Long overdue updates

 I've been remiss in updating the blog of late. I tend to treat blog posts as something that require some proof reading and editing - unlike a Facebook post that I tend to approach with a fire and forget attitude. 

But with summer travels and activities winding down over the last month, and MARPM (a great time as always!) in the rear view mirror, and the second book from Artisan Rail Media almost on the way to the printer, it's time to turn my attention to the layout. There's a few things I need to focus on before the next big event on the Southern New England - the annual New Jersey - Northern Virginia exchange is coming up in November and I need to make sure the layout is ready, and I want to complete one or two projects before the visitors arrive to put the layout through its paces. 

Getting ready for the New Jersey gang shouldn't be too overwhelmingly - last month we had the pleasure of hosting a group of operators from Long Island as part of the first ever "Beltway Ops" weekend. I had five guest operators on the SNE - and they seemed to have a great time putting the Richford Branch through it's paces.

Since I hadn't operated the layout for several months except for some test running the couple of weeks before the session stuff ended up all over the railroad, meaning it took a while to stage everything and get the trains set up. Since 6 is what I consider my maximum crew size I had to play some games with the true Richford Branch prototype schedule. So we ran a Richford Turn, a Richford Yardmaster, and a Mill Job to handle the paper mill. A good time was had by all! 

D.C. traffic contributed to a later than planned start even on a Saturday afternoon. But we ran the entire session and everyone had time for the obligatory bull session after the trains had been run. The day concluded with a nice dinner at a local eatery with the other layout hosts and local and out of town operators. Plans are already underway for the next "Beltway Ops" weekend!

Richford Yard staged for the start of the session. 

The crew posed for a picture before the start of the session. 

As I said there are a few things I'd like to get done on the layout in time for the next operating weekend. I plan to make some changes to the industrial tracks and sidings in Enosburg, and to finish the long under construction hardware store there. There's also a section of still raw benchwork between Stafford Mills and Berkshire where I plan to add a creamery. 

We will be out of town for a few days between now and the weekend before Thanksgiving (which is when the session will take place). And I still need to finish the Modeling Civil War Railroads book so we can ship it later this month. That means I have no idea if I'll be able to finish some or any of these planned projects. I may very well leave the layout like it is - at least until after the next couple of sessions. 

Oh, and I want to shoot another video update or two, and then there's another project that I don't plan to start until the end of the year - expanding the staging yard. As always, plenty to do! 

Plenty to do, and will try to keep the blog updated more regularly. 

Op Session #1 and Video Layout Update #15

The Richford Turn leaves Enosburg enroute for Richford during Session #1. 

Last Sunday was hot and muggy (though downright pleasant compared to today!) - the perfect weather to retreat to the basement where it's always a pleasant sunny day in mid October in northern Vermont! 

The occasion was operating session 1.0 on the Richford Branch. 

I invited three good friends over to put the layout through its paces. I was concerned there wouldn't be enough to do to keep them entertained and occupied, but was pleasantly surprised to find that wasn't the case. In the end the layout supported an enjoyable, low key session for three operators and could have handled a fourth operator if only there had been another throttle available. 

Operating the layout solo over the last couple of years revealed that working the town of Richford itself can easily consume an hour or so - the paper mill another hour or so - meaning it might take the branchline local 4 hours+ to finish its run over the entire layout. 

Bernie ponders his next move with the mill job. 

My original intention for this session was to have two trains, each with a two-person crew - one working the paper mill job, the other running the branchline local around the rest of the layout. But that would still require the branchline local to work  Richford yard. 

So we tried something different and created a Richford yard job that spotted and sorted the cars for the local when it pulled into town. Not entirely prototypical for my era, (it was done that way in earlier eras) but it worked out really well. 

Todd brings the Richford Turn into Richford as Bill looks on. 

It worked out so well I think we'll stick with this lineup for the foreseeable future: 

1. Richford Turn (the branchline local)

2. The Mill Job - works the paper mill

3. Richford Yard Job 

4. The Charlton Turn - works the "northern SNE" section of the railroad. 

We also discussed the possibility of breaking the milk cars into a separate train. Depending on how many people we have I might try doing that next time. The Richford Turn has a lot of do as it is, and shifting the milk traffic to its own train may prove an ideal solution. 

