Great Northwestern Railway

 The layout really needs to get back into operation.  Really.  A lot of rolling stock is just sitting there, begging for a wheel to turn.  Sure, we run a few trains every so often, but nothing like a month op session does. Before COVID hit, we operated a few times to get the bugs worked out.  All in all, it went well.  But there was a lack of work for the road crews to do.  So it ended up that a lot of work was put on the yard masters (YMs), with road crews doing short hops.  Not much industry is on line yet.... more on that later.  So what to do? Commutes!  We had run them in the Phase 2 incarnation of the GNW.  We had not owing to (1) lack of experience with the layout and not wanting to overload the operators, and (2) no means of turning the locomotives at Warm Springs.  Recall Phase 2 had a wye at Mesa City.  But now... with the Mesa City wye back in place (see the last blog post), commutes could run again!  (yay!...

Last week we had the second test run of the new GNW!  The biggest addition in this session was to test run the train sequence.  Seemed to work OK, but some tweaking to do.  All in all though, I think everyone had fun.  Kudos to operators Meeker, Kampsnider, Kersting and Mr/Mrs Botkins for tolerating trains without ANY blocked cars!  And then 2 switchers decided to poop out.  It was truly a pain and they took it all in stride.

I am genuinely surprised by how much work is needed to adjust the previous operating plan to this new layout.  Frankly, it would have been easier to start from scratch!  I added about 30% additional cars.  Delightfully, I had stashed quite a few cars over the years (eh-em, owing to more than a few visits to hobby shops), and the balance came out about right.  Still, it was quite an effort to prep the cars, get car-cards made up, and then... the really arduous part... writing up way-bills for each one.  New car cards - written out and folded, ready for taping. All the rolling stock was brought up to the main yard or just above it.  This allowed me to muse on how each car would fit into the traffic scheme. A lot more cars here than it would appear! Locos and cabeese also had to get their cards. The next step which is currently under way is the development of a train sequence.  This will let me plan out the flow of trains such that...

MAJOR milestone reached: The Great Northwestern Railway had the first "test" operating session!  The management decided the equipment had done enough trials, and the layout was ready for a real stress-test.  So an invite was sent out and 4 volunteers graciously accepted. Good news is the layout performed quite well.  There was a short punch-list of problems that were identified, but all in all, trains moved quite well and reliably. Next step is to flesh out the operating plan and set up waybills for the cars.  It's one thing to just pick up and drop off whatever you like; it is something entirely different to have specific destinations and car routing! Some highlights of the evening.  Thanks to all for making it a great success! Three of the four testers are, left to right, Dave Cochrun, Keith Hayes and Kevin Strong Gerry Glancy made up the balance of the test crew Multiple simultaneous movements in Armstrong yard was a key element of the tes...