I had a new visitor today. Ken made the trip to our humid area and we had a really great operations session on the J&B. As usual, I was too busy enjoying it to take more pictures. Matheson Textiles is located in the town of Jackson, and it provides some interesting switching challenges.
Salmons Produce had several reefers ready for pickup. On the left is the siding for the yet to be built Mills Fuels. Today, it was FULL and we had to move one of the tank cars to another track to make room for a set out.
Here, Ken is switching train #2 in Jackson.
There were a lot of movements, but we finally got the train assembled and ready to go to Lexington.
We took a break for lunch and then ran train #1 out of Lexington. It started off pretty simple, but by the time we got to Occoquan, it just got plain interesting. My passing track there also doubles as an LCL track, so three cars were occupying the siding. We had a number of moves to make as well as set out a bunch of cars to the interchange. Finally, the 5 car train made it to Green Springs yard. All in all, I think we spent about 3 hours operating the two trains. Not bad for a layout with only about 160 feet of mainline track. I continue to be amazed at how much fun this is. It’s a LOT different from operating on Fred’s IPP&W or Ric’s Kaskaskia Railway. On those layouts, there might be 10 or MORE trains running at once, and you can really be challenged dealing with other trains. Here, one train runs at a time, though I have experimented with running both trains at the same time. I don’t need to worry about blocking the main line on the J&B. If I am running two trains at the same time, I just set up a scheduled meet, as there is no dispatcher. Life is good.