There were no issues with anyone feeling cramped or crowded - a function of mostly 3+ foot aisles in many places. That also  means I can accommodate more operators by going to two-person crews in case, for example, a group of people come from out of town to operate. 

I was giving serious consideration to removing the paper mill peninsula and lengthening the Richford peninsula and adding a turnback curve that would loop around into more staging. Based on the feedback from the operating crew, the paper mill stays - for now. 

That covers number of trains and operators - but did the layout offer sufficient play value? I was somewhat concerned people would find it boring to operate, they would be done in 15 minutes and wondering what they were supposed to do the rest of the day. 

In the end I didn't need to worry - the layout kept us busy for the better part of 2.5 hours. And everyone finished about the same time. 

How did the layout perform? 

In short, there were a couple of little glitches, but nothing overwhelming. Likely since I’ve been running the layout on and off for a few years.

A few gremlins did raise their heads - nothing horrible but enough to need some attention. 

For example, I'm going to fix (ie, replace!) a turnout in Berkshire that just doesn’t want to cooperate. And Todd managed to find the one spur where the feeders were loose (or not there!) so I need to deal with that. And the track in Charlton needs a good cleaning. 

The only other “issues” were one or two cars with coupler issues. I put them aside and will deal with them before they go back on the railroad.

The only other thing I need to deal with is upgrading some of the operator aides - apparently my handwriting hasn’t improved since grade school!

All in all a great time was had by all - thanks to Stic for all his help getting us to this point (unfortunately he was out of town so he missed this one) and to Bernie, Bill, and Todd for bringing the Richford Branch to life! 

And I posted a new video update on the layout, that shows some of the progress on a couple of structures and provides a hot wash of the operating session #1. You can find that on You Tube at: 

https://youtu.be/gww1AGRdOJU?si=S7JHRQzSGxN2AJKp

Canadian Pacific E8 in St. Albans

 Here's something you don't see everyday:

CP E8 at St. Albans, photographer/date unknown

A Canadian Pacific locomotive sitting in the St. Albans trainshed. 

I had the pleasure of catching up with Ian Stronach at the recently concluded New England RPM. Somehow we got on the subject of CP E8 locomotives, and he mentioned the photo above. 

Just what was a CP E8 1801, in its original paint and lettering, doing heading a passenger train in St. Albans on the Central Vermont? 

The reason for this detour remains a mystery.  The most likely would have been because the CPR was blocked between Wells River and Newport. It is a shame we cannot see the switch stand to determine if the turnout under the lead truck is lined for the Richford Branch.  Since the train is facing north we can surmise it either arrived from somewhere south on the CV or it arrived from the north and has been turned at St. Albans to return north. The former is far more likely. 

We can assume two possibilities of where the train is heading:

1. Up the Richford Branch to Richford and then onto the CPR Newport Sub.  

2. Over the CV and then CN to St. Jean, Quebec and then onto the CPR.

One thing that may eliminate possibility #1 from consideration: 

The 1955 ETT states the following for the Richford Sub.:

RESTRICTIONS, ENGINE

Engines heavier than the 460 class must not operate. EXCEPTI0N 600 class may be used in helper or special service on main track and sidings only. So, is an E-8 heavier on the drivers than a 460 or 600 class?

In the meantime, the first possibility offers me a chance to run that beautiful CP E8 over my version of the Richford sub! 

Explaining Staging

Over the last few evenings I've completed the basic landforms for the area where trains will emerge from the staging tracks onto the scenicked portion of the layout. As mentioned previously, the staging tracks aren't hidden from view (since hidden from view in this case would also mean "difficult to access"!). They will, however, be screened from view by a low rise in the ground, and perhaps trees and bushes. At the point where the staging tracks emerge from hiding trains will round a bend and appear from behind a more dense stand of trees. At least that's the plan. We'll see how effective it is in practice. 

Some questions and comments indicate a little bit of confusion with what exactly is going on in this corner of the layout. Really, it may seem complicated or confusing but when you see it in person it makes perfect sense. 

I will try to clear this up with a couple of labeled photos. 

