Large Scale Central

July 2012 Operations

Some Operations at Doug Matheson’s moving cars out on the line. The load got too heavy for my little box cab, so it was passed of to Ken Brunt’s K when the load got too much. This railroad has big expansions every time we come.

At Dave McCurdy’s, moved some cars down the line to the coal dump and brought empties back, plus ome running on theline on a great point to point railroad, that we’ve watch grow over the last 6 years.

At the IPP&W at Fred’s, took over Nelson Yard and worked that with Andy Clarke for 2 days. Gave the Craig Leigh functions over to Ken and he says I’ll never get it back.

Ran the last train of the day on Saturday out on the line. Fred’s railroad and the crew of the IPP&WRR keep this line in great shape.

The Rail Buggy ran at Shawn’s in Upper New Jersey on Wednesday for a short visit. Great Hospitality of Shawn, Desiree(sp?) and family. Beautiful railraod and setting in the mountain near the highest point of New Jersey.

Tomorrow visting Ken Brunt’s line for some serious shipping.

So far a good time in what has been a hot month at home.

Still on the road, will try to post some pictures when we get home, next week.

Life is good. Thanks for all the friendship and supporting my habit.

Quoting Ric “Life is good. Thanks for all the friendship and supporting my habit”.

Yea! That diet coke each day will tax the pockets of the RailRoading class.:slight_smile: :slight_smile: :wink:

Ric Golding said:
Tomorrow visiting Ken Brunt’s line for some serious shipping. So far a good time in what has been a hot month at home. Still on the road, will try to post some pictures when we get home, next week. Life is good. Thanks for all the friendship and supporting my habit.

Tomorrow arrived and so did Ric along with Bruce and Jean since they had never seen the layout. After about an hour tour of the whole shebang, I handed them a switch list and told them to have at it…:wink:

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201204.jpg)

Switching Delores, the starting point.

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201205.jpg)

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201208.jpg)

“Ozark Larry” made an appearance and after a spin around settled into Hesperus for the duration.

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201209.jpg)

Dropping off a car in Mancos.

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201210.jpg)

Into Hesperus and I let the guys cheat a little bit and use the boxcab to switch the industries. Normally the road engine does this but it was interesting to see how other people handle a situation.

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201212.jpg)

After lunch they ran their train over to Coal Creek. Being new to the layout they had to ponder this one a bit.

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201214.jpg)

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201215.jpg)

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201216.jpg)

Their 2nd train of the day was shorter, and it was also a bit easier since they knew their way around.

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201218.jpg)

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201219.jpg)

Again they “cheated” a bit by using “Ozark Larry”.

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201220.jpg)

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201221.jpg)

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201222.jpg)

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201224.jpg)

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops2012013.jpg)

It was a fun day and Bruce finally got to see the layout and both had a good time operating on it. And I had fun just watching them puzzle the moves out.

Excellent…what a great week you’ve all been having :slight_smile:
Ralph

What a beautiful layout!

nice picture story, Ken… Maybe even Rooster can follow the story… :slight_smile:

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201221.jpg)

The plant we talked about is that miniature cedar to the left of your crew…behind the dwarf alberta …what is that Good pics! :slight_smile:

David Russell said:

(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/July%202012%20Ops/Ops201221.jpg)

The plant we talked about is that miniature cedar to the left of your crew…behind the dwarf alberta …what is that Good pics! :slight_smile:

The round one I’m not sure of. I’ll have to ask my son. The upright one is a boxwood that now stands where a Port Orford Cedar used to be. At one point I had 2 of them and they both kicked the bucket. I have to get another one.

Great pictures, Ken. Thanks for the invite - we really enjoyed it. It was nice being in a cooler place than Virginia - temps of 95 on the way back after the 80’s at your place. Your layout looks so polished! I liked the fight with the wasps/hornets (flying stinging things)

(http://www.jbrr.com/Pics/Events/KenBrunt/IMG_0787.JPG)

Bruce Chandler said:
I liked the fight with the wasps/hornets (flying stinging things)

(http://www.jbrr.com/Pics/Events/KenBrunt/IMG_0787.JPG)

I don’t think Ric enjoyed it so much…but it was entertaining watching …:wink: And the pleasure was all mine. I’m glad you all enjoyed yourselves.

