Wow, this is fast approaching… One week left before it begins for another weekend…
I think this is the 6th year of “Ops” on the BS and this morning is the second day of the Bluestone Southern June Ops. The Midwest is experiencing extreme heat and this has impacted our enthusiasm as we carry out the assigned duties and schedule. But we brave the elements to carry on with the fun. The railroad is actually getting big enough indoors, you can spend quite a bit of time operating despite the weather. Jane and Andy have really been working to finesses a lot of the enhancements of the railroad and it is really showing. Increased motive power of the era Andy wants to model, scaled weight in some of the lighter rolling stock (a 16 car modern freight train with 2 engines and a caboose is a measurable amount of weight to control), labeling of locations and plants, water towers, stations, town buildings, factories, industries and grain silos, improved storage in the yard at Bluefield and more motive power. Jan and I have actually quit bringing our own trains as we are finding plenty of engines to use on Andy’s railroad. We brought them to the last ops last year and the first one this year and didn’t even take them out of the boxes.
These Ops Sessions are setting the schedule for the rest of our travels in the Spring, Summer and Fall and are becoming the focal point of modern railroad ops in our garden railroading experience. Andy and Jane have really opened up their home and railroad for people to have fun. If you ever have a chance to attend an OPs Session on the Bluestone Southern, you know what I mean.
Today, Sunday, we brave the heat and force ourselves to have more fun. Thanks to Andy and Jane for providing this venue.
Thanks for the report, Ric. Looking forward to getting out there again this fall…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Ken Brunt said:
Thanks for the report, Ric. Looking forward to getting out there again this fall…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Yes, that’s one good reason to look forward to October.
We had a great time yesterday. Thanks to the Clarke’s for the great hospitality. Yes, it was hot! Half hour outside, running the trains and switching puzzles. Then an hour inside cooling off and then outside again. Andy or Jane can give you the report on the number of people and the trains ran. In the 16 years of garden railroad operations, we have had heat, rain, snow and acorns, you adjust and have fun.
OK, let me start by stating, ““was a great weekend””, despite the heat & humidity, and my being a bit sickly… Ok, on Saturday, a lot, Sunday, not so much…
Saturday, we had 10 folks around, not counting Jane and myself… Temperature was a high of 95 for the day, with some humidity… We ran a total of 8 trains… Was a hot day…
Sunday, we had 8 folks plus Jane & myself. High for Sunday was 98, which just happened to tie the record high for that date… Along with a bit more humidity… We also ran a total of 8 trains for the day…
With the addition of the expanded freight yard in the basement, and the hot temperatures outside, Ric did play with setting up trains and breaking them down in the cool basement… I will explain the freight yard expansion later on, in the ““indoor”” forum…
Pictures will follow, but right now, am still trying to recover from the heat and the cold I picked up last Monday, and has haunted me for the past week…
Edited to say: Was a great weekend, Good friends and trains, (and food) who can ask for more… And, everyone left standing…
Not many pictures were taken during this Ops by us… Below are a few:
Below, Jan is working the Bluefield freightyards…
Below, Mark is re-railing cars on the MCL-2 freight… Track kinks from excessive heat were evident during this Ops
Tail end of MCL-2, as it just passed thru Addieville…
Coal train at Memphis…
Switching crew at the Industrial Park, awaiting the arrival of the Industrial Park local, that is backing into the industrial park main in the bottow of the picture…
That is all the pictures that we have…
After a week of cold weather, the overnight low tonight in Ottawa is a balmy 50F, and the high tomorrow a blistering 73F.
Might have to wear my Cabela flannel lined jeans riding my motorcycle tomorrow morning.