A few months back I described how I added a couple of new staging tracks to the layout. There are actually two stub-ended "screened" tracks along the right hand (short) wall if you view the track plan in the Richford Branch layout description tab above. 

These represent the originating point of the Richford Branch in St. Albans, Vermont. These are labeled St. Albans (west) in the image above. As you can see in the photo above there are two other double-ended siding tracks visible in the foreground. These tracks serve a dual purpose. First of all, their primary function is to represent the interchange connection with the CPR in Richford at the other end of the branch. But since these two tracks are double-ended they could also provide additional "surge" staging capacity for another train originating in St. Albans. And their third, and perhaps most important function, at least to me, is to provide a continuous run connection. 

The second photo shows the other end of the staging yard. This is the point where trains coming from St. Albans will first appear "on scene." This photo also shows the other end of those double ended Richford CPR interchange tracks. I've built up the basic landforms out of foam board and florist foam to create a scene with a slight slope to the foreground between the track and aisle and a slight hillside between the track and wall. I'm hoping this will prove to be a good place for "roster shots" of rolling stock. 

Since all this "staging" is really integrated into the rest of the layout visually my intention is to scenic it, ballast the track, etc... 

To the casual observer it will just look like a few more tracks - perhaps with a train or cut of cars spotted on it - but won't be a visually jarring distraction from the rest of the layout. 

Hope that clears things up!

CV Form 852

I've had requests over the years for various "official" Central Vermont forms and the like - particularly operating paperwork. These requests have ranged from Form 19 "flimsies" - which are fairly easy to locate - to more esoteric paperwork.  For example, in the past week I've received requests from two people modeling the CV (on opposite ends of the country) for a copy of a CV switchlist.
The answer is I did find one, or at least a photocopy of one, shown above, buried in my file cabinet.  At least I think this is what they're looking for.  
A number of years ago (more than 40 years ago at this point!) a former railroad employee, who shall remain nameless, found a stack of CV switchlists/train consist lists, versions of which you may seen referred to as "Conductor's wheel reports" on other railroads - tucked away in the attic of the White River Junction station and/or freight office (the story varies as to the actual location of the original repository). 
What was interesting was the "stack" included a number of lists all from the same month - November 1955. 
In the early 1990s and early 2000s a number of freight car modelers across the country, primarily Tim Gilbert, conducted detailed studies of freight car distribution. While I don't think it was the original intent of Tim's research it didn't take long for layout builders interested in car routing and the like to glom onto these percentages in order to create a "correct" mix appearing freight car rosters. In other words, if you were modeling railroad x and had a total of 300 cars, you should include cars from 20 cars from railroad y and 15 from railroad z since they would likely appear based on traffic patterns, percentage of the national freight car pool, and other factors, including good ole' plain dumb luck. 
Frankly, this is a real rabbit hole and one you could spend months and years going down. 
All this was going on about the time this stash of 1955 lists appeared. And several members of the CVRHS took this stock of lists and outlined all the road names and car numbers that appeared on these lists. While it presents an interesting snapshot, it's only that. My main purpose is getting ahold of this data was to create a list of possible freight car modeling candidates - a goal not without its own tripwires. 
I covered the results of their analysis in a couple of prior posts on this blog and on my Steam Era Freight Cars Blog, and won't belabor the point here except to say it was an interesting exercise and if you want to model just one of almost any North American railroads boxcars you could do worse than White River Junction in 1955. (If you want to learn more about this, those posts can be found here and here). Note: The posts are identical, but the comments certainly are not. 
I only repeat the tale to share this image - a very bad photocopy - of just one of the sheets. 
Obviously it's noted as CV Form 852. Since I don't believe there's a CV Form 851 or 853, I surmise that it's "852" because it was introduced in August,1952. I welcome any challenges to that assumption, backed up by proof of course!
It would be easy enough to create a version of this in Excel or Word for someone wanting to duplicate this list. The notations in the right column are fairly interesting. 
I also cropped in on the top of the list for easier reference. 

