Bruce Chandler said:
Steve Featherkile said:
JAMRI requires that you deliver specific cars, and take away specific cars. Dave’s system requires deliver 2 cold reefers, 1 full stock car, and 1 empty gon, and pick up 2 full reefers, 1 empty S, and 1 gon. The work is the same.
In my experience, the work with JMRI is seldom the same. The first train may pick up a boxcar at B; drop a boxcar at B. Pick up a hopper from C and a hopper from D; drop a hopper at D. Arrives with 5 cars, departs with 6.
The next train arrives with 6 and leaves with 6. In the meantime, it picks up 2 boxcars from A, drops 2 boxcars at A. Picks up a boxcar from B. Pick up a hopper from C; drop a gon at C; Drop a reefer at E; drop a tank car at D.
Run it again, and it’s all different. Sometimes the spurs are full, other times not.
The same can be said for Dave’s system, depending on which of the more than twenty run sheets (way bills? ) you choose. What I suspect happens is that folks choose runs that they are familiar with, thereby removing any challenge. Since I’ve only run there 5 or 6 times, and drew a different sheet each time, each run has been a real head scratcher.
My first time at Dave’s’ I had to switch 3 sidings at a place called White Rock. It was raining. Hard. Typical for the Lake Washington area, but for this dry lander, a real gully washer. The GoreTex failed. At each of the three sidings, there were three cars. I had to pull an empty, at the far end of the siding. That meant that I had to pull all three to get my empty, replace the remaining two full cars, and add another full car, all without fouling the main with my train. Fortunately, there was a passing siding. One quirk. In order to switch out the fuel dealer, it was necessary to remove one car from the lumbaryard’s siding. Hmmmmm. White Rock only took me an hour.
White Rock was only one of six or seven stops.
After I finished the run, and returned my locomotive to the shed, I grabbed a cup of coffee and started to dry out a bit, Dave looked at me with that sly look of his and asked, “Did you have any trouble at White Rock?”
So, I’ve pondered my mistakes, sused out the secret to a White Rock (I think), but I have yet to return to fully switch out the place.
I’ve been to siding A and removed one car, two cars, no cars. Based on the length of the trains we run, it would be highly unusual to remove more than two cars, though I suppose it would be possible. The only thing that doesn’t happen at Dave’s is to search out a specific car in a string of cars. I’m not sure that I miss that. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
