First operating session for 2022 (25 February 2022)

I called a crew together last Friday evening for our first operating session on the GC&SF for 2022. I am pleased to report that the layout operated very well, and everyone seemed to have had a good time.

This is the first time that I've used both my UR92 and UR93 radio devices together for a complete session. We had problems when I last tried to do that, and I disconnected the UR92 and used only the UR93. I think that the problem we had then was because the two devices were each operating on a different "Duplex Group ID". I've now set them both to "Duplex Group ID 1", and they seem to be playing well together. (Note that this is in addition to setting both UR devices to the same "Duplex Group Name" and "Duplex Group Channel".)

Here are some photos that Chris and I took during the session. Thank-you Chris for the photos. And thanks to all the guys for making the trip to my place.

It can get crowded in the aisle between Pauls valley (on the left) and Wynnewood.
L-R: Brendan is cutting out cars from a northbound Fast freight; John (yardmaster at Pauls Valley) and Greg are discussing the cars that Greg has just brought into the yard after switching the town industries; Darren (background) is running the refinery train which is waiting for Graham to clear the siding at Wynnewood; and Graham is switching industries at Wynnewood.
Photo by Chris Cochrane.

Pauls Valley, with the refinery train sitting on the main and a northbound Fast freight on the arrival/departure track. Yardmaster John is just finishing working the rear of the Fast Freight that Brendan is running.
Photo by Chris Cochrane.

Tail end of the refinery train at Pauls Valley. The caboose is one of more than a dozen Atlas cabeese that I modified and painted more than 20 years ago. The chimney and end rails are Microtrains parts.
Come on Atlas - It's time you brought this model up to modern standards.
Photo by Chris Cochrane.

Head end of the refinery train at Pauls Valley.
Photo by Chris Cochrane.

Graham with a local freight train, switching at Davis.
Photo by Chris Cochrane.

Brendan with a local freight arriving at Big Canyon.
Photo by Chris Cochrane.

A northbound freight entering the siding at Wynnewood.
Photo by Chris Cochrane.

Darren and I discussing a Woodlands Scenics building at Davis.
Photo by Chris Cochrane.

Greg is moving a cut of cars to the stock pen track at Davis.
Peter in the centre and me on the right.
Photo by Chris Cochrane.

L-R: Greg and Peter.
Photo by Chris Cochrane.

L-R: Yardmaster John is about to add cars to a southbound Fast Freight being driven by Darren; Greg is switching the town industries; Graham is on the right doing some switching at Wynnewood.

Graham with the Pauls Valley local freight at Wynnewood.

Chris shooting a video of a northbound fast freight that he's running through Dougherty.

Chris and his northbound Fast Freight at Davis.

Peter with a trainload of empty gons for delivery to the quarries at Dougherty and Big Canyon.

Peter (L) with his train of empty gondolas at Davis. Graham (R) is switching Johnstone Construction at Davis.

Derek (yardmaster at Ardmore) and Brendan working a northbound Fast Freight at Ardmore.

Peter, with the southbound gravel train on the siding at Gene Autry waiting for a northbound passenger train driven by Darren passes on the main.

Graham has just discovered that an Atlas coupler on a tank car he was to collect, has fallen apart.

Derek classifying cars at Ardmore. He did a great job.

Chris cutting out cars that are to be switched to the Wynnewood refinery.

Larger versions of these photos are also available on my GC&SF Facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/GulflinesOperator

Regards,
Ron

Operating session on 24th October

I invited some guys over to run trains with me last Saturday. We used a modified version of my timetable because I'd called a smaller crew that we usually have, and I figured that after such a long break we'd all be a bit rusty. Instead of using the fast clock, we operated the trains sequentially, which meant fewer trains on the layout at any time, and eliminated most of the meets between through trains. I stupidly thought that I could operate both yards, but that didn't work out so well.

It turned out that we weren't as rusty as I thought, because in my post-session tidy up I found only one car that was not where it was supposed to be. The guys did very well.

I was so busy running the yards that I almost forgot to take photos. Here are a few that I did get, along with a couple of still images from videos that Greg made.

John F. on the right has cut some cars from his northbound Fast freight, and is running the engines back to rejoin the train. I'm in the background, switching some cars to add to the rear of John's train.

Brendan is switching tank cars at the Wynnewood refinery.

Me and my covid lockdown hair.

Another shot of Brendan switching tank cars at the Wynnewood refinery.

John F with a northbound freight departing Pauls Valley.

Chris appears to be waiting for his train to emerge from the track that leads down to the south staging yard.

A southbound grain extra (driven by John F) and the northbound Texas Chief (driven by Greg) do a saw-by at Davis.
This was Greg's first operating session on the GC&SF and he didn't miss any opportunity to run a train.

Greg, with the Texas Chief arriving at Pauls Valley.

(L-R) Peter K, John F and Greg.
Greg is running the "The Chicagoan" while John is running the Pauls Valley local freight.