CV List of Industries and Facilities Located at Stations

Ten or 15 years ago Jim McFarlane and I were going back and forth by email - I was asking Jim if the railroad maintained a central list of customers. My purpose was to determine what industries were in specific towns along the line. Jim was thinking I wanted a list of all the customers who shipped via the railroad - which would have numbered in the thousands (he was thinking of each less than carload or LCL shipment as a "customer"). No matter, there was no "master list of customers." 
A few weeks later an envelope appeared in my mailbox with three documents and a short note from Jim reading "Marty, is this something that answers your question?" 
What Jim had sent me was three copies of a document called "List of Industries (Served by Private Sidings) and Facilities Located at Stations on the Central Vermont Railway and Montpelier and Barre Railroad." Quite a mouthful! (the exact title apparently changed over the years!)

One was from 1945, one from 1959, and the third from 1965. 

A page from the 1945 book is shown below: 

The 1959 book is a little different. Each page contains a list of individual railroad customers who were responsible for maintaining a siding or some portion thereof. Included was the name of the customer, a brief description of the type of business ("Feed mill", "Manufacturer of xxx" etc ...), and the length of track (right column in view below) that customer was responsible for maintaining. 

Keep in mind when the list reads "Siding length 50-feet" that does not mean there's a dedicated 50-foot long spur off the main - it merely means that particular customer was responsible for paying for the upkeep of that length of track - quite often there would be several customers located along a single siding, with each customer responsible for the maintenance of a certain portion. 
The listing also indicates the customer's name - I believe it's whomever the railroad would bill for the service. In the Enosburg Falls listing above, "Issac Brown" is shown as a Retail Petroleum Dealer with a siding length of 40 feet. 
Look on a map of Enosburg Falls and you'll note there's an oil dealer - Standard Oil Co. of New York - located on the double ended siding across from the depot. The engineering department plats make no reference to "Issac Brown." I'm fairly certain he was the owner, or at least the manager, of the Socony dealership in Enosburg Falls, Vt. 

Lessons Learned

An important lesson all sailors learn in bootcamp - ways to stop water from getting into the people tank.

Lessons Learned are a big thing in my work life.  We’re perpetually looking at things that didn’t go as planned (and even those that did) in an effort to identify and repeat the things that worked and to avoid repeating those times, as one of my old bosses was fond of saying “The water got into the people tank.”*

So, although I was pleased with the layout’s scenery and performance (once the initial teething pains were worked through) I find myself asking if the layout was “successful?”

The stated purpose of the railroad was to “model the equipment, structures, operations and setting of the Central Vermont Railway in the late steam-to-diesel transition era.” 
Measured against that standard, I’m not sure the railroad didn't fall short.
Here's just a few of the lessons learned:

Focus: I need more of it, and I need to stick with something once I drive the stake in the ground. "Modeling the Central Vermont of the 1950s..." is a large canvas. As I've relayed in this blog, I started modeling the Southern Division of the railroad on a double deck layout, then tried to shoehorn White River Junction and the Northern Division (with it's larger engines) into a single-deck railroad, only to later remove WRJ and install Essex in its place. The basic footprint of the layout never really changed all that much, but I think we built, and rebuilt, every section of the layout at least twice. 

My approach to layout design?

In essence, I was chasing the ever illusive squirrel - the hope of a "perfect" layout design to overlay on my theme. In the end, "perfection" became the enemy of decisiveness. That's all on me, and I truly appreciate the grace and tolerance shown by my friends throughout all this! 

Modeling the Operations:  In general, the individual operating sessions were a success (I always had a good time).  But let’s look at it from the viewpoint of return on investment.
I started construction of the layout in December, 2008.  It took several years of building (and yes, rebuilding) the layout.  In total, I ended up hosting 17 “official” operating sessions throughout the railroad’s 8.5 years of existence.  That’s averages out to a session about every 7 months.  An aside, if you really want to depress yourself, consider the following formula:

Total Cost of the Layout (in $) / Total # of Sessions = Cost/per session ($) 

No matter how it's broken down, it doesn’t seem like the time, effort, and money to build the layout was worth it when you consider the total time spent performing its main function was a fraction of the time it existed.

We didn't operate as much as I'd hoped, but Christine made sure no one left hungry!

Modeling the Equipment:  It’s great fun to tell yourself you’re going to model the railroad’s operations, six or seven towns, complete with scratchbuilt replicas of all the buildings, and run through them trains populated by accurate, detailed cars pulled by equally accurately detailed locomotives.

