I apologize for not posting here very often.  Work is going well and I’ve been busy helping other folks with their web sites so I’ve had little time for my own.  I’m not going to promise anything, but I am going to try to post items here more frequently in the future.

The Half Nuts gang has been growing this fall.  We’ve picked up a few new members and a couple potential members as well.  The BS&T operating session held on Dec. 21 saw one of the largest operating crews ever assembled.   The new guys, and even some of the old crew, are still getting used to operations on the BS&T.  I can understand the new guys having trouble, but the more experienced crew members shouldn’t have difficulty.  It’s not like I change the jobs every op session – just every 3 or 4 – HA!

I do change things up every once in a while to try to make operating more interesting and challenging.  There is more traffic on the layout now than this time last year.   I have plans for the new year that will see even more traffic, but only when crew size warrants it.

Back to the op session.  We had 8 crew members on hand with regulars Derwin, Greg, Ken, and Tom – new regulars Ewen and Chris – prospective member (just checking things out) Barry, and visiting honorary member Steve D.  Since this was Barry’s first time out he was Derwin’s Brakeman.

Greg gets the 2nd run of the East Bound Wayfreight ready to leave Tidewater.  The CN Interchange (Derwin and Barry) from Wholinthall has already arrived in the yard and cars have been set out from the Yard for it’s return run.

Ken is busy switching in Chappellton as usual.  Things aren’t quite as hectic there as they were before splitting the Wayfreights into two runs.  Ken has a little more breathing time now.

Steve is just checking things out waiting for his next job.  He ran the coal train in the first half of the session – a nice easy job.

Tom is busy switching local industries in Kenville and Derwin’s Drop.  There is so little action in each town that they hardly justify their own crews so the jobs are combined when available crew warrants it.  Usually Wayfreight crews do the local switching in these towns.

Derwin and Barry are running the Transfer from Bayside to Tidewater down The Ridge.  This train moves cars from Bayside that are destined for Tidewater and The CN Interchange in Wholinthall.  On it’s return run it  moves freight destined for Bayside and the newly instituted train to US destinations.

Derwin has the Transfer down The Ridge and is making the run into Chappellton.  Ken will be glad that it’s the Transfer since it just runs through town and doesn’t bring any work for him.  The Transfer will have to wait in Chappellton for Greg to get the Wayfreight out of the Yard.  Once the Transfer gets into Tidewater the real work begins there sorting out the cars for the return run of the Transfer and the CN Interchange in Wholinthall.

Meanwhile, things are pretty calm on the other side of the room.  It looks like Chris is running the 2nd half of the West Bound Wayfreight into Stevenville.  He’ll soon be working with the local switcher, Ewen, in Stevenville to make his deliveries and pickups.  Next stop Derwin’s Drop, where he should meet the East Bound Wayfreight.

Tom is busy in Kenville moving some freight around.  He’ll soon have to make the run over The Ridge to Derwin’s Drop to switch cars to and from the West Bound Wayfreight.  As I mentioned before, there isn’t a lot of action in these two towns so he should be able to get the work done in short order.  The one thing that does slow things down here is the lack of passing sidings, and the fact that the stations are located on the only available passing sidings.  Each Wayfreight much drop it’s Combine at the station for passengers to disembark while freight cars are removed and added to the train.  When all the work is done the Combine is placed at the station for passengers to board.

Steve has been pressed into service helping Derwin and Barry sort cars for the return runs of the Transfer to Bayside and the CN Interchange to Wholinthall.  There are a lot of cars to be sorted and management is getting really tired of re-routing cars that were placed on the wrong trains.  Ha!

The Transfer is ready to leave Tidewater.  It’s longer than normal for some reason (likely due to the new US Interchange train out of Bayside).  It will probably need a helper to get over The Ridge.

So now they are finalizing the cars for the ruturn run to Wholinthall.  Steve will run that one, while Derwin and Barry will take the Transfer.

Derwin’s looking a little worried for some reason.  Holy Hannah!  He’s talked Greg, running the East Bound Wayfreight, into being a helper for his Wholinthall train!!!!  They are putting the passengers in the Combine at great risk!  I wouldn’t want to be them when Management sees this picture!

Tom should have stepped in and told them not to do it.  It is his job to take use the Kenville switcher as a helper for trains too long to climb The Ridge.  I guess having less seniority he didn’t want to chance it.

The good news is both trains made it to Derwin’s Drop without incident.  The passengers, although a little upset with the extra noise and worry, were unharmed.  Everyone was just glad to have it done with.

The evening was quite enjoyable and was a great learning experience for me to see how the layout can operate with a large crew.  I’m looking forward to more operating sessions like this in the future.

Later!

Scott

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

Have you ever seen the show “Ed’s Up” with Ed Robertson from the Bare Naked Ladies?  Ed flies to GPS coordinates and meets someone that gives him a job to do (sort of like “Dirty Jobs” only not always dirty).  Well, we had our own version of that recently while Ed Cooke was back on the Island for a few weeks.  Well, almost – he drove and he’s not famous (except perhaps in Fed-Ex circles).  We managed to get a couple evenings operating while he was here.

The milk trains waits on The Ridge while the Wayfreight clears the main in Kenville. Ed’s running the Wayfreight and I was waiting with the milk train (so I took photos).

There are two additions to BS&T operations evident in this photo.  The first is the milk train.  It runs in the morning (start of the session) from Wholinthal to Tidewater and back  stopping at stations and milk sheds along the way.  It may not become a regular run but it will give someone a job to do when there are enough operators.

The second addition came about by complaints from area residents that the “regular” passenger service was so sporadic they could not count on the train when they wanted to travel.  Management decided to make each wayfreight a mixed train by replacing the caboose with a combination car.  Crews grumbled considerably, as expected, about the extra work they’d have spotting the car at the train station and having to move it after passengers disembark so they can finish their switching.  Rather than taking a hard nosed approach Management offered a 50% pay increase for the extra work required.  Crews still grumble but they do get well compensated.  Passengers still can’t count on efficient travel but they do have regular passenger service.

Tom’s busy switching the industrial section of Stevenville.

Other changes to operations on the BS&T have resulted in more trains running and more frequent but smaller cuts of cars being left in towns for the local switcher.

The first Wayfreight through only picks up about half the cars they normally would.  When it reaches the opposite yard it turns around and becomes the 2nd run picking up cars the 1st run didn’t.

This means that trains are shorter so they have less trouble making it up The Ridge.  Helper service over The Ridge is required a lot less.

Derwin runs the Wayfreight into Derwin’s Drop.  He’ll first spot the combination car at the station and then start working on his pickups and drop offs.  After the passengers have disembarked he’ll move the combination car so he can do his run around moves.  When he’s done with those he’ll reposition the combination car at the station so passengers can get on while he finishes his work and gets his train back together.

But, I think the wait at Derwin’s Drop might be longer than usual since it looks like the crew will be on coffee break soon.  (note to self:  get better drink holders)

The addition of the passenger car certainly adds more work, especially in Derwin’s Drop and Kenville since the station is located on the passing siding.  The car must be moved to allow run around maneuvers and then repositioned in front of the station.  It cannot be moved with passengers on board due to safety concerns.

Oh oh!  Trouble is brewing.  Derwin’s trying to help Ed figure out what he has to do in Chappellton!  God help us!

Chappellton certainly looks like it is getting built up!  The addition of a few buildings from The NeverDone Railway has really made the town grow! It’ll be a shame when it’s time to give them back.  But it will mean another layout to operate on so it won’t be a total loss!

Until next time!

Scott