Summertime Operating

I guess it's time to get back into the swing of things. Summer is not over, but I really need to get back into this on-line stuff. It's been stagnant way too long!

I haven't done anything new to the layout all summer. At least until this past weekend. I've had a PSFour from Tony's for almost a year. I finally got around to installing it yesterday (sorry no pics of it yet). So far I only have two zones set up, Tidewater Yard, and the rest of the layout. Eventually there will be four zones: Bayside, Stevenville/Derwin's Drop, Kenville/Chappellton, and Tidewater. The guys noticed a big difference last evening even with only two zones. The biggest difference was not having to press the reset button after a short.

The reason I finally installed the PSFour? UMG's annual RailFest weekend is this weekend coming and we needed a circuit breaker. So I had to install in on my layout to make sure I knew it worked. And it did, flawlessly, right out of the box.

This year's RailFest is called "MudFest, since it is being held in the mud capital of eastern Canada - Maitland N.S. We've rented a school gymnasium to set up our Free-Mo Style modules and operate the layout all weekend. It should be a blast!

You can see what the layout should look like, provided all the modules show up. There will probably be a module or two constructed at the last minute due to no-shows.

Anyway, back to last evening's operating session. Summer operations are usually quite a bit different from winter operations in that fewer people attend. There's usually two or three that have other things come up and one that takes the summer off completely. So, I have created scenarios for operations on the BS&T based on the number of operators on hand. For example if there are only two operators everything is switched by Wayfreights - TuB Rambler (East Bound) and Backwater Crawler (West Bound) and I run the staging train (Wholeinthal Turn) and the Transfer Turn. If there are three operators the third guy runs the two turns and I spend more time helping in yards or with helper service on Devil's Ridge.

Derwin ran the Wholeinthal Turn last night. Here he is running past Chappellton shortly after departing Wholeinthal. Eventually you won't be able to see the train running through this area because of buildings and other view breaks in front of the tracks.

Once he arrives in Tidewater he'll hop in the company van and head to Bayside where he'll make up the Transfer and run it into Tidewater. Back in Tidewater he'll have to make up both return trains and run them out to their destinations. He'll be a busy guy!

(Actually I helped him out a bit and did some sorting and made up part of his trains for him while he was out on the road)

Shawn is one of our summertime regulars. He's operated with us the past few summers while he is on break from teaching in some exotic places around the world (like Taiwan, the Philippines, and Togo). Here he is getting the TuB Rambler ready for the trip to Bayside. It's a fairly small train (5 cars) leaving Tidewater, but by the time it gets to Devil's Ridge it'll require a helper engine to make the grade up to Derwin's Drop. He's got a lot of work ahead of him since he has to pull all the east bound cars in the four towns along the way and put away cars that he has in his train for those towns as well.

Well, the way the evening progressed the Tub Rambler didn't make it past Stevenville. Here it is parked on the Stevenville work siding. It'll give me something to do while I wait for the next BS&T operating session in 3 weeks



Unfortunately, I got too busy myself to take many pictures so I don't have any shots of Greg running the Backwater Crawler. He did make it all the way from Bayside to Tidewater though.

All in all I think it was a great evening for us. I certainly had fun!

Anyway, I'll post a little something next week about our "MudFest" in Maitland N.S. this weekend. I'll try to take lots of pictures!

Scott