If you asked me what my favorite part of the hobby is I’d tell you it's building detailed freight cars. 

The one resin car I've gotten built in the last 24 months...and it's not even lettered yet!

If that's the case then why I have gotten exactly one – that’s one – resin car kit built in the last two years?
 Instead of doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it, I’ve been stuck in a do-loop of sorts - “feeding the monster” – that large layout looming in the basement that required track, wiring, static grass, structures, trees (my God, the trees!), in massive quantities.  I kept telling myself I’d get the thing to “looking finished” and then turn my attention to the projects I wanted to work on.  But there was always another bunch of trees to install – or some piece of track to ballast.

I'll conclude with this. I'm not "down" on large layouts. I'm also not "down" on small layouts, or anything really. I don't think  the layout was an absolute failure. I had fun, shared some good times with friends, perfected some techniques and learned a lot about myself. My purpose in writing this is not discourage anyone else from pursuing their approach to the hobby (Lord knows, the above isn’t going to encourage anyone to do anything other than take up knitting!). Instead, I'm trying to quantify the good and bad and hopefully apply those lessons learned to the next railroad. 
 *To get the joke it helps to understand he was a submariner. And the #1 rule of all submariners is to keep the water out of the people tank…(Hey, it’s not my line, submariners are weird, everyone knows it.)

Operating Session Jul 18, 2015 - The Motion Picture

An experiment - I shot some video during yesterday's op session and pieced together a short film that's available on YouTube for viewing - CLICK HERE TO VIEW - 

Enjoy!

In no danger of winning an academy award but comments are welcome. 

Operating Session Report - June 27, 2015

UPDATE: Bernie Kempinski posted his report on the op session on his blog (CLICK HERE). He has better photos than the ones the crew took. Of course he wasn't doing anything but talking, reading my books, and eating our food. (Only kidding…he didn't eat ALL the food….;<).

One of my favorite locomotives - Iain Rice built this model from a Bachmann 2-8-0 - but her old Soundtraxx DSD is simply not up to snuff. After failing her "preflight" she spent today's session in one of the house tracks. 

Sorry if it seems as if I've gone silent for the last week but between work at the office and getting ready for today's operating session I've not even looked at the computer at home most nights until now!
To summarize, thanks to an outstanding crew today's session was an unqualified success!

Train 303, the northbound Vermonter, pauses at the Waterbury station as the crew of X481N Rich Steinmann and John Paganoni (right) look on. 

I rearranged the operating scheme to reflect more of the reality of the layout and less of the prototype timetable. What I was finding was the prototype timetable simply doesn't scale down to provide an engaging operating scheme on the model railroad. The following positions were staffed today:
1. Dispatcher
2. White River Yardmaster
3. White River Ass't Master
4. Southern Division operator/Crew 
5. Three road crews (two of the road crews were two man crews) for a total of nine crew members. 
The road crews didn't HAVE To be two man crews, but since both the north- and south-bound locals were operated in today's schedule, and since two people had never done much operating, it seemed helpful to put them under the tutelage of a more experienced crew member. 
I think it also helped that several of the crew have been to a number of previous sessions, which meant I had fewer "basic" type questions to answer. 

One of two Rapido FPA-4s premiered at this session to rave reviews. Yes, I know they post-dated steam on the CV. They run so well I don't care. 

