We left the Island about 1:00 Friday afternoon headed to Moncton for their annual train show. Besides the four of us (Greg, Brian, Mark, and myself) we had the back of the truck and a trailer loaded with UMG modules and other sundry items. One of these days I’ll have to get a picture of the truck and trailer loaded.

We arrived at the show venue about 3:00, unloaded our gear and were starting to look for our space when Trevor asked if we were able to redesign the layout on short notice. AAAAHHHH!?

After a half hour of pacing the floor seeing where we could fit and figuring out which modules we could rearrange we had a rough idea of what we were going to do. (Left: the initial “final” plan for the show.)

As we set up modules and sales tables were rearranged we realized that we wouldn’t be able to fit as redesigned, so after a bit more head scratching we came up with plan C. (Right: the modified “final” plan.)

The redesign resulted in the 5th Street leg being about 20′ long. The Yard leg with Summer Valley was about 36′ long and the Appleton leg was unchanged other than reorienting the angle – about 14′ long. The width of the layout increased by 4′ to 32′. The overall length of modules (track) was about 102′.

Even with all the redesigning on the fly, the layout was operational and fully tested by 6:30. Not bad, and perhaps a new record for such a large layout.

We had a wonderful supper at Jean and Carol’s, where Derwin and Ken joined us. They couldn’t get the afternoon off so came over after work. After a quick tour of Jean’s layout we were off for some operating at John S’s. I didn’t get any pictures because I was so busy operating in Coverdale. There were lots of opportunities for some shots of people in embarrassing moments – being unfamiliar with the layout we made our share of blunders. John’s layout runs wonderfully. There were very few derailments that were not caused by the operators. We finished up about 11:00 and went to Ryan’s for the night.  Thank you Ryan and Jodie for hosting such a rag tag bunch!

After a very full day on Friday, 6:00 Saturday morning came pretty quick! I felt a lot better after a shower and a cup of coffee. Ryan cooked up scrambled eggs and bacon. If you’re ever in the Moncton area and need some overnight accommodation I recommend Chez Nelson. The chef has learned, since last year, that you don’t scramble eggs by dropping them on the floor first, and that perked coffee doesn’t come from a bottle of instant coffee. (Left: The morning scene – Mark It’s way too early for me!”, Ken “Give me some grub!”, Derwin “Yummm, grumm,, snort, …”, and Greg “Thank you Lord for this bounty.” – Photo by Brian.)

Anyway, we got to the show venue about 7:30 and made some final touches to the layout and managed to get a first tour of the sales tables before the doors opened to the public at 9. The weather was cold with wet snow so it was perfect to get folks out to a train show. I don’t think there were many lulls in the crowd, as there has been most other years.

Our new modules (5th Street District) were a hit with lots of people commenting on them. Thank you all! It’s nice to know we’re doing something right! I even received a few positive comments on my weathered up Geeps that I brought.

Ken moves some cars along the main to bring them down to 5th Street.

The grade there is very steep at about 8%, but a switcher with one or two cars climbs it without a problem – even Brian’s very light sound unit.

He’s heading down the grade to pick up some outbound cars.

The large building in the bottom-center is hiding part of the frame where the modules are bolted together. Because there is only 1.5″ of depth to this side of the modules we allowed the frame to rise full height at the joints to provide more surface area for bolting the modules together.  We figured we could hide these parts of the frame with some buildings. The idea worked fairly well. You can barely see an unhidden joint just above Kens’ right hand in the photo above. We don’t have a building to hide that one yet.

Looking in the other direction, he’s pulling some cars out to set on the main for pickup by a passing freight.

There is lots of potential with this module set. We could put another turnout in the area under the bridge and continue the branch off the right side of the modules to extend the switching area.

Brian has some closer shots of the 5th Street District on his blog – The NeverDone Railway.

This picture shows the bulk of our layout. I had hoped to get one from a better angle to show more of it, but time slipped away. If you look in the center of the photo you can see Derwin (black shirt & white hat). He’s switching at the far end of Spring Valley. The photo below has the areas of the layout labeled.

The crowd was pretty steady right up to 4:00 when the show officially closed. We were packed up and sitting at the Homestead Restaurant by 5:30. We arrived back in Summerside a little before 9:00.

Overall it was a great show1 We talked to a lot of new people, introduced folks to operating by allowing them to run trains on our layout, and spent time with many old friends.

Now it’s time to start preparations for the MFMR Convention coming up on May 16, 17, & 18. I’ll be presenting a demonstration/clinic there on basic layout building & scenery techniques. I must head out to the shed to start building some small modules for it.

Later guys!

Scott

The last stop on the agenda was the Bayside and Tidewater. The crew arrived about 3:30 and operations got underway after everyone had a chance to tour the layout.

Murray chose the East Side Local job (working Stevenville and Derwin’s Drop), John took the West Side Local (working Chappellton and Kenville). These jobs are full-time requiring operators to work quick to get cars pulled for the wayfreights to pick up. The East Side Local was very busy, but traffic flow problems made the West Side job a little more relaxing.

Murray at the throttle in Stevenville. I think I see a violation already! Is that a box car on the service siding?

John working hard in Chappellton. Things are pretty quiet here for the moment.

