We made our annual trip to Saint John, NB for a day of operating with friends.  This year a crew from Moncton joined us to round out the operating crew.  Only Derwin, Ken, and I were able to make it from the Island.  We met up with Jim, Milne, John, Murray, Doug, and Ben just outside Moncton.

The ICR Crew - Feb. 20, 2010

Our first stop was to Doug Devine’s Island Central Railway.  An operator with considerable seniority on the Island Central, Bob Kane, was on hand to help keep things under control.  I guess Doug expected to be a little too busy to look after everything on the layout.

After a brief introduction for the newbies, and refresher for the ones that hadn’t operated there in a while, we lined up to sign up for morning job assignment.

Derwin worked with John in McAdam Yard – a decision that apparently bought them a lot of free time.  At one point I took a moment from my very busy work schedule to grab a quick snack in the crew lounge.  There weren’t many cookies left, but plenty of evidence of the amount of work Derwin was doing!

Their first (and possibly only) task was to get my train, a fast freight heading to Saint John, assembled and ready to leave.  I could not believe how long this train was!  The four locos assigned as power for the train were barely able to handle it.  After a lot of work climbing the slight grade out of McAdam I was on the ICR main heading for Saint John.  This train was quite a sight as it snaked around the room.  I had to keep a close eye on it as it would gain considerable speed on downgrades and would require more power to climb.

When I finally pulled into Dever Road Yard in Saint John I was sure there would not be enough room for the train.  As it arced around the end of the yard and headed toward the passenger station I was doubtful it would fit.  But the end of train cleared the yard throat with the locomotives only inches from the end of the line.  Whew!  Then, with the guidance of the Yard Master, Bob, we split the train up into the proper classification tracks.  That’s when I became the Dever Road assistant – and any hope of free time to beat Derwin to the cookies vanished (not to mention ability to take some pictures)!

I lost track of what the other guys were doing.  Jim was in West Saint John pulling the local cars – and generally making an annoyance of himself.  Especially when he ran smack dab into a cut of cars we had pushed onto a siding from Dever Road.  He tried to blame us, of course, but when Bob reminded him that he should be watching where his train is going he got quiet again.  Jim’s always a little more tolerable when he is quiet!  HA!

Ben apparently worked in Mill Street since he arrived in Dever Road with a cut of cars at one point, that we swapped for a fresh cut heading for Mill Street.  I’m sure Milne was able to grab a passenger run.  Doug (C.), Murray, and Ken ran a mix of through freights and way freights.

At one point someone asked when we were supposed to arrive at Steve McMullin’s Carleton Railway.  I looked at my phone and was shocked to see it was 12:30!  Where had 2-1/2 hours gone!!??  The old saying that time flies when you are having fun is very true!  Anyway, we had to finish up so we could get to the train store (Valley Hobby) and get some lunch to be at Steve’s for 2:00.

We managed to arrive at the Carleton Railway shortly after 2:00.  We were greeted with a warm welcome from Rosalie since Steve was in the basement frantically making last minute preparations.  Again, after a brief intro we signed up for operating positions.

I wanted to redeem myself in South Newbridge after the last trip when Jean and I put everything leaving there onto the same train (thinking “Well these cars are supposed to go west, your train is going west, here you go”) making for the longest train in Carleton Railway history.  The Steve asked if I had read the operating instructions,  Ummmm…. No.

Derwin caught again!

Anyway, I was so intent on making sure I did things properly in South Newbridge I lost track of what the other guys were running.  I think Derwin was helping John in the yard at Avondale.  I’m sure he thought it would be another slack job like McAdam on the ICR.  He was lounging around later in the session.  Steve caught him and suggested his time would be better spent running a wayfreight (the Newbridge Turn).  Then he made a very big mistake and assigned Jim as his brakeman.  Steve, Steve, Steve….  tsk tsk!  You’ll know better for next time!

Milne and Doug (C.) ran a couple passenger trains.  Jim was having fun derailing, err… operating a wayfreight.  Ben took the Nortondale job.

I vowed that I would “follow the rules” this year and do the job properly, but apparently everyone else was about to make that very difficult for me.  Murray decided to leave early (4 hours!) with his train.  Now this really messed things up in South Newbridge!  I had one train in 4 hours early, Ben arrived with the Nortondale train, a First Class passenger train had to get through and there was another freight train waiting to arrive.  Things were very disorganized for a little while while I tried to clear mainlines for all this traffic.  Igrabbed cuts of cars that were destined for my yard, shoved out the cars that were supposed to go on the particular trains (trying to follow the proper instructions this time!) and tried to get trains moving again as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately there were some delays and a few cars got onto the wrong trains.  But at least I didn’t make any extremely long trains this time!

The last train on the line was the one Steve assigned Derwin and Jim – The Newbridge Turn.  Good thing I checked the cards for the cars they brought in.  There was a tank car with no card that was supposed to have been left at another industry along the way.  They had dropped it off there, but then proceeded to pick it up again.  Then there was a stock car with a card that said it was supposed to have stayed where it was.  So, back on their train with them to be put back where they belonged.

Jim gets caught!

The witnesses

The tank car was going to be tough since they were facing the turnout the wrong way.  Jim was going to use one of his favorite switching tricks to get the car spotted at the industry but he was caught.  You can see the mischievous look on his face!  But there were too many witnesses.  I got back to work putting cars away in South Newbridge so I’m not sure how the car made it to its spot.  When I looked up again they had placed the stock car back at the meat plant and were about to head on to Avondale.

The last train of the day.

While we were having fun in the basement Rosalie was busy preparing a wonderful meal for us.  When these two finally arrived in Avondale we headed upstairs to talk about the days activities and enjoy some great food!

