Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately depending on your perspective, we were short a couple operators last evening. I was pressed into service on the East Bound Wayfreight and did not have time to take any pictures.
Brian wanted to give the new wayfreight instructions a workout so he ran the opposing wayfreight. His start was delayed because of, who else, Derwin wanting to make up his transfer at the same time Brian was making up his train. When he finally got on the road, Brian wasn’t long making up for lost time.
Derwin decided to run something “simple” for a change and took the Wholeinthall Turn and Transfers. He quickly realized they weren’t as simple as he first thought. Once the Wholinthall Turn and transfer from Bayside arrive in Tidewater they must be sorted into a return train to Wholinthall and the return transfer to Bayside. There is quite a bit of yard work involved with these runs.
Greg chose the local job in Chappellton. It was a slow day in Chappellton so he ended up also switching in Kenville and Derwin’s Drop and provided helper service over The Ridge.
Tom, the newbie, flew solo in Stevenville. Unfortunately for him, Stevenville was extra busy. He had about 14 cars leaving town, 10 cars coming in, as well as a couple local moves. Being unfamiliar with a town is one thing, being new to operations adds to the complexity considerably. You did great Tom!
Running a full session solo during the past week helped to identify several trouble spots. I got most of them fixed as they occurred so there were fewer problems last evening. But there were a few things, both expected and unexpected, that popped up. I think that in the 3 weeks until the next session on the BS&T I will run another solo session to work a few more kinks out.
For all we did quite well. The shift was done about 10:00 after about 2.5 hours of operating.
Later!
Scott