Looks like a good time. Wish I was able to make it. The layout really looks great Ken. All that hard work has paid off.
Chris Kieffer said:
I see Bob is wearing the appropriate shirt, in more ways than one.
Chris
He came here well prepared and left with a big S**t eating grin on his face…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Mike McLaughlin said:
Unfortunately, we don’t make the annual trek to PA until May 9th. Hope all y’all have a good time. Sorry to miss it.
Looks like a great crowd and beautiful layout!
Is that bird crap on the roofs of the structures? And I think the constant battle with leaves all winter is a PITA, LOL!
Well Mike, you’ll just have to do a better job of planning your trips north…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Most of that is just the paint chipping off. Between the weather, birds and pine cones falling, the roofs take a beating.
Again its nice to put faces to the names we interact with here, looks like a good day and everything on the layout looks good.
I still consider myself a novice at operations, but I’ve been studying under some of the best, so hopefully these suggestions are logical (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Overall, the railroad is quite logical. There are certainly some puzzles, but that makes it fun. As I mentioned to Ken, I think it would be helpful to have a schematic drawing of each town and yard with buildings shown as outlines and industries named. I’ll volunteer to draw them up in Visio and send a PDF that can be printed, but I will need a rough pencil sketch because my memory isn’t very good.
Ken has decided to use run-around tracks and wye track that are off the main for additional car spots. This really confused the heck out of me while we were operating. It wasn’t until the ride home that I thought of a simple solution, so long as it is within the rules to foul the main. Simply enter town by backing in on the run around track. Shove the cars spotted at the depot several car lengths clear of the far switch and drop them there along with the caboose. This leaves the run around and the main available for switching. If you agree with this solution it might be part of a hints hand out for operating the railroad. EDIT to Add: Of course this isn’t so simple if some of those cars are pick-ups.
At Delores, working Rico Yard with two people suffers from a communications problem. Especially for us older guys (like you Ken) hearing each other over a loco sound system through that small opening in the shed an be problematic. The engineer needs to stay outside in order to keep an eye on his engine and the conductor needs to stay inside in order to make cuts and throw switches. The simplest fix would be to open the window, if that is possible. Another option would be some GMRS radios stationed there to be used by the crew working the yard. Cheaper than radios, an old school 2-way intercom from a yard sale. The push-to-talk station would be in the shed.
The reefer dock on the shed wall either needs to be widened, or your FN3 reefer excluded from being spotted there - it doesn’t fit (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
Also suggested in person; at the wider town benches it might be helpful to some to have a safe step area. A flat rock with appropriate support under the bench would save your sub structure from damage. IPP&W style remote switch control would be another option. You could still leave your pretty switch stands, just eliminate the locking pin.
If I think of more I’ll post it here.
Hopefully a shot of my C-16 rounding a bend
Jerry
or not…
Thank you to everyone for the pictures and postings.
Ken, looks like you had a successful OPs and good weather, also.
Really sorry we couldn’t be there and certainly glad it went well.
Looks like it was a great event!
Daktah John said:
I still consider myself a novice at operations, but I’ve been studying under some of the best, so hopefully these suggestions are logical (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Overall, the railroad is quite logical. There are certainly some puzzles, but that makes it fun. As I mentioned to Ken, I think it would be helpful to have a schematic drawing of each town and yard with buildings shown as outlines and industries named. I’ll volunteer to draw them up in Visio and send a PDF that can be printed, but I will need a rough pencil sketch because my memory isn’t very good.
Ken has decided to use run-around tracks and wye track that are off the main for additional car spots. This really confused the heck out of me while we were operating. It wasn’t until the ride home that I thought of a simple solution, so long as it is within the rules to foul the main. Simply enter town by backing in on the run around track. Shove the cars spotted at the depot several car lengths clear of the far switch and drop them there along with the caboose. This leaves the run around and the main available for switching. If you agree with this solution it might be part of a hints hand out for operating the railroad. EDIT to Add: Of course this isn’t so simple if some of those cars are pick-ups.
At Delores, working Rico Yard with two people suffers from a communications problem. Especially for us older guys (like you Ken) hearing each other over a loco sound system through that small opening in the shed an be problematic. The engineer needs to stay outside in order to keep an eye on his engine and the conductor needs to stay inside in order to make cuts and throw switches. The simplest fix would be to open the window, if that is possible. Another option would be some GMRS radios stationed there to be used by the crew working the yard. Cheaper than radios, an old school 2-way intercom from a yard sale. The push-to-talk station would be in the shed.
The reefer dock on the shed wall either needs to be widened, or your FN3 reefer excluded from being spotted there - it doesn’t fit (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
Also suggested in person; at the wider town benches it might be helpful to some to have a safe step area. A flat rock with appropriate support under the bench would save your sub structure from damage. IPP&W style remote switch control would be another option. You could still leave your pretty switch stands, just eliminate the locking pin.
If I think of more I’ll post it here.
