boB,
glad to see things are getting back to normal, both with you and the RR.
It's been very hot recently as I know most of the country seems to be
experiencing--but locally we're a lot better than last year. I've
actually used my lawn mower this year. Haven't been in the train-room
too much lately, it takes too long to cool the place down to get much done.
In regards to operations, I wish I had some of your thoughts to apply to
my RR's operations. I have the RailOps program that does a nice job of
routing cars to various locations, keeping track of cars and engines
etc. (I also understand that the folks at JMRI have introduced a
computer based program that does much of that also. )
However, I have yet to get into deciding how trains should actually run,
when you have 3-5 guys using essentially the same mainline trackage. It
seems to me most guys have put in a lot of trial and error to get things
right. It's hard to run thru freights while someone else is trying to
do some local switching. I've operated on friends layouts where we've
had two trains meeting in one location to add to the 'fun'. My fear is
to have all four in the same location so I think at that point the fun
is gone!
Bob Werre
PhotoTraxx
On 8/6/12 1:43 PM, shabbona_rr wrote:
SHABBONA operations slowly getting back on track. I have been
assembling the Walthers Power House I've had on hand for about three
years. This will be the power house for The Humongous Company.
The new spring switch is working well at Terminal District. The next
project on that end is a better way of interchanging the solid reefer
"meat trains" from Mooar Yard. I'm working on a procedure where I
double up a couple of yard engines at Mooar and pull them to the
interchange. That will mean tossing the inbound waycar aside, then
grabbing the train and pulling it over, then maybe have a couple of
terminal District engines pull it back at the proper time. It sounds
better than it works, currently, but I'm working on the "bugs".
The passenger trains have been running fairly consistent, and I've
been running the Mooar Turns, though not always on a daily basis, and
I've been doing a little switching at Humongous. That's about it for now.
Bob Nicholson -__________________________________________________
