All the stars and planets aligned last Sunday evening and we had one of the biggest operating crews we’ve had in a long time.  We’ve gained a couple new regular/semi-regular operators (Ewen and Chris), Ed was back on the Island from Ontario, and Brian made his return from his long summer break.  So with the other regulars (Greg, Ken, Derwin, and myself) we had a full room!

Since we had such a large crew I decided to try something a little different.  Rather than adding a milk train or passenger run I thought a local operator in Kenville & Derwin’s Drop might make things run smoother.  It seemed to, although other problems kept me too busy to really notice.

Brian wanted to try something different so he ran the local switcher in Stevenville, Ken took his usual position as local switcher in Chappellton, Greg took the new job switching Kenville and Derwin’s Drop, Ed ran the West/East Wayfreight, Chris ran the East/West Wayfreight (both rookies at the jobs but they did a great job!), Ewen ran the Interchange, Derwin had the largest trains of the evening with the Transfer runs, and I ran the Coal train.  Fortunately the coal train is never very large so it could sit on sidings while I was troubleshooting the throttle incidents we were having.

Everyone managed to work well in the relatively tight quarters of the BS&T.  The aisles are about 24″ minimum, where the is usually only one operator working an area.  Where people could be operating back to back the aisles are about 30″.  Here we see Derwin, Ewen, Ed (Watch Your Head Ed!), and Ken working the east side of the layout.  Derwin’s just arrived with the Transfer from Bayside.  He and Ewen now have to trade cars (Wholeinthall to Bayside cars for Bayside to Wholeinthall cars) and put away the cars destined for Tinewater.  Ed is on his return run with the 2nd half of the East Wayfreight and Ken is busy putting away cars in Chappellton.

I didn’t get a photo of Greg (he’s behind me in both pictures working Kenville and Derwin’s Drop).  The West side of the layout is definitely less crowded at this point.  Brian is busy putting away cars in Stevenville and Chris is building the 2nd half of the West Wayfreight.  If you look closely you can see that Brian’s throttle is plugged into a telephone cable hanging over the layout skirting.  This was a makeshift solution to some throttle problems we experienced on this side of the room.

It’s not often we have this many operators on the BS&T so it was inevitable that something would go wrong.  It was also the first time in a while that we’ve used more than one or two tethered throttles.  Things were going quite smoothly until Derwin’s phone battery died and he had to use a tethered throttle.  He was in the same general area as Brian (also using a tethered throttle).  The throttle displays would flash when they turned the speed dial and they had no control of their train.  So one would unplug their throttle for a few minutes while the other would do some work.  This slowed things down considerably!

The other problem we had was with a telephone/XPA throttle.  Every once in a while it would lose connection with the system.  It seemed to happen when the two tethered throttles would exhibit their problems.  Very strange.

At break time I ran a separate throttle cable from the command station to Stevenville where Brian was working and changed the system address of the problematic XPA.  These solutions appeared to work since the second half of the session went without a hitch.

I suspect that the tethered throttle problem was related to the lightweight telephone wire I used to run my throttle bus.  I think there was too much power loss close to the end of the run, where the two throttles were located.  So I purchased some heavy telephone wire and some RJ11 plugs and re-wired the throttle bus.  I tried two throttles in the same locations and could not replicate the problem, so maybe I have it resolved.  We’ll find out next week.

The XPA that caused problems was a new one I purchased used.  I have no idea what it’s system address was, but changing it to an address that I knew was not in use seemed to work.  Perhaps it had an address that was duplicated on my layout.  Hopefully that was the problem.

Anyway, throttle issues aside, I think we had a great time!  Folks seemed to enjoy themselves and didn’t mind the extra waits while the issues were addressed.

Progress on the layout this week… Re-wired the throttle bus and began adding a new business in Stevenville.  I won’t say too much about the new business for now, other than to say that it will continue the tradition of being named after people in the group.

Later!

Scott

I’ve been finding some time to work on the layout, but not enough time to update this blog, obviously.  I thought I owed it to you to post something, finally.

The crews finally came back to Derwin’s Drop to take the station off the blocking and put it on a real foundation.  What a bunch of yahoo’s they were!  The crane operator was not watching his boom while he was moving it and gave the roof trim at the peak a bit of a knock!  I guess I should be thankful that he didn’t put a big hole in the roof.

There is still some landscaping to do around the station as well as some new signage, but that will get done soon, I hope.  I also need to get a passenger platform built.

I’ve also been working on the station in Chappellton.  The lower level is getting close to completion and the building above ground is looking a lot better.  Brian posted a photo of the lower level on his blog.

That’s it for now!  I’ll have more updates soon, I hope.

Scott

Derwin and I decided to head to Moncton yesterday to bring a thank you gift to Ryan and Jodie for putting up with us when we stay there during train shows.  They are very good hosts (except for the locking us out of their house on a very rainy night incident during RailFest) and we wanted to show our appreciation.  After that incident we were wondering if they really wanted us staying there at all.  So we thought a little payment might be in order.

It was also very good timing because it turned out that Chuck at Don’s HO was having a customer appreciation corn boil and barbecue.  Now, if you don’t know Derwin you do not stand between him and food!  Once he heard there was free corn involved there was no stopping him.  As soon as we got in the door he shoved me to one side on his way to the kitchen.  (It was either the food or he was trying to find the Tide To Go to remove the coffee stains from his shirt and pants – both separate spillage incidents – ’nuff said).

Anyway, the place was packed.  Ed was even there all the way from Yarmouth.  He and Dar were out the door heading for Moncton about 5:00 that morning and arrived a little before 10:00.  You just can’t beat dedicated customers!

Derwin even bought a few things just so it wouldn’t seem like he was only there for the food!  I spent a fair bit more because I felt had to at least cover the cost of the food he ate.

The photo at the left shows Ian waiting on Derwin while Ed, Dave, Dave’s wife, and a few other customers listen in awe as Derwin talks about the food he ate.

Most of the time Derwin has to explain to people that everything we say about him is a lie.  He says that we never tell the truth and that our stories are complete fiction.  That’s what he’s trying to explain to Dave and Ed, but from the look on Ed’s face he doesn’t really believe him.

Truth be told, most of the things we say about Derwin are lies.  But he leaves himself open for most of them.  BTW – the bit about the coffe stains (above) is NOT a lie.  I almost got into a car accident I was laughing so hard!

Most of us can relate to this picture.  Chuck is installing a drop in decoder for a customer.  He’s like me in that he needs a big magnifying lens on an adjustable arm!  My eyes just don’t work a s well as they used to.  I have no problem installing coupler springs.  I rarely loose them and usually get them positioned with one try.  However, I need my glasses on to find the box with the springs and get one on the end of a screwdriver.  Then I have to take my glasses off to install the tiny thing.

It was a very good trip.  We got to thank our wonderful hosts and got to spend time with great friends at Don’s HO.  If you’ve never been there before you should.  If you don’t live handy then you should visit on-line (he does mail order).  Visit his web site here…

Scott