Brendan fiddling with one of them new fangled Digitrax throttles. This was the first time one has been used on my layout,
and Brendan said that he had no problems. The GP7 is the yard switcher that I was driving, until
I put my UT4D down to take this photo.

Greg again, this time with a northbound train of tank cars that has just emerged from the south staging yard.

Business must be booming at Johnstone Construction.

Jacobson Concrete at Pauls Valley.

Pauls Valley grain elevator. This model is based on a real industry in Pauls Valley that has been there for 60 years or more.
From what I can tell, it was once the Farm-Ranch Grain Company.

Wynnewood.

Another photo of Wynnewood.

A big thank-you to the guys for coming over. I'm hoping to hold another session before Christmas.

Thanks for looking,
Ron

Drilling mud silos

I was hoping to host an operating session this coming weekend, but due to COVID restrictions I've had to put that off for a week or two.  So I turned my attention to adding the drilling mud silos at Jacobson Concrete. 

Now I just have to add a concrete batching facility, and Jacobson will be "finished".

Thanks for looking,
Ron

 

Operating session 13 July 2021

After a 16 month break mainly due to COVID, we finally had an operating session on the GC&SF last week.  

I was a bit apprehensive about how the layout would perform after such a long break, but apart from some very minor issues it seems to have performed very well. We operators, on the other hand, were all a bit rusty with our skills, so I think it will take me a while to get the layout restaged and ready for the next session.

Here are some photos from the session.

Chris is setting out a string of stock cars at the Pauls Valley stock pens.

John F, Peter K. and Peter S.

Barry is running the northbound Texas Chief through Dougherty.

John F. setting out empty tank cars, and collecting loaded cars at the Wynnewood refinery.

Derek (yardmaster at Pauls Valley) is classifying cars.

Chris, operating a south-bound gravel train, is collecting a string of loaded gondolas at Big Canyon.

Barry (left) is switching Gordon White Lumber Co., while Derek and Bill work a south-bound
through freight at Pauls Valley.  Rod (on the right) is switching at Wynnewood.

L-R: Barry, Rod and John F. watching as a local freight operated by Rod switches Wynnewood.
(Photo by Derek.)

At Pauls Valley, the locos from the stock train have tied up with the caboose while the stock cars are
loaded (unloaded?). A southbound Fast Freight is crossing from the main to the arrival/departure track.
(Photo by Chris.)

Bill appears to be checking the switch alignment on the house track at Davis, after someone failed to
line a switch for the main, sending his passenger train up the siding. The "quonset hut" is a cardboard
mock-up, and that's Wynnewood on the LH side of the photo, on the other side of the backboard.
(Photo by Chris.)

Me, selecting a loco on a DT402D.
(Photo by Chris.)

GP7s setting out stock cars on the Pauls Valley stock yard spur.  I still have to build the stock pens
in the clearing on the left, as well as a concrete batching plant next to the sheds.
(Photo by Chris.)

L-R: Peter K, John F, Derek and Peter S. watching the action at Pauls Valley.
(Photo by Chris.)

Pauls Valley elevator.
(Photo by Chris.)

Jacobson Concrete and the Pauls Valley elevator.
(Photo by Chris.)

My thanks go to the guys for coming over and making this a successful day, and especially to Chris and Derek for allowing me to share the photos that they took.

Regards,
Ron

Track cleaning train in action

I've been active in my train room over the past month, but there's not a lot to show for it.

First off, I added a Digitrax UR93 to improve wireless throttle coverage in the train  room. Then I upgraded the firmware on my wireless devices (UR92, UR93, DT402D and UT4D) to provide better operation between the UR93 and the older devices. I'm very happy with the way the system is working, but I'm disappointed that JMRI/DecoderPro doesn't seem to detect the UR93.

I've also spent a lot of time cleaning dust off the layout. The scenery work I did at Gene Autry left a fine layer of dust across the entire layout, and I've had to lift and vacuum every structure and bit of rollingstock, and vacuum the track and other scenery, to remove it. With that job now almost complete, I set my track cleaning train to work to clean the track.

Here's a short, and somewhat shaky video I made of the train in action. At the time I had the switches set to direct the train through the mainline sidings in each of the towns.

I posted more information about the track cleaning train, with photos showing the construction of the masonite sliders here.

I'm almost at the point where I can resume CC&WB operating sessions, and I hope to be calling a crew together by mid to late June.

Regards,

Ron

Houses for Gene Autry (the town, not the singing cowboy)

In early March I started doing base scenery for Gene Autry, but I encountered a problem with the "dirt" that I was planning to use. (That story is told on my GC&SF FB page )

While pondering what to do about that problem, I decided to build a couple of houses for my Gene Autry folks to live in. I asked my technical advisor Doug (who grew up in Gene Autry) what colour they painted their houses back in the '60s. Doug told me, "White, the rich people had bricks."

So, armed with that information, and some photos from Doug and the internet, I constructed these two houses.

Note that these houses will not be sited in the location shown in the photo. The one on the left is also shallower than it would otherwise be, because these will fit against the backdrop at Gene Autry, where I don't have a lot of depth.

Regards,
Ron