Couple of things I noted from the session:
1. Some of the locomotives are older engines with a lot of hours that are starting to have "issues."And frankly some have never worked all that well. In the several months since the last session I've made a concerted effort to repair or replace those bad actors. This session showed few, if any of the motive power issues that have plagued earlier sessions. Does it suck to have to admit a locomotive that you paid a decent amount of coin for is worthless? Yes it does. But a session with top-performers makes that pill much less painful to swallow. 
2. To date I've played the role of "Southern Division Operator/Crew since most of it takes place in the utility room. I'd like to train some other people to do this job so I can do other things from time to time but it's hardly an appealing position in its current state. It was suggested the job which to date has been part station switcher, part fiddle yard "mole" could be recast to add specific WRJ hostler functions - I need to look into this. 
3. I don't NEED nine operators (8+me) but no one spend an inordinate amount of time waiting around. Honestly, the layout can readily be operated with six. One thing I think I'm getting better at is crew management. As a project manager in my professional life I have no problem telling people what to do but model railroad "people management" has proven to be an interesting challenge. This time I arranged the train schedule and crewing assignments so that once one crew finished a run they would have a short break (10-15 minutes max) - before running another train. And I based the train schedule on that approach - not simply the prototype timetables. The result paid off in a great session. 
4. The "paperwork" - timetable, Yardmaster instructions, and the like seem to have enough maturity that I don't feel the need to alter them before the next session. (For example, I've hosted 11 sessions and today we used Timetable No. 10…. You do the math!) I did get some questions on "Is this town north or south?" a few times - I think a linear map showing the towns with a "You are here" highlight on the town you're standing in front of may help. Easy enough to do. Thought of doing it at one point. For some reason I never did. 
In any event, a good time was had by all (lunch was outstanding, thanks to Christine's efforts!) and I'm very pleased with how the layout performed. 
Now I'd like to get some of the scenery finished. 

One of the new SNE RS-3s in action. Kind of reminds me of the rail fan photos I used to take with my Kodak Insta-matic!

Op Session Preparations

Time to put away the tools, scenery supplies, etc.. and get ready for my next operating session which will take place on Saturday June 27. 
Christine has the most important responsibility - making lunch! Provided that goes well most of my crew are willing to forgive a host of problems! 
Seriously, I do want the layout to operate well, and since I've been doing a lot of work on the railroad and the structures and I have something to show off to those who haven't been here since the last session. 
In the meantime, I have to get the track cleaned, make sure the locomotives and cars are all staged. So there is paperwork and layout prep involved. 
There are two or three little projects I want to wrap up on the layout - mostly adding some more scenic texture and trees in a few spots to make them look a little more finished. 
The last few sessions I've been doing "preps" as the crew came down the stairs. Going to avoid last minute scrambles this time. 

Operating the Virginia Midland

Yesterday had a great time operating Steve King's Virginia Midland in Germantown, Md. 
For many years we've gently kidded Steve for the …uh, "lack" of VM painted locomotives. In fact he ran the railroad for many years with a fleet of undecorated locos, which he jokingly refers to as the "Appalachian Stealth" scheme. 
There is one VM-painted Appalachian Lines locomotive on the roster, shown here. 
Over the last few months Steve has gotten 46 locomotives painted in the VM's own olive green scheme. 
There's even a little bit of scenery on the railroad. 
I was too busy having a great time running trains to do a lot of photo, but I did manage to get a photo in one of the staging yards showing the original VM "paint scheme" (on the left), the Appalachian Lines unit, and the two VM units in the original VM second generation scheme. 
Steve operates the railroad using Timetable & Train Order, which he is an expert at. 
A great time with good friends. 

Operating Session #4 - June 21, 2014

Operating Session #4 on Saturday June 22, 2014. Started at 0900 with victory being declared (and lunch served) at 1252....One of my visiting operators, Wayland Moore, took photos - a good thing since I didn't! Thanks Wayland!

Mat Thompson stepped in to take Bob Warren's normal place in the dispatcher's chair.

Randolph made its operating debut. Note the "spare" locomotives in the background.

All in all, session went well. A few trackwork gremlins hid until visiting operators were present, and one feeder wire connection came undone which rendered a section of the mainline dead for a time while the Section Foreman (me) tracked the problem, failed to find it, and ran an over-table temporary jumper to get the trains moving again.

I had fun and the guest operators enjoyed themselves (or so they claim). We will finish the operating "day" next week with a different crew - it will be interesting to see if they can recover from some of the issues "earlier in the morning" since the cascading effect of the mainline shutdown is most certainly showing itself in the on-time performance....

Post session I spent some time getting another of the 2-8-0s up and running - and reprogrammed the steamers on the layout so the brake squeal is turned way, way, down.

A few granuales of ballast found their way into the turnout going to the creamery, which caused some issues. I got those cleared out so hopefully that problem is fixed.

Roger is asking two guys who clearly don't know the answer "Which track is this?"

