We had another operating session on the BS&T last evening. Derwin, Barry, Ewen, Chris, Ken, and Greg made up the crew.
Derwin chose to run the new Milk Train which also got him the CN Interchange and Transfer jobs. He’s bringing the Transfer out of Bayside in this photo. The previous guy in the yard had made a bit of a mess and Derwin had a lot of tidying up to do so he was a little late leaving. Ewen says he’ll pay more attention to track diagrams next time. I’ll point out something in another photo in this post that we will refer to as the “Incident”.
I’ll have more detail on the Milk Train and The Incident in a coming post.
Barry decided to try solo ops and chose to switch Kenville and Derwin’s Drop since it would be an easier task for a newbie. When I was describing the job to him I said “You’ll be really busy if both wayfreights arrive at the same time. No need to worry because that rarely ever happens”. HA! It happened – twice in the same session! So I gave him a hand in Derwin’s Drop when the wayfreights arrived.
I think he handled the task quite well. At the end of the evening he said he had a great time! He also said something about it’s nice to know that there’s something more to model railroading that building a layout and watching trains go around in circles.
Ewen thought he’d also try a less hectic job that local switching and took the West Bound Wayfreight. After break he became the East Bound #2 for the return to Bayside. He’s just pulling into Kenville with that train. I had to put the camera down shortly after this because the West Bound #2 arrived in Derwin’s Drop.
Chris, for some reason, jumped at the chance to switch in Stevenville. He’s watching Derwin bring out the Transfer in the first photo of this post.
Greg ran the East Bound Wayfreight He is also running the second have of his job as East Bound #2. We finished exchanging cars and he’s just leaving Derwin’s Drop.
Ken did the local switching in Chappellton, as usual. He got off to a slow start due to a power glitch (more below) so was behind for most of the first half of the session.
I ran the Coal Peddler and helped out (I hope I was helping!) where needed.
I mentioned a power glitch in Chappellton – the whole industrial district lost power early in the session. It took a while to track it down to one of the turnouts from the main line into the industrial area. It decided that it was not going to route power to the whole industrial district. I didn’t have time to install new feeders (I should have done that years ago – anticipating a turnout failure!) last evening so Ken had to keep the turnout set for the siding. He also had to watch traffic coming into town in case a train ended up on the poorly maintained industrial tracks. It made for a hectic evening for him. Sorry Ken!
Ewen is backing up to connect to the rest of East Bound #2 as he prepares to head for Derwin’s Drop. You can also see the tail end of the CN Interchange as it heads into Wholinthall. Wait a minute! This is the 50’s – why is there no caboose? I’ll have more details about the “Incident” in a future post. Stay tuned!
Between fixing a power issue and working in the car shops I’ve got some work to do before the next operating session in two weeks. I’m going to try to reform my procrastinating ways and get things done in advance. Hmmm… I hope.
Later!
Scott