We want to thank Doug, Steve and Rosalie for being great hosts and allowing us to operate their incredible model railroads.  I hope we’ll have an opportunity to operate on their railroads when we are in Saint John for the MFMR Convention in May.  Hopefully we will see you there!

Scott

I know I’m a week late, but… better late than never!

Last Saturday a group from the Codiac Operators made the trek across the bridge for a day of operating.  Our first stop was Derwin’s Canadisle Rail.  We had a great time there, and a great lunch – thanks Derwin and Shelley!

We arrived at the Bayside & Tidewater about mid-afternoon to round out the day.  I was looking forward to having a full crew, but a couple of the Moncton guys decided not to come due to the weather.  We had a snowstorm on Friday and the forecast wasn’t too bad, but they didn’t want to take a chance.  The weather can be a very unpredictable thing.

There were enough guys on hand that I was able to have a yard operator in Tidewater for the first time.  I think things went a little smoother there because of it.  Too bad for Jim I didn’t have a yard operator in Bayside.  He would have gotten out of there with the Wayfreight a lot sooner.  The poor guy didn’t understand the instructions and was going to put every car leaving the yard onto one train.  Hmmm… I seem to remember someone doing that on another layout.  Who was that?  Oh yeah!  It was me on Steve’s layout in Saint John just last year.  I guess I can’t be too hard on Jim!

Other than that there were no horrific stories – like what happened to Derwin with the CN Interchange to Wholinthall last time.  But I won’t dwell on the past, just point you to the story in case you missed it – Derwin’s ill fated run to Wholinthall.

Milne took this photo of Derwin derailing a freight car (or is he breaking something?) while John is checking out his instructions.  Using switch lists is a little new to these guys since they are very used to car card systems.  Either way, you still have to find the car at the industry and sometimes they aren’t where they are supposed to be.  Good switch crews are hard to find!  HA!

Jim finally did make it out of Bayside and is pulling into Chappellton to drop off cars and pick up a cut heading for Tidewater.  Mike has things under control and is very glad I suggested he take the Chappellton job.  There is definitely a height advantage working on the lower side of the room.

Milne took this photo as well.  It’s great to have someone else on hand to take pictures since I’m usually too busy.  It begs the question, though… Why did he have so much free time?!

Milne took this shot as well.  It’s a different perspective of just how crowded things can get when there are lots of operators on the same side of the room.  Fortunately I didn’t get really greedy for layout space and make the aisles any narrower.  People can still get by one another.

I guess I should clean the light fixtures in the ceiling.  Those lights never get used.

I didn’t run a train so I guess I’m just observing – making sure folks understand how the layout works.  It looks like Derwin is waiting with the CN Interchange (Yes, he’s running that one again!  You’d think I’d learn!) for Jim to finish in Chappellton so he can get into the yard in Tidewater.  Derwin’s glad he won’t have to do the switching for the Interchange and Transfer trains for a change.  It can get a little confusing (and we know how easy it is to confuse Derwin).  Dave has things in Tidewater under control.

Derwin took this shot of Milne running the East Bound Wayfreight into Kenville.  John took the task of doing the local switching in both Kenville and Derwin’s Drop, and providing helper service over “The Ridge”.  It’s not one of the busiest jobs on the layout, but it does keep a person occupied and provides a bit of variety.

All in all the visit went really well.  All the freight cars went to the right places and everyone had a great time.  We are now looking forward to out trip to Saint John on the 20th to operate on a couple layouts there.  It will be a joint trip with some Half Nutters and some of the Codiac guys.  I hope Steve and Doug are prepared  for the havoc we can bring!

Later!

Scott

A group from Moncton are coming over on Saturday for a day of operating.  It should be a fun day and I’m sure I’ll have lots of stories for next week (as long as I take the time to post them).

I haven’t had much time to work on the layout but with the impending visit in mind I did take some time on the weekend to work on some electrical issues.

The track layout in Chappellton has changed many times since the layout was first constructed.  I originally had feeder wires to just about every siding in the town.  The feeders were disconnected to allow for rearranging the track and, although most of them were reattached, apparently I missed some.  So I re-soldered feeders to the passenger track where we were seeing trains slow down for some “unexplained” reason.  I also relocated some other unused feeder wires to the industrial area of Chappellton where we lost power completely during the last operating session.  Hopefully that town will run much better on Saturday.

There was a short section of track in Stevenville, between two turnouts, where we were having issues with locos stalling.  So I ran new feeder wires to that section.  Unfortunately that did not resolve the issue.  I discovered that the locos were actually losing power on the point rails of one of the turnouts.  So I installed jumpers across the riveted section of the point rails and everything works fine now.  However, I was not careful enough when I soldered the fine wires across the opening and actually soldered across the gap.  This resulted in the joint being too stiff for the Z-spring wire I had installed in the turnout’s throw bar.  I had to install a Caboose ground throw.  It’s amazing how one simple thing can lead to so many jobs.

I also started wiring a series of plugs around the layout that will be used for accessory power.  The plugs will be switched from a single location near the door using a lighted switch as a reminder that the power is on.  Since wiring the lights in the passenger station in Chappellton I have left the wall wort power supply plugged in for days.  Fortunately the bulbs do not get so hot that they melt the styrene on the street above.

There are a few more things I’d like to do before Saturday and precious little free time to do them.  As long as we have operating instructions we’ll be good to go.  The other things will just have to go undone.

Anyway, there will be more next week, I hope.  Until then – don’t drive your trains while talking on a cell phone!  It’s against the law now, you know.  You should get a Bluetooth device.

Scott