Great pictures. Ken your layout looks great. Glad you guys had a great week.
Ric it was great having you stop by. Too bad you didnt have more time to run. Next time.

Ken Brunt said:
The upright one is a boxwood that now stands where a Port Orford Cedar used to be. At one point I had 2 of them and they both kicked the bucket. I have to get another one.
That was it ,,,,it was still alive when I was there??
David Russell said:
Ken Brunt said:
The upright one is a boxwood that now stands where a Port Orford Cedar used to be. At one point I had 2 of them and they both kicked the bucket. I have to get another one.
That was it ,,,,it was still alive when I was there??
Yea, barely. It was a nice looking tree, lasted about 3 years. No idea what it finally succumbed to.

Ken’s OPs were fun and Bruce and I made some “Rookie Mistakes” that caused a head slap when Ken told us how he would do it. It always helps to own the rule book. I kept struggling with leaving the caboose on the mainline when swithcing the yards.

The wasps/hornet things were annoying and I got nailed once, that morning in the leg, trying to reach the switch at the Mill. Thank goodness Jan had some “After Bite” in the truck or that could have been a painful afternoon. If any of you don’t know about this stuff, get some. Works great on wasp, bees, mosquitoes and other varmints. I probably killed 20 of them with Ken’s Spray Bomb. Brake cleaner works in a pinch. Wasp spray can disable all kinds of varmints, read up on it.

Great day!! Thanks Ken and I sure enjoyed Bruce and Jean coming up.

The unmentioned Operations in the above intinerary was the Passenger Operations at the Finger Lakes Live Steamers #1 guage track on Monday. Ken and I worked with Ian from Toronto managing the Yard at Marengo. This started out to be a rather dry ops, that we each thought we were going to take turns switching the passenger trains, as they came in. Boy, were we wrong, About half way through the 2 hour session, all 3 of us were running at full pace just trying to stay caught up and get the passenger trains on their way. Jane Clarke literally brought us water to stay hydrated. There was little time to think of personally taking on water. The finally was when train #1 came in and had cars for both of the passenger trains awaiting its arrival and then needed to be first out of the 3 to stay on its schedule. The final train out was a single coach with 5 RPO’s, that had come in on the other trains.

Roger Ciazza put this together in a flow chart format and it was really an excellant example of the fun with passenger train switching. Oh by the way, passengers don’t like to be jossled and complaints were lodged if the utmost care was not taken. Wow!

The Finger Lake Live Steamers facility is a “must see” for anyone that is really into this train hobby thing.

These 2 pictures pretty much sum up the the afternoon at the Finger Lakes operating session. In the first one it shows a complete state of befuddlement as we contemplate what we have to do.

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Rp0ix7y10Ao/UBXsaxVu1qI/AAAAAAAAGj8/GH5D_L_Y4II/s1600/IMG_2302.jpg)

The second one shows a bit of the activity as we scramble to find what car goes where and get it placed on the right train. Meanwhile the train crews all wait while we’re figuring all this stuff out with the usual words of encouragement.

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IDMw234_Wnc/UBXvercLacI/AAAAAAAAGl8/ZrdwMuX5Gck/s1600/IMG_2322.jpg)

At first we were just using one of Ric’s boxcabs, but as the rest of the trains arrived, we were scrambling and had both boxcabs trying to keep up. At one point, as one of the trains was leaving, the last car was being added while it was moving…:wink: It was different. And a thank you to Roger for putting it together. Quite an interesting afternoon…and fun! As Ric is fond of saying…

(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/kenbrunt/_forumfiles/lifeisgood.jpg)

That first picture is a very accurate statement of how scrambled our minds were trying to figure out what was going to happen. Little did we know. Look close at the second picture, you can see Doug is just walking away in disgust with our frantic and some time irratic actions. It twas a pressure cooker for awhile, but I think we all enjoyed it.