I've been a bit slack and didn't get around to posting a report on our operating session on Friday, 2nd of June. So here it is, albeit a fortnight late.
I normally like to have eight or nine guest operators (plus myself) because I've found that to be the right crew size to make the layout hum using a 6:1 fast clock, without having excess people clogging up the layout room aisles. However, I had several crew members drop out during the day due to illness and work commitments, so we were forced to make do with just seven of us.
I started the fast clock at 4:1 speed ratio, but even at that slow rate we soon reached the point where trains were missing their scheduled start times because crews weren't available to run them. From then on we ran the trains sequentially, and as most trains were starting 'late' many scheduled meets between trains would not occur where/when they were supposed to. I thought that I'd be called upon to play the role of Dispatcher (in addition to being yardmaster at Ardmore, but I'm pleased to report that the guys actually worked through this with almost no input from me. I became aware of this when I heard two of the guys agreeing that their trains would meet at Gene Autry instead of Pauls Valley.
Despite the staff shortage, we still managed to run through the full timetable, or rather, the list of scheduled trains, without any noteworthy problems.
Here are some photos from the evening's session.
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| Duncan, John, Brendan and Don. John was the yardmaster at Pauls Valley. |
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| Barry with a northbound passenger train at Ardmore. |
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| Derek was running a train, but I managed to not get it in the photo. |
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| Don switching cars at Davis while a southbound Fast Freight passes through town on the main track. |
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| Don and Brendan. |
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| Duncan, John and Barry at Pauls Valley. |
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| Barry with a local freight at Gene Autry. |
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| Don, still switching at Davis, while Derek (background) is switching cars at Dougherty. |
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| Derek is switching stock cars at Pauls Valley. Meanwhile, the loco in the foreground is very slowly creeping its way down the branchline unnoticed due to somebody failing to completely zero a throttle. |
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| Duncan running a southbound fast freight past the quarry at Big Canyon. |
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| Don's local freight is in the hole at Wynnewood while a freight train passes on the main track. |
For me, this was another really enjoyable session, even though we didn't adhere to the timetable. My thanks go to the guys for coming over to play trains with me.
For those who have facebook, I also post these reports on my GC&SF page at:
https://www.facebook.com/GulflinesOperator
Regards to all,
Ron
