice to do again, but will have to think about them. It is always nicer to come up with brand new designs. Those who received those old designed ornaments before might be disappointed with getting them again. It is a bit more interesting to make also. 
Years ago, I thought about Rocking horses as an ornament. I still have not come up with a way to make them. Every design I tried failed for one reason or another. I had a possible method last year but ran out of time. I was not satisfied with what the results looked like. It is harder than I thought it would be. 

I will see what I do tomorrow.


Year 19, Week 29, Day two (week 1029)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-28-19 Saturday

Early morning was blue skies, then puffs appeared randomly, then gathering friends. At about noon, thunder boomers showed up on the radar. They sort of skirted us and then disappeared. Yesterday, one of the thunder boomers cupped us on the Everglades-side and then faded as it slid west. Mom did not get the rain she was hoping to get for the plants she has in pots. 

Yesterday, mom’s neighbor’s A/C died. My brother had stopped at a job in the morning before coming up and then came here directly. I told him about the A/C. He checked it out. When he is working, I tag along like a little child, helping when I won’t be in the way or make things tougher on him. He first put a vacuum cleaner to the drain pipe to see if it was clogged. A clogged drain pipe can flip a switch and prevent the A/C from running.  Nothing happened. 
We then went out to the outside unit. Checking, he found that the capacitor had died. He said that the regular lightning we have around here, does little bits of damage to the capacitors over time.  He said that the burned-out capacitor was made in China. The one he replaced it with was a much more expensive American-made one. He has found through experience that they last a lot longer. He said “the Chinese are doing their best.”  My mom’ neighbor has air again. It turned out to be under warranty as he put it in earlier this year. 

My brother and I just sat outside and talked model railroading. He saw a video of a model railroad convention. He said it went on and on about the hundreds of manufacturers involved in the hobby.  
We got to talking about problems we had with running our model railroad and how things have changed in technology. They now have radio controlled engines, switches, and computer controlled lighting effects. Some remote control train controls send the signal through the track, some send them over the air, some are operated by a computer plugged in, some are dedicated devices. 
They have battery powered engines that can go for days without replacing the battery or charging them. Some remote control engines might have the track powered to full and the controls are on the engine itself. 
One of the big problems we were having was to keep the tracks clean and operating properly. They need to be kept in a surgical clean, temperature controlled room for best results. You cook, you use a cleaning product, you wear deodorant or perfume, the vapors will waft into the air and settle on the tracks. Heat will cause the tracks to stretch and shrink. The wheels are contacting on less than a square mm surface area on the tracks. A tiny bit of dirt will break the electrical contact, especially if you are running really slow with very little power to the tracks. Fewer electrical pickup wheels a train has, easier a bit of dirt will stop it. We never had a solution that would work well over several weeks. 
Back in the 90s, when I was really hot and heavy in model railroading, the cameras were just getting into HO scale engines. That is about 1/8th inch equals a foot. Before then, you could only get them in the Lionel engines (1/4"=1'-0" scale) Now they have them in N scale engines, which is 1/16th inch equals a foot. I heard they are getting them into smaller trains. The remote controls are getting smaller too. 
We then got into talking about operations we experimented with, then with how we would do the layout differently. While it is nice to see trains run in circles, we found that operations is much more enjoyable and we worked out what we would do different if we build it over again. We have some ideas. Model railroading did not become really enjoyable for us until we were placing cars in front of businesses and picking others up, and placing them on the train where they belong, in essence, switching train cars the way real railroads operate was when we really found joy in having a train set.
I have a simple oval, with an oval inside and siding tracks inside that. We experimented with many methods of operating trains. Our layout could be anywhere in the country. We had passenger trains meeting, going in opposite directions, We had freight trains doing the same, but exchanging cars with each other, We operated trains where one of us would work the throttle, and the other directed the train and placed the cars. 
We had operating sessions where we had to drop off a car if we picked them up, or we simply decided what cars to swap. We also made up order cards that told where a car was going to go and have to follow those instructions on running the trains. That was fun as we were not making the decisions. One had to think about what you were doing rather than being lazy and swapping any car that was convenient . The cards at the industry told us what had to be picked up, and the cards with our trains told us what cars to leave, and in some experiments we did, some cards had the cars go to another industry or stay until the next train. 
With these sessions where we did operation, we were totally focused on what we were doing. A train running circles could be ignored. If you had to do a select number of laps between stops, you had to watch the train and keep track of the times around, but swapping cars, forced you to pay attention to little else. We would run our trains at scale speeds, walking speeds for the trains. If you missed your turn, reversing until you could take the right route ate up a lot of time. 
We did one experiment with a railroad layout with just two sidings. We had simple rules for that and following the rules, swapping cars and such, and our experiment ended up taking us 45 minutes. That was swapping out two cars, then reversing direction and swapping out two other cars.
When we started, we thought you needed several real miles of track with hundreds of switches to make a layout interesting. As we gained experience, our needs got smaller. My layout became the perfect model railroad layout. I have never seen anything better. BUT, that experiment we did, proved that you did not need a lot of railroad layout to be totally involved with the layout. 
I read in the magazines that the modelers would build elaborate layouts, scenic them in super fine detail. When they decided it was done, they looked at what they had and started over, building a new layout. Reading the way they operated and looking at their plans, they were just running trains in circles, not switching cars to industry. My layout has no scenery, though I have a lot of buildings that could go onto it but we found that scenery was in the way of our operating sessions. It was not needed as our concentration was on the action we were doing, not on impressing people at the job we did. 
I’ve taken up other hobbies since then so I no longer have time to work with the trains. That layout, right now, is a good shelf for stuff I have no place for. 

Nothing else was done, but we had a lot of fun talking.
I will see what I do next week.

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