Brian took the East Bound Wayfreight while Allan ran the opposing West Bound Wayfreight. Both of these jobs had extra work due to the previous crew timing out and leaving their return trains sitting on sidings outside yard limits. So the wayfreight crews had to pull their train into the yard and put away the cars before they could make up their departing train. Both were a little late departing and created some traffic problems as a result.

Derwin gives Allan a hand (in the background) getting the Wayfreight ready to leave Bayside.

Mark grabbed the Transfer Job thinking it would be a simple straight run from Bayside to Tidewater. However, traffic issues kept him tied up for quite a while.

Ryan ran the CN Interchange train from CN Wholinthal using two CN (green and gold) units leased from a nearby railroad at the last minute. These units were another first for the BS&T. It was nice to see something other than CP on the layout for a change.

The CN Interchange in Tidewater. I should have taken a picture of this train earlier in the session, but things were a little busy.

Greg decided to run The Connector from Wholinthal to Tidewater. This train was a first for the BS&T. A couple firsts actually. It was the first passenger train on the BS&T and it was the first C-Liner (or anything close to looking like an F-Unit) ever to run on one of my layouts. Anyone knowing my aversion to anything looking like an F-unit would be surprised to see one of these.

Since I do not own any of these beasts I entered into a hastily prepared lease agreement with Canadisle Rail a few days in advance. I was expecting much more of a fuss over this train, but it did not materialize (I guess everyone was too busy). Surprisingly, it looked quite good and will hopefully become part of regular operations on the BS&T.

The Connector waits outside of Chappellton for things ahead to clear up a bit before it proceeds into Tidewater. Passengers were getting worried that they wouldn’t make their connection with The Express. Fortunately, the same traffic problems kept it pretty well locked up in Tidewater as well.

Jim thought the RDC run called “The Express” would be an easy job. Ha! It was far from it. Passengers of the premiere run of The Express were treated to 2 free meals (ok, they were just sandwiches bought from a diner near where they were waiting) as they waited on various sidings around the layout! It was far from an Express run!

The Express heads onto the station siding in Stevenville on it’s return run to Bayside.

It’s almost the end of the day on the BS&T. Power from the Transfer is running around to head east on its return run. Power from the West Bound Wayfreight is about to pull onto the service tracks to get ready for the next day’s East Bound Wayfreight.

There were only two recorded incidents during the session. Knowing most of the operators pretty well I’m sure there were lots of others that were not recorded.

At the start of the session Derwin read aloud an old memo posted on the new BS&T Crew Board (photos in a future report). The memo concerned an incident some time ago where freight cars were parked on a service siding causing significant damage to fueling equipment. The memo also stated that freight cars were not permitted on service sidings. A previous photo in this report, taken in Stevenville, is evidence of a blatant infringement of this rule, despite the warning. Since this operator was a “visitor” there will be no disciplinary action, but he may not get his choice of jobs the next time he visits.

The damaged fueling equipment is on the ground behind the caboose.

Then Management received a report that both a mid-train and rear-train helper were called to assist the East Bound Wayfreight get over The Ridge. This has never been required on the BS&T and traffic is carefully planned to avoid this. Only one helper is ever required on The Ridge. After a quick trip in the company helicopter, Management was on scene to try to figure out what was up.

The East Bound Wayfreight is about to cut in a mid-train helper from Kenville.

Apparently the East Bound crew added cars intended for the Transfer heading east back to Tidewater. Over 20 cars on a 5+% grade is not something Management ever wants to see on the BS&T. So the crew from Tidewater, intended to be the rear-train helper, was instructed to pull off the Transfer cut and return it to Tidewater. Never a dull moment running on the BS&T!

Ryan pulls in to remove the Transfer cars from the East Bound Wayfreight.

It was one of the busiest and best operating session ever on the BS&T. Yes, it was totally disorganized chaos, but it was very fun totally disorganized chaos!

The madness ended about 7:00, about 3 hours after it began.  There was a break in there for supper of about 30 – 45 minutes, so the entire ordeal only lasted a little over 2 hours.  It seemed a lot longer at the time.  Ha!

Now I have to get things fixed up so we can operate the BS&T on our normal schedule this coming Sunday evening. I think I hear a work crew repairing the fueling equipment in Stevenville now.

Later!

Scott

We arrived at Brian’s NeverDone Railway a little after 1:00 pm. The operating started after everyone had a chance to look around, about 1:30 or so.

Mark, Al’s son, was the first to choose a job as the Farside switcher. John chose the Headache Corner job. After a quick look at the orders we discovered there wouldn’t be much of a headache in Headache Corner. John only had about 5 pickups to Mark and Al’s 12 or so. Dropoffs were about the same ratio. Mark and Al had their work cut out for them!

Murray took the MacGregor Yard job and Jim chose the barge operator. If you’re not familiar with The NeverDone Railway, the Island is completely separate from the rest of the layout and relies on barge service to move freight to and from the area. The barge operates between the east end of MacGregor Yard and the west end of the Island.

Ryan was out of the room during this time so he was stuck with the Island job.

Where did the Farside crew go??!!

Next time, all hell breaks loose on the BS&T!

Scott