Dave Campbell has shared another chapter in his new layout progress. Here he is with the latest.
With Saint Marys, the first of three towns on the NKP’s Minster Branch, sort of complete, I couldn’t resist the temptation to host my first op session. I know….I’ve been advised to finish a scene before moving on, but the temptation proved to be too much. Besides, the weather is starting to heat up and it’s either now or wait until Fall.
The part of Saint Marys I’ve been working on lately is the south side of town where the branch starts. I’ve actually accomplished quite a bit; all the track is in, the buildings are finished, and I’ve started ballasting.
Good enough!
This part of Saint Marys was home to four on-line customers.
The Saint Marys Coal Co.
The Western Ohio Railroad (electric) maintained a substation here.
The Saint Marys Cannery created a lot of traffic during the harvest season (tomatoes and corn).
Finally, the Blufton Stone Company was a retail outlet for various limestone products including crushed limestone and quicklime.
In order to support the operation of even one town, I needed to provide a runaround opportunity so the train could leave Saint Marys, runaround, and return.
I solved that problem with a temporary track set up in the area that will become New Bremen. I also added a stand-in turntable left over from my last layout.
This is another obvious benefit of using dead rail. Quick and dirty temporary track just pinned down works great. No wiring is needed!
First op session
I invited three members of our local club for the initial op session of the Minster Branch. Only one had any experience so a pre-session instruction was in order.
First, we became familiar with the eight customers served by the railroad in Saint Marys. I added temporary signs to the buildings to help avoid confusion.
Then I explained the difference between facing and trailing point spurs and what that would mean for how we could operate the branch. Six of the eight spurs in Saint Marys are facing point on the outward trip.
Following that, we practiced using an uncoupling pick. That was a struggle but at least no freight cars were destroyed during the session. Performance will improve with practice.
Finally, I explained the simplified operating scheme we would use for this first session.
I provided a switch list detailing where each car was headed and where it would be spotted. To keep things simple, any car already on the spur would be picked up. I plan to use waybills for future sessions with the conductor creating a switch list.
The experienced operator handled the throttle and the newbies shared the Conductor duties. I served as coach to keep the session moving. I also held the Company Photographer duties. Here are a few action shots.
Things went very smoothly, all things considered. I provided a big picture strategy and let them work out the details. I had operated the branch the day before so I knew that an experienced crew would be able to handle the job in about 45 real-time minutes. My new crew took an hour and ten minutes. They didn’t make any big mistakes but were very careful. I suspect they will take less time as they gain experience.
Lessons learned
I was gratified to see my operators having fun and looking forward to coming back again. They do need to practice uncoupling with a pick.
My decision to implement dead rail was justified. There were absolutely no issues stemming from power interruptions, decoder resets, or dirty rail. That was a big relief!
Including three work areas into the benchwork turned out to be a really good move. They provided a place to put switch lists and other odds and ends, including elbows and forearms.
On that subject, I saw that elbows and forearms are going to be a challenge to manage. As the photos show, crew like to lean on the benchwork while they’re reaching in with an uncoupling pick or whatever. Those work areas help but I’m now planning to build the lower fascia in a manner that it extends at least one-inch above ground level.
All in all, it was a very good day!
Thank you, Dave Campbell, for sharing your experience with Dead Rail. This has been part six of his chapters on the Nickel Plate Minster Branch. Here are links to previous posts.
Update 1
Update 2
Update 3
Update 4
Update 5
Dead rail (Update 6)
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