Thanks Jon. That’s the kind of feed back I’m looking for.
Overall the layout isn’t much different than my old layout. Since I had the room I just added a few more industries and another town. When I was printing out the labels for each town I had thought about incorporating a track schematic on it, but didn’t feel like changing the RRTrack plans I had, since changes had been made while it was being built. But I just may take you up on that offer…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
As far as I’m concerned any solution you come up with while switching is fine with me. Since this is a narrow gauge shortline, and most freights are considered extras, however you want to tackle a problem is the correct one. As we found out on Sunday, I just walked around to where you and Bob were working to find out how long you would be and left my train in Hesperus. Actually I just came over there to harass you a bit…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Communications at Rico/Interchange. The window does open. But a cheap 2-way radio sounds like a better option. I’ll look into that.
If you noticed, there are pencil lines drawn on that wharf. It was my intention to widen the opening for the Abbotts reefer. I did make a note on that reefer in JMRI to spot it at the wharf on the service track in Delores Yard. Gotta read the fine print on the manifest. In any future ops sessions, that particular reefer will only run on a passenger train, get dropped off at Smith’s Creamery, then picked up on the passenger trains return trip. I didn’t run the passenger train since it wasn’t incorporated into this particular ops session. Just one more car to foul the run around track…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Remote switch throws. That is something I had already considered for a couple of hard to reach areas in both Mancos and Hesperus. Since there is nothing solid under the throws to attach them to but 3" of dirt, maybe patio blocks will help you short armed fellows. l will further ponder on a solution for that.
I did notice that I’ll need to tweak the JMRI software a bit more. And I did have a lot of questions about JMRI from various people. Hopefully this Ops session helped with my answers.
Jerry Bohlander said:
Hopefully a shot of my C-16 rounding a bend
Jerry
or not…
It needs a jpg extension on it.
Ric Golding said:
Thank you to everyone for the pictures and postings.
Ken, looks like you had a successful OPs and good weather, also.
Really sorry we couldn’t be there and certainly glad it went well.
Looks like it was a great event!
It was a bit slow getting started, but eventually things got sorted out.
Were your ears ringing? Both yours and Bruce’s names were mentioned quite a few times. Since both of you were instrumental in getting this thing started, I made sure to let everyone know that. And let the irony fall where it may…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
But on a positive note, it did leave whole lot more room in the driveway…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Ken, great time was had. hopefully I have properly added a drawing of some of my track diagrams to the post
http://www.largescalecentral.com/filesharing/file/view/2976/combined-jpg
My Mallet rumbling around the layout
And trying to get the layout in two views, early in the day before those pesky engineers and conductors appeared
Regards
Jerry
I think you captured it nicely Jerry. It’s a neat layout, that’s for sure. Well done, Ken.
Just arrived back home a few minutes ago from the first annual Keystone KOPS. We left West Chester on Monday morning and took the southern route via I-95 down to Baltimore and I-70/I-68 west through the mountains in order to miss the rain in western PA. Then I-79 down to I-64. Ended up spending the first night near Huntington, WV. Yesterday was uneventful until we got to St. Louis. Lots of flooding and several long detours on I-44 around bridges that were under water. Spent last night near Springfield, MO. Woke up early this morning to a pounding thunderstorm and continued towards home. Rain ended about the time we got into Oklahoma.
Nine days on the road in total, but it was well worth the trip. I would like to thank Ken and Bev for their gracious hospitality. Mary, Heidi, and I really had a nice time. Ken, your layout is really great and I had a load of fun – especially learning how to operate. It was great to meet a lot of LSC members in person for the first time. Special thanks to Jon for putting up with all of my rookie mistakes while we took our train over the line.
Photos don’t really do justice to the layout, but here is one last shot I couldn’t resist. CC&R Climax #6 poses in front of the Porter depot.
Already looking forward to the next time,
Bob
I talked to Ric yesterday and he was telling me the mid-west was getting inundated with rain. Glad you made it home OK.
Those who only stayed through Saturday missed the switching competition on Sunday. Normally, these sessions are pretty laid back affairs, but the Peanut Gallery at Ken’s just couldn’t resist making more than a friendly game of it. I can’t say the judges were completely impartial based on the scores recorded.
I was first to feel the heat as we switched Mancos and I struggled with track length…
At least my dog thought I did good (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
No one got a shot of Ken switching Hesperus, but I think the panel was stacked in his favor…
And Bob got pretty good marks for finally figuring out how to deal with the cars on the run-around at Hesperus…
I hope I do better next year.
I think the dog was from Bulgaria and should be disqualified as being obviously biased!
Bob
Bob Hyman said:
I think the dog was from Bulgaria and should be disqualified as being obviously biased!
Bob
And doesn’t Bob get extra from being for Oklahoma???(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif) (Sheesh, I was at Ft. Sill and still remember THAT!)
Of course it was stacked in my favor. I bribed them with lunch…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)