Answer: I forgot to tape the Randolph track diagram to the fascia....sorry.

Paul Dolkos and Steve Williams try to

decide what to do next.





Steve and his conductor on a northbound.






Paul gets ready to depart St Albans (north staging) while Molly makes

sure no one gets out of the aisle without petting her.



Lunch! the best part of any session. Thanks  to Christine for the delicious BBQ and potato salad!

Rain held off long enough for us to enjoy lunch on the deck.

Interesting angle shows the current state of the peninsula "blob."

Need to tweak some track issues in Essex this week prior to our next session on the 28th. I might end up replacing Essex with something much simpler since it's a little jammed in. But this town does add a great deal of operating interest.

 The Essex operator left several little notes on track issues in Essex Jct - I need to resolve those before next week's session. I might (and emphasize might) make some radical simplifications to the track in that section of the layout - one possibility is removing Essex Jct from that section of the railroad and replacing it with a much simpler town of Richmond, Vt. I just think there's a little too much jammed into Essex - something that's becoming more obvious as I try to fit buildings between the various sidings. I'd lose the Essex switcher position if I did that, but Essex Jct might return on the currently empty wall of the basement beyond the current north end staging yard. 

As an aside, if I do change out the Essex scene the remaining styrofoam subroadbed will be replaced with plywood on that side of the peninsula.

Another lesson learned was I need to be a little more specific in some of the train card instructions - I will try and beef those up a little before next Saturday.

Refining the Operating Script

Owning a large operating model railroad comes with a unique set of “management” challenges. The first of these is creating the operating scheme itself. Creating the schedule for a model railroad operating session is not unlike writing a play (hey, that’s an original thought, isn’t it?). Another issue is crew size. Too many people and inevitably an operating session will devolve into a gab fest. Too few and it seems like everyone is scrambling to keep up since trains are ready before bodies to man them.

With each session I’ve made tweaks to the operating scheme to refine the “script.” At this point I’ve done the following:
1.       Assign two-person crews to the local trains.
2.       Assigned a crew member as the “Southern Division” crew. He works the B&M transfers to and from WRJ and runs the CV trains in and out of staging.  
3.       Added an Essex Junction turn to the operating scheme.
But even with these changes there’s still a need to flesh out the operating schedule with a few more trains. At the time I’m modeling the CV ran a grand total of 12 trains (6 freight/6 passenger) a day on the Roxbury subdivision. Each operating session is one 12-hour trick (with a 3:1 fast clock, that’s about 4 hours). Here’s the rub – I have a group of good friends who’ve given up their spare time to help me bring the railroad to life. Running a total of six trains in four actual hours doesn’t really cut it.
We could add second-sections, extras and the like. But this is Vermont, not the Northeast Corridor, so simply piling on more trains isn’t really the answer. The tightrope is to keep my operators sufficiently entertained and engaged but not end up with so many trains that a headlight is appearing over the horizon every 10 seconds.
A more extreme possibility involves resurrecting my freelanced railroad, the Southern New England (see MRP 2000). There is still plenty of SNE lettered equipment floating around the layout. And frankly, I kind of like those engines and cars. While this change may seem extreme it really isn't. Best of all, it requires no changes to the layout itself!

The real Southern New England was a proposed extension from Palmer, Mass. on the CV mainline to Providence RI.  In the real world it was graded but never finished. My previous layouts were based on the fiction that the line was completed. The layout modeled the theoretical SNE mainline from Providence to Palmer. 

But what if, although I’m not modeling the SNE itself, I presume the SNE was finished? White River Junction could serve as a logical division point for SNE trains heading to/from Providence or New London. An additional freight train or two could be added to the schedule between Montreal and Providence. There’s even the potential to split the Washingtonian/Montrealer in WRJ into “Providence” and “New York/DC” sections.
Part of the whole point of a blog is a chance for the reader to work through such things with the blogger. I'll conclude this post by saying the addition of the SNE trains is something I'm pondering - there are some negatives to simply throwing more trains on the schedule in the effort to simply entertain one or two additional operators. Since it doesn't require any real changes to the physical layout it will be a simple matter to try it out. But I'm not sure I'm going to like it.

