Finally, after several years of visiting layouts in Saint John for operating sessions and inviting them to to come here to return the favour they took us up on our offer. On April 20th Steve, Lou, Bob H. and Bob K. made the trek across the Confederation Bridge (a first for Lou) for a fun day of operating on P.E.I.

As is the case with most operating visits we started the day at Derwin’s on Canadisle Rail.  The guys were very impressed with how much operating can be included in a smallish layout.  Derwin’s layout is about 20′ x 12′ but there is enough work to keep 5 operators busy for hours.

After lunch and another shift of operating on the Canadisle Rail we headed over to the Bayside & Tidewater.  After a brief tour and explanation of the operation the guys picked jobs and the session got underway.

Lou chose the Stevenville local switch job.  It was one of the busiest sessions for Stevenville in quite a while so Lou had his hands full.

Steve chose one of the wayfreight jobs.  The nice thing about wayfreights is that the operator gets to travel the whole railroad and has a nice mix of running and switching.

Derwin ran the interchange trains, as usual, and Ewen was the Bayside Yardmaster.

The two Bob’s are both in Chappellton right now.  Bob K. is the local crew in Chappellton and Bob H. is running the other wayfreight.

Chris pulled double duty as Tidewater Yard Master and running the Mine train.

We have been having a few challenges with WiThrottle since adding virtual signal panels in Stevenville.  (More about the virtual signals in a future post) Paul Bender suggested that it might be due to a flaky router.  The old Dlink was replaced by a new Western Digital router and it seemed to have resolved the issue since we had no WiThrottle problems at all during the 3 hour operating session.

Reviewing the comments from the Black River Road post with this photo in mind, I see that someone didn’t take his own advice. This photo shows what can happen when a load is just a little too tall. I won’t say who is responsible, but he’s pretty tall as well. Ha!

Fortunately for him he is not responsible for replacing the equipment or repairs to Chappellton Station.  It’s a good thing the roof supports were strong enough that the street above didn’t cave in!

Thanks for the photo, Greg!

Scott

Yes, it’s that time of year again! Wouldn’t you know it, the only team that didn’t make it into the semi finals is the Stevenville Stalkers!  The three other local teams: Tidewater Titans, Chappleton Crushers, and the Bayside Bashers all made it as well as the rival Wholinthall Wolverines.  Operations on the BS&T have seen an increase in passenger traffic from all the local fans that want to attend as many games as they can.

Photo: The Milk Train passes the “Hockey Specials” on it’s way to Wholinthal. The RDC is heading to Bayside with Titan fans while the larger train carrying Wolverine fans is heading to Chappellton.

Last night the Titans played the Bashers in Bayside and the Crushers were host to the Wolverines.  Fan specials ran from Wholinthal to Chappellton and from Tidewater to Bayside.

The Wolverines won against the Crushers 12 zip.  Local fans could see the defeat coming so left early and jumped on the late combine.  They knew it would take longer to get home, but felt safer than if they had traveled on the special with the Wolverines fans!  I think it was a good decision since, judging from the amount of cleanup and repair the maintenance crew will have to do, Wolverines fans are rather rowdy.

The Titans were bashed by the Bayside Team 6 – 3.  It was interesting to note the difference in fan disposition between Wolverines and Titans fans.  The RDC that carried the latter received very little damage in comparison  I guess they were not in much of a celebratory mood after their loss.

Next week should be interesting!

The Wayfreight crews doubled as passenger crews last evening.  In keeping with Union regulations those operators received bonus pay – 1 extra Kimmie Treat at break time!  Barry ran the Wolverines fan train while Ewen ran the RDC with Titan fans.  After taking the fans to the games those guys had to run over and grab the local switch engines to get their Wayfreight trains ready.

Photo: Tom stands back to watch a rare sight on the BS&T. The Special Passenger run carrying Wolverine fans to Chappellton rolls through Stevenville.

Tom ran the local job in Stevenville.  It’s been a while since he was able to make it to an operating session on the BS&T (since he tried to take a picture of me – and failed miserably).  It took him time to get into the swing of things, but once he got on a roll he did a fine job.  I haven’t gone through the switch list to make sure everything got delivered to the right places, of course, but I’m sure there were no mistakes.

Photo: The East Bound Wayfreight cleared the west switch a few minutes ago so the Interchange from Wholinthal is able to leave town heading for Tidewater. The local switch crew has a string of cars ready for the Wayfreight.

Ken was late arriving so Chris grabbed his usual place switching the local industries in Chappellton.  I’m not exactly sure what Barry is doing (running the East Wayfreight).  Perhaps it’s some new hand signal system that Management is not aware of.

Derwin is running the CN Interchange train from Wholinthall into Tidewater.  You can see it just leaving town in the distance.

Photo: The East Bound Wayfreight is heading onto the station track in Stevenville as the Transfer from Bayside waits on the mainline.

Here’s a rather common pose for Derwin.  Ha!  I guess I should say, in all fairness, that he is waiting for Barry and the East Bound Wayfreight to finish swapping cars with Tom in Stevenville.  It’s just coming through into the station now so Derwin will soon be on his way.

