Mike Oates came over today and we had just a great operations session. We started with Train #1, a 2-8-0 out of Lexington. It was running with only 2 cars when it hit Jackson. Here we spent quite a bit of time switching. We first had to pick up 3 cars from Mills Fuels.
Naturally, the cars we wanted were at the other end of the string of cars, so we had to pull all five cars from the siding. Next, we had to drag them up to the passing siding so we could run the locomotive around them. The problem with the passing siding is that it’s on a 4% grade, thus the cars don’t want to stay put. Last year, I used some old railroad spikes to hold the cars on the grade. It’s a neat idea that I picked up from Goodson’s sessions, but it does have a big drawback - it’s VERY hard to see the spike as it lays under the car; while focusing on switchng, one does have a tendency to forget they are there! 
I struggled with a better solution and finally arrived at these survey flags. They cost a whopping 10 cents each at the local hardware store…and they work! 
In the picture below, one flag is hold the string of three cars while the locomotive runs around them while another flag holds the gondola that we just dropped. We’ll pick it up and put it in front of the loco to deliver to Matheson Textiles - located on a facing switch.
They go in easily and they’re rather visible. I have my main passing sidings on grades and these come in handy. I keep a couple of flags at each location and store them in Matheson Textiles in between sessions. By the time we got to Occoquan, they really came in handy as we ended up moving a LOT of cars at once. Remember, this is also a 4% grade, but the 2-8-0 handled them all.
All in all, a great session; lots of interesting switching. We ran as a team, Mike the engineer and I was the conductor/brakeman. The first train kept us occupied for almost two hours.