MER Convention Op Session - A couple of photos

Although I failed miserably to take any photos during the open house and op session this weekend Chuck Diljak, who did a fine job as White River Yardmaster, was kind enough to send a couple of  pictures he took during the op session.
Here's the WRJ Assistant YM, Joe Calderone during a break in the action at White River Junction. That yard is entirely too empty and he looks far too relaxed and smiling ..... we'll have to do something about that next time he visits.
A northbound extra through freight (behind a CN F7) runs through a crowded Everett as the Mill Turn works the town.

Sea Trials #1...In the Books

Report on the  “Sea Trials” Test session that took place yesterday, May 19. Truth be told, I just made it and was programming decoders and assigning id numbers to one of the radio throttles as the first crew members arrived!

In brief, it accomplished the primary mission of showing the layout was basically operable and ready for me to move forward with all the “fun stuff.” In fact, mechanically the railroad performed very well, with only one or two minor glitches. There’s a turnout in White River that had some “occasional” issues, and some missed feeders here and there. The biggest issue was a suddenly dead staging track in the north-end staging yard (which was working just a couple of hours before.) I suspect it must be a loose connection but haven’t gone under the layout to confirm that. Otherwise, there are no infrastructure problems to report.

The “operating scheme” itself needs some tweaking. With the exception of 303, the northbound Vermonter, we didn’t run any passenger trains.

Biggest issue with the operating scheme wasn’t the train “script” it was the paperwork. In a completely bone-headed move, I prepared a timetable that didn’t have the correct times for the layout! Instead, it had some prototype times. This is apparently an issue when trying to run a timetable and train order operation….and I didn’t have train register sheets out….but hey, I ran out of time. Sea Trial #3 will be designed to test the “full operating system.” So, we’re not quite there yet.

I also need to tweak the waybills a little.

Another goal was to determine the “ideal” crew size. I started with eight plus myself – ended up with seven. Despite the issues with the paperwork, the crew had a good time and everyone seemed busy without being rushed. And, other than a local crew that waited in Waterbury for a meet, no one spent a lot of time sitting around.

I might be able to add one or two other operators when we try running the passenger trains, but 7-8 folks can certainly operate the railroad, especially now that they know where things are.  

The previous Sea Trials, on the older double-deck version of the railroad, produced enough issues that I’ve spent the better part of two years completely rebuilding the railroad. We also had numerous issues with the DCC system – especially the radio throttles. Frankly my biggest concern was the radio throttles since I had no way to test a number of them running all at once with several people in the basement.

I’m happy to report no issues at all with the DCC system, other than one balky throttle that I may need to send back to the manufacturer.

My plan moving forward is to fix up the issues with the paperwork, finish up a couple of the open country scenes (the lobe end of the peninsula and the White River foreground river scene. At some point I’d like to host another trial session for the local guys who have been willing to come over and help with the layout. (Only one of them was able to make it on Sunday).

Yes, we ran an assortment of paint schemes on the locomotives - based on engines I could get my hands on that had functional decoders. And yes, we need more cars - some of the "through freights" were only 8 cars long. But hey, the thing works, and that was the point of the session. So, all in all, a great success. 

One of my operators told me the "acid test" for any layout was "Would I come back." To a person, they all said they would. 

But I’m looking forward to spending some time this summer working on modeling projects and not layout infrastructure!

Thanks to some great friends who took the time to help bring the railroad to life for the first time!

Some candid photos of the crew at work:

Steve Williams ran the inaugural passenger train on the railroad. ....."Now where on earth is "Essex Junction." And what's with the pink soil around here??? And why does my Central Vermont train have Western Maryland power? This is all quite....puzzling."

Paul Dolkos (background): "This is the most fun I've ever had model railroading!" (I'm paraphrasing here...) 

Stic Harris (in foreground): "If I focus, and really concentrate, I can move that boxcar with my mind."

John King (spoken with his slow Southern drawl): "Let me 'plain something to you. Typically we put something ...anything really ...after the word "TO:"....otherwise stuff just floats around the railroad. And that's just wrong. Plain Jane wrong...."

After 20 minutes of making moves based on the "fact" that the Foundry spur in Waterbury was double-ended John will shortly discover it's a stub-end track. His comments will be unprintable.