Photo: The Combine has just cleared the switch so the Transfer is able to leave.

Unfortunately Ken missed a lot of the early activity on the railroad.  I was just getting the Coal train into Chappellton when he arrived so I handed that task off to him.  He completed that and then performed local switching in Kenville and Derwin’s Drop.  Sorry,  I was too busy turning trains for their return runs and I did not get any photos of those areas.

I didn’t get many photos of Ewen either.  He must have been behaving himself, otherwise I’m sure I would have gotten a photo or two of him.  He ran the West Bound Wayfreight in the first half of the session and the East Bound in the second half (Barry ran the second East Bound).

All in all it was a great session.  There were the inevitable equipment failures – tank car fell apart after it was knocked by a big hand (wonder who!) and a few coupler springs went “sproing”.  Barry lost a loco for a few minutes after the decoder in it reset itself.  Thank goodness for DecoderPro!  I had the loco reprogrammed and back in operation in a few minutes.  Unfortunately it was not until AFTER he had to get helper service over “The Ridge”.

So next week (May 2nd) we are back at Derwin’s “Canadisle Rail”.  The following week is Mother’s day so we will not be operating.  We’ll be back on the BS&T on May 16th!  Derwin and I will be just returning from the MFMR Annual Convention on May 23rd, so we will not be operating that evening.

Remember, if you are planning a trip to Prince Edward Island you should contact me to set up some layout visits or an operating session.

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

Now, getting to what I alluded to previously.  The guys in Moncton will be pleased to hear that Derwin earned some well-deserved demerits during Sunday’s operating session.  It seems he didn’t inspect his train before he left Tidewater heading back to Wholinthall with the CN Interchange.  A coupler let go on The Ridge and the rear section of his train rolled uncontrolled down grade.  The caboose and the next car derailed at the crossover causing little damage to the contents of the box car, but almost wrote off the caboose.

The cupola is laying on the ground, the handrail between the cars is at an odd angle, and the ladder is missing.  A search crew found it the next morning just after sunrise.  They had to use a helicopter to do an aerial survey of the area.  They couldn’t believe how far the ladder flew from the scene!

It’s also amazing that no one was injured!  Conductor Ima Lukyduk was heating up some soup and pouring coffee at the time.  “I was trown onta da cot dere an a bunch a pillows landed on top o me.  They kept me from gittin covered wit the soup and coffee I was heetin’ up!  I’m glad I sleep a lot an have a good mattress (from U & M Mattresses by the way) and lots a pillows on hand!”

The caboose is now at Fixum Car Repair in Chappellton where it will hopefully be repaired before the next operating session. They already used the crane to put the cupola back on the roof.  I really hope they straighten it up!

How many demerits do you think that’s worth!?

Scott

A regular Milk Train will now be part of the operations on the BS&T after receiving a couple milk station kits and 0-8-0 locomotive for Christmas. I’ve been working on the milk stations off and on and have them pretty much complete and in place on the layout.  There is a bit of scenery to be done around them.

The station in Kenville is a Tichy Train Group plastic kit.  It is a simple Milk Shed/Station but really adds to the area around the passenger station. The kit came with dozens of milk cans that I will be able to use as detail bits at all the milk stations.

The kit also came with a handcar shed and accessories that I placed to the left of the milk station.  It’s hard to get a clear photo through the trees and buildings.

The milk station is Derwin’s drop is almost across from the passenger station.  It is a Banta Model Works laser cut wood kit.  This kit was a real pleasure to build.  There was lots of strip wood – I didn’t have to worry about errors in cutting and wastage.  The walls were notched on both the sides and bottom to assure a good strong glue joint and squareness.

Because this structure is out in plain view I will be sure to add some extra scenery around it.

The power for this train is two Proto 2000 0-8-0 locomotives.  One of them has sound (Loksound).  I had hoped that the two of them together would have enough power to pull the 4 milk cars up the grade between Kenville and Derwin’s Drop.  Unfortunately they do not have quite enough weight to provide the required traction.  They start spinning about 1/2 way up the grade.  So the Kenville local switcher will provide helper service over The Ridge.

The milk train is heading through Stevenville on it’s evening return run from the dairy in Wholinthall.  The Transfer from Tidewater is waiting on the siding to get into Bayside.

The two locomotives rumble past G-Mac Transfer.  The crew will have to wait for the Transfer to clear the siding before they can back their train into the station to drop off some empty milk cans.

After dropping empties in Stevenville it’s off to Derwin’s drop.  No backing into milk stations  since it has drive up service!

The train will leave Tidewater at the start of the session and stop at the Freight Station in Chappellton, the milk stations in Kenville and Derwin’s Drop, and the passenger station in Stevenville to pick up full milk cans.  Then it will head to the dairy in Wholinthall.  Toward the end of the session the Milk train will come back and make the same stops dropping off empty milk cans and tie up in Tidewater.

Scott