PREPARING THE LAYOUT AND FREIGHT FLEET FOR 1950s

August 1^st marks the anniversary of the start of construction of my railroad.  I usually do a photo survey of the railroad to mark that occasion.  This year, I was so busy preparing the railroad and rolling stock for my backdate to the 1950s that I blew right past that date and practice.  The railroad was a mess and is only now starting to reemerge.  

 

Two critical projects took advantage of the equipment change—painting the Eugene Arrival-Departure Yard tracks and replacement of the NCE Command Station memory battery.  With the yards cleared of rolling stock, I could paint the yard tracks.  If one ever wonders why my railroad was built with considerable benchwork strength, the painting process affirmed that choice.  I spent much of the effort on top of the yard as I first spray-painted, followed by rail wiping with a piece of cork and then final rail cleaning with a “Bright Boy ™” track cleaning block.

 

Departure side of the Eugene Arrival-Departure Yard has been painted.  The unpainted tracks are engine service tracks that await paint sometime in the future.  Cardboard masks protect the room walls from overspray.

 

Eugene Arrival-Departure Yard body tracks fully painted.

 

With all of the locomotive consists killed as the locomotives were removed from the layout, the opportunity to replace the memory battery in my NCE command station presented itself.  I have lived with the factory-provided battery in my command station since first using the system in 2014.  NCE recommends battery replacement every five years.  I consider myself fortunate to have made it through a dozen years of service without a known issue.  I did succeed in changing the battery with power on which is the recommended procedure to not lose any command station memory settings.  Since this was my first time changing the battery, I was glad to seize the opportunity to make the exchange when there really should not have been any memory settings to impact.

 

NCE Command Station opened up.  The battery is the almost quarter-sized disk on the upper board at the upper center-left of the photo.  That Panasonic™ battery served long and well.

 

In addition to the two tasks done with equipment removed from the railroad, I also made great progress developing the freight car fleet for the 1950s.  I began this era change with probably two hundred or so 1950s era freight cars appropriate to the SP that previously ran on the California Central Club layout when I was an active member there.  Those cars are mostly SP system cars.  Since that time, I have become very aware of the distribution of the “free-running” (mostly boxcars) part of the national car fleet in the 1950s.  

 

Although ICC car service rules intended returning freight cars promptly to their owning road, the reality tended to mix the fleet in rough proportion to each railroad’s size in the fleet spread all over the country.  This was documented by Tim Gilbert and Dave Nelson as they analyzed conductor wheel reports (a listing of all cars in a train) for trains over the UP’s Sherman Hill.  This car distribution likely was very true during World War II when the car service rules were suspended to maximize car use hauling loads rather than returning a car empty to its owner.  Reports and interviews of railroad employees regarding their 1950s practices stressed the importance of “protecting the load” as a prime motivation.  That protection meant using any suitable car, regardless of owner to carry a load offered by an on-line shipper.  

 

I would love to see a mid- or late-1950s boxcar distribution, at least for the top twenty owning railroads, but for now, I use a chart prepared by freight car guru Ben Hom using 1950 data and a separate chart that Tony Thompson (http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/) uses for 1953 which appeared in the NMRA reprint of a 1953 Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER) done some time ago.  Tony has used that 1953 chart frequently in his freight car presentations.  The 1953 chart shows the top ten railroad boxcar fleet owners, while Ben Hom’s 1950 chart features the top twenty.  That expansion to twenty is important to me as it captures fleets that are only slightly smaller than the tenth largest fleet.  

 

I use the boxcar fleet size charts as guidance and a reminder when making purchase decisions, but only as “guidance.”  The major point of both charts is that the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central System boxcar fleets were huge, nearly double the size of even the third, fourth or fifth fleets.  Further, Ben Hom’s chart highlights the importance of the Pennsy X29 design and the NYC 1923 ARA design.  Fortunately, good models of both have been available and I took full advantage, possibly to excess, to acquire those car types when offered for production and purchase.  That stated, I still find myself playing “catch up,” trying to get a representative boxcar owner distribution beyond just a few western railroads.

 

The new cars I am pulling out of storage to place on my railroad for 1950s operation are biased toward my attempt at the national freight car fleet distribution for the non-SP cars.  Home road cars will always dominate, especially for my piece of the SP which was only a modest consumer of goods from elsewhere in the country but heavy on shipping out raw material—forest products.  

 

I set a goal of a hundred “foreign” (non-SP) boxcars for startup of my 1950s operation.  I am closing in on that number, but not quite there yet.  One impediment to that goal has been my commitment to weather everything before it hits the rails.  At this point, I likely have over-weathered a lot of the cars I prepared this summer, but at least they have weathering!  I never got back to weathering, not even to paint wheel faces, for my 1984 equipment.  I recognized that and resolved this time around to take the time to weather everything.

 

Most of the newly-prepared 1950s freight cars are seen rounding the mainline curve in the “Marcola” area of my layout.  Something close to fifty cars are in the string of cars on the mainline.

 

Example of a Fort Worth and Denver (CB&Q subsidiary) boxcar that has my current favorite weathering wash applied.

 

New York Central System 1923 ARA design boxcar.  These were produced by Broadway Limited under the guidance and prodding of Richard Hendrickson—an important figure in the push toward more accurate freight car models.

 

As I note in the caption above for the NYC boxcar, Richard Hendrickson was an important part of the push toward more accurate freight car models in the 1990s and beyond.  I recall seeing Richard and Tony Thompson as quite the pair at various Northern California railroad events that I also attended.  They helped inspire a number of us to join the push for better models.  “Rivets Count!”  

 

As I close in on my equipment goal for startup of 1950s operation, I now turn to organizing those operations.  It has been a push, but a solid core has been built and prepared.  

 

 

PACKING UP 1984

Changing operating era and equipment back from 1984 into the 1950s naturally required removal of all of the more modern era equipment that has run on my SP Cascade Line for the past decade plus.  My regular operating crew recognized this and a number of them volunteered to assist in that process.  I finally had packing bins prepared and sent out the call for help and a half dozen showed up.  

 

After I laid out the basic plan and procedure, we broke up into several teams.  One team worked on cars located in the Eugene Classification Yard as well as other cars brought to them.  They wrapped each car along with its car card in a paper towel and placed it into a storage bin.  I chose to have all of the SP sliding door lumber cars stored into their own bin(s).  Similarly, the SP plug door cars were placed into their own bin.  

 

Roger C. and Craig L. confer on car placement as they pack away the SP lumber cars.

 

Other teams or individuals cleared trains and cars from the Eugene Arrival-Departure Yard and Crescent Lake--both ends of the railroad (staging).  Two of these crew members were conversant in NCE DCC control systems, so I could trust them to kill the locomotive consists as they finished with the locomotives on a train in staging.  This highlights another positive aspect of the equipment shift as we work through all of the locomotive consists with the objective of clearing them all from the command station memory.  Once that is done, I will take advantage of the opportunity to change the command station battery which is the original battery and has been in service for over a decade.

 

Rob S. worked on the Crescent Lake Yard (upper staging).

 

Cars from both yards were gathered by car type, with SP/SSW cars gathered in one group and all of the foreign road (non-SP) in a second group.  Several of the other crew members worked on this.  A final crew member cleared and organized all of the waybills which were removed from the car cards as their cars and cards were prepared for storage.

 

Freight cars being gathered and organized by car type or function and railroad.  The forty-foot cars in the foreground are a taste of what is to come.  They are 1950s cars I recently weathered and prepared for service.  Craig P. is scanning for any lingering waybills while Pat and Ronnie LT add more cars to the groupings placed in the Springfield area.

 

Later on, Ronnie LT and Roger C. led the effort to box up the locomotives in their original boxes and packing material.  We caught several minor repairs, notably loose parts, during this process.  

 

The aftermath.  About half of the cars and locomotives were packed away.  We ran out of paper towels and storage bin space.

 

As noted with the photo above, we got about half of the equipment packed away.  The rest is organized such that a second effort should finish the job easily.  I always knew I had a lot of equipment on the railroad.  This process just emphasized that point.  

 

Also emphasizing the amount of equipment on the railroad is my on-going effort to prepare the 1950s equipment.  In contrast to the rushed effort I made to prepare the railroad for initial operations and the PDX2015 NMRA national convention in Portland, I am taking the time and effort to weather and check every item of equipment that goes on the rails for the new operating era.  That effort is taking more time than I expected or hoped for, but the result is already evident as I place longer strings of 1950s freight cars together.

 

 

PREPARING THE 1950s LOCO FLEET – 3 – SWITCHERS

One of the most critical locomotive types on an operating model railroad is switchers.  When I began my quest to backdate my operations to the 1950s, I moved with confidence in my switcher fleet.  My 1950s Southern Pacific switchers were well-proven workhorses in their former analog-DC use.  The challenge was to update them with decoders.  

 

SP Tiger Stripe switchers ready for service.

 

A critical initial decision was not to install sound in these heritage locomotives.  I was unwilling to sacrifice even a fraction of an ounce of weight to a speaker.  That choice led to fairly easy decoder installations.  I use Train Control Systems decoders for my non-sound installations.  TCS has several decoders ideally suited to switcher installations.

 

First up were decoders for my heritage Atlas S-2s and an S-4.  I call them “heritage” because I detailed, painted and decaled these models long ago, shortly after Atlas first released them to market.  These Atlas Alco switchers broke new ground for mass-produced models by having their walkways cast as part of the frame.  This made them very heavy compared to contemporary switcher models.  That weight, coupled with a very good, reliable drive-line led to excellent switching performance.  

 

Train Control Systems has a replacement motherboard for these models, AS6.  One simply removes the shell (start with the cab and then the hood slips off) and then the original motherboard.  The new motherboard drops right into place on the weight over the motor with the electrical connections built in.  The new motherboard includes LEDs at each end to replace the original headlight bulbs.

 

Although TCS’s instructions do not mention it, I recall many on-line discussions noting the need to electrically isolate the motor from the frame.  I chose to do this—better safe than sorry.  Isolation required removing the motor (a single screw from the bottom of the frame).  I then used Kapton tape on the bottom of the motor and tapped the motor screw hole for a 2-56 thread.  I secured the motor with a Kadee nylon 2-56 screw.  TCS does call for Kapton tape isolation on a couple of spots on the motor weight.

 

Atlas S-2 with original motherboard.

 

Replacement TCS AS6 motherboard and decoder.

 

Completed S-2.  Note the front-right grab iron ladder—black grabs against the orange stripe background.  Note the second grab up from the walkway.  This is an elongated grab iron with a center support that I did with a Detail Associates eyebolt.

 

With the decoder installed and the shell back in place, these old workhorses are ready for a new call to service.  It did my heart good to work with these old units.  It was a pleasant reminder that once upon a time I was a serious motive power modeler as seen with the grab iron treatment (vs the stock shell cast-on grab irons) and the tiger stripes.  Yes, Atlas has since then produced updated versions of these classic switchers, some runs with DCC decoders, but my heritage units still compare well to more recent production.

 

A note on the switcher fleet make-up.  Although Oregon became home to Baldwin switchers by the late 1950s, Alcos were part of the mix in the mid-1950s.  Given the weight of my heritage Atlas models, I will stick with them!

 

The other half of my switcher fleet are, indeed, Baldwins.  I have a mix of Stewart models ranging from a VO-1000 through S-10s and S-12s.  The VO-1000, S-10, and one S-12 all have conventional single headlights on each end.  The easy solution for these units was a TCS DP2 decoder.  This is a fast decoder installation.  It retains the Stewart LED headlights.

 

Baldwin S-series switcher decoder installation.  The upper unit mother board still has the DC shunting connectors in the eight-pin socket.  The lower (front) mother board has a TCS DP2 decoder plugged into the socket.

 

My final decoder installations were in a pair of S-12s that I added the SP’s unique “washer-dryer” headlight housings to each end.  These big boxes on each end of the switcher house a headlight alongside a Mars light.  My original use of these models only got the headlights “working” (sort of) by routing fiber optic strands up from the single LED headlight at each end into a “twin sealed beam” conversion plate that I fabricated.  Consider the lighting on these units as work in process.  I need to replace both my fiber optic headlight attempt and the factory single LEDs for the headlights and then add separate LEDs for the Mars lights.  That extra lighting will be supported by my use of TCS A4X decoders.  These are replacement motherboards that can support either light bulbs or LEDs for the four supported light functions.

 

Baldwin S-12 with TCS A4X decoder. This is a replacement motherboard style of decoder.

 

Baldwin S-12 switcher, SP Class DS-114 with large headlight and Mars light box housings.

 

It was good to work with my heritage fleet of SP Tiger Stripe switchers.  It was a good reminder of where I have been in my modeling and to note there remain some projects that demand a return to basics of detailing, painting and decaling.  My Baldwin DS-114 class switchers still need headlight and Mars light work, but that path is a lot clearer today with LEDs and sufficient decoder functions.

PREPARING THE 1950S LOCO FLEET – 2

As I developed my 1950s locomotive fleet, I concentrated first on the road freight power.  My study of SP locomotive assignments in the 1950s plus text in books on the Shasta-Cascade Route by Signor and Austin and Dill points to a heavy concentration of F7s in that service.  Other than the roughly half of the DF-120 class of SD9s initially assigned to the Portland Division, the road freight power was all F7s.  The development of a Shasta Route locomotive pool in 1957 and then  the Northern Road Freight Pool in 1958 based in Roseville eventually provided more SD9s to Oregon.

 

Many of us remember Oregon as SD9 territory.  While that became true in the 1960s and beyond as more powerful locomotives bumped the SD9s from Southern California mountain grades, the initial uses of SD9s in Oregon were more limited.  The DF-120 class were “lightweights”—not ballasted as heavily as succeeding classes of SD9s.  Indeed, they were direct descendants of the last order of SD7s which had gone to the Northwestern Pacific.  They had steam boilers and large barrel oscillating headlights.  Walthers did a fine production run of these in their Proto-2000 series (purchased from Life-Like) and I have had a pair of these in anachronistic service on my railroad complete with Black Widow paint in spite of the otherwise 1984 equipment around them.  

 

With the SD9s largely dismissed from road freight service, my attention turned to my many F7 models.  I have SP Black Widow F7s from a variety of manufacturers.  Ironically, the Stewart models I expected to be the core of my fleet will have to wait for higher priority projects to clear through the workbench.  The Stewart models require hardwiring—the reason I did not equip my railroad with 1950s equipment as I started operations in 2015.  That still left many F7 models manufactured in more recent years with relatively straight-forward conversion to DCC operation. 

 

My first blog post on this topic (https://espeecascades.blogspot.com/2026/04/preparing-1950s-loco-fleet-1.html) described my efforts with Walthers Proto F7 models.  Those eighteen units form the core of my road freight fleet, hitting all the right details for one of two production classes that formed the core of the Portland Division and later Shasta and Roseville-Northern freight pools.  Walthers produced only three unique locomotive numbers for these models, so renumbering was required.

 

The photo illustrations describing my process use Athearn Genesis units, but the process has been the same regardless of manufacturer.  The first step was removal of the factory applied number.  Such numbers are pad printed and proved relatively easy to remove using a paint stripper.  Some time ago I picked up a bottle of Deluxe Materials “Strip Magic” at one of the Portland area hobby shops, as seen in the photos.  I applied this fluid to the number area with a cotton-tipped swab and let it sit for a couple of minutes.  I then scrubbed the numbers with the swab, removing the numbers.  I blotted the bulk of the fluid off the model with a paper towel and then applied rubbing alcohol per the instructions.  This neutralizes the remaining striper fluid.  I blotted that initial alcohol application off the model and then applied a fresh coat of alcohol, letting it air dry.  

 

Paint stripper applied to locomotive numbers.

 

Final result of paint stripping of locomotive numbers.  The black acrylic paint pen at the top was used on some models where the base black paint came off as well as the numbers.

 

As noted in the photo caption, sometimes I stripped off base black paint as well as the lettering gray numbers.  This was fixed easily with an acrylic paint pen, seen at the top of the photos.  In a few cases I created a mess too close to the handrails which I repaired using a fine-tip Sharpie ™.  The finish coat over the subsequent decals and a bit of weathering removed any visual differences from the different paint or ink applicators.  

 

Number decals came from Micro Scale decal set 87-201, the Southern Pacific Black Widow locomotive decal set.  I had to use a portion of one of the orange wing sets to repair a wing that was damaged by too much paint stripper left too long on a nearby number (the front nose numbers).  I note this to show (a) I make mistakes, but (b) there often are relatively simple fixes available.  

 

Masking applied to locomotives after decal application but prior to finish coat and weathering applications.

 

Two of the four locomotives that got train numbers in their number boards rather than the common display of the locomotive number as an extra.  The units shown are Walthers Proto F7s, fully “tricked out” with lots of fine detail not seen on any of the other manufacturer’s production runs.

 

With renumbering accomplished followed by finish and weathering, I now have the bulk of my desired F7 road freight fleet ready for service.  I got a bit heavy-handed with my airbrush on a few of the units, but that simply reflects the hard service in the tunnels and rock sheds of the Cascade Line these units experience.  All of the units have passed through my programming track to standardize their decoder settings.  This includes modest sound levels and use of the F5 throttle button to activate the nose Mars light (upper headlight).  I currently have 35 of my planned 50 units ready for service.  The remaining units await parts—decoders and speakers.  Still, the 35 units now ready will more than suffice for start-up operations in the older era.  

 

The initial SP Black Widow F7 fleet.  Left to right: Athearn Genesis, Walthers Proto (three tracks), InterMountain (depot track) and Walthers Mainline (depot house track behind the depot).

THE END OF AN ERA

The time has come for me to shift the operating era of my SP Cascade Line back into the 1950s.  Such an era shift was always part of my plan for the railroad as I had interests and equipment in both the 1980s and 1950s.  The 1980s interest reflected my extensive railfan photography period when I had returned to the West Coast following schooling and Army service on the East Coast.  The 1950s formed my earliest memories of railroading.  

 

As I noted in a previous blog post, the choice of operating era and equipment for my railroad was initially driven by ease of equipping the locomotives for Digital Command Control (DCC) compounded by an abundance of new, highly detailed rolling stock.  My 1950s locomotives were mostly DC-analog for control and required hard-wiring of decoders in many cases.  While I had a fair selection of rolling stock for the era, especially the passenger trains, the freight car fleet would need significant enlargement for my new basement-filling railroad.  Since the railroad became active in 2015, I have acquired additional 1950s locomotives—many with decoders already installed and others with easy installation paths.  Similarly—and quite surprisingly—several key building blocks of the 1950s freight car fleet have been produced in recent years.

 

With my usual two-month break in my operating schedule centered around a non-railroad activity weekend around July 4, I spotted a great time to make the major equipment swap.  That led to declaring my June 6 (D-Day!) operating session to be the last of the 1984 operation.

 

A proper celebration for the change of operating eras was called for!

 

My regular operating crew was alerted throughout the Spring of the impending event and was eager to participate.  The June 6, session was the 96^th on the full mainline and Number One Hundred when I count the several partial railroad operating sessions conducted starting in 2014 as the railroad was under construction.  Three of the four operators of the very first such session were present for this “End of Era” session, with the fourth operator called away on granddad duty.  

 

Follow along in photos and captions as we tour the railroad one last time with gray and scarlet SP locos.

 

Eugene Arrival-Departure Yard Switcher Randall P. controls his switcher deep into one of the reverse loop tracks that form this yard while Yardmaster Vic N. watches.

 

Eugene Yardmaster Pat L. (right) watches as West Switcher