Operating Rules for Railroad Museums.

I have been researching operating rules at various Railroad Museums and some home brews are very well put together, others use GCOR (Which i believe is very thorough having worked at NS and seeing the similarities)

Then i have seen some rule books that will fit in ones back pocket and not much thicker then 4 credit cards stacked together....

I work (volunteer) at a museum that has recently decided (Claims to have been told by the FRA Inspector it is ok) to consider all of the operating track in "Yard Limits" so that train orders are not required and that we can have a "Yard Master" The idea in theory is to remove the requirement for a dispatcher, but now we have to have a yard master? Keep in mind the dispatcher is volunteer as with any other position.

Everything tells me something with the logic is wrong and not consistent with industry standard / or Regs.. I keep looking in CFR49 and find that through various other parts of CFR49 we must actually have a control center. I do not see anywhere how we can have any yard limit exemption once we do anything but switching-- so with that in mind this seems to have actually done nothing for us..

Does anyone else have any input? Any recommendations on a rule set? (GCOR opinions???)

--
J

I can't say I'm an "expert" but I know plenty of examples of trackage in yard limits where there is no yardmaster. Trains operating within yard limits must operate at restricted speed prepared to stop for any obstruction (such as another train).

I have also seen references to a "footboard yardmaster", essentially a Conductor on one train that acts more or less as the yardmaster for any other trains within the yard in addition to handles his own train.