Last night Jane and Andy Clarke came over for a little pre-OPs setup and a review of the RailOPs software. The big excitement, worth pictures, was Andy showing off the new Revolution R/C by Aristo. He is one of the Beta testers and so far the equipment is doing as advertised. Here is his Boston & Maine GP-40 climbing out of “Shadow Box” where it was placed on the track.
We backed the engine into the “Southern Engine Service Facility” and checked it out on the turntable.
The GP-40 was assigned to haul the tourist cars out of storage below “Owl’s Bend”. Here they can be seen climbing on the loop behind the work bench.
and going through the tightest curve on the railroad (6.5 diameter) around the service facility. The coupler on the GP-40 proved to tight to keep rolling stock from derailing. Like most modern equipment, it won’t be used for service in the “Owl’s Bend Mine” area.
Pulling power is no problem for such a small load coming out of the mine. The train is approaching the switch back turnout and will soon begin sliding down hill on the steepest grade (8%) toward “Switchback Mine”.
The GP-40 is now shoving its train up to the high line at “Northen Owl’s Bend” to stage the cars for distribution at “Old State Light” during daylight tomorrow.
The fun really begins around Noon today. The forecast doesn’t look to bad with some chance of thundershowers. Typical weather for this time of year. Stay tuned, more to follow.
I left just short of dark after 5 trains operations completed, with 2 cases of old train magazines, 1 burger, 2 hot dogs, chips, slaw, pasta salad, etc. another double cheese burger, dessert and a couple of Bud Lights! Yes, I had a great time. Thanks to the Goldings and all that attended, the hospitality cannot be matched!
