One of our fellow club members came up with the idea that us old retired farts should get together during the week to play trains. To participate in this select (?) group one must be retired, old (hard to define), and want to get together on a week day to run trains. Our plan is not to have to put up with the kids! That’s anyone less than 55 years of age.
We kicked this Old Guys Playing Trains idea off on Wednesday April 24 when the CD&StL RY hosted the first operating session. Six operators showed up a 9:30 AM for the day’s activities. We had a ball! Turns out that in this case everyone brought narrow gauge equipment to run. We had track power, battery power, and live steam motive power. The CD&StL provided the rolling stock from its fleet of carefully mainted equipment. There were Connies, Annies, Forneys, a new HLW railbus and trailer, LGB Moguls, and a number of scratch built units. Most noteable was a 1:20.3 scratch built model of the ET&WNC’c motor car as it was configured in 1936.
We moved a lot of freight with 2 to 3 freight consists on the main at any one time. In addition the passenger train was able to stay on the “advertised” most of the time.
Operations closed down around 3:30 PM. We had a very relaxing time running trains, telling lies, and in general a good time was had by all. Plans are to hold one of these operating sessions each month at various layouts of the participants.
Getting together to conduct an operating session during the week seems like the way to go for us “old” guys. Plenty of time to do some serious running and it doesn’t get into anyone’s weekend plans.
Just thought I’d pass this along to those that may find themselves in a similar situation. Try a weekday operating session, you might just like it.
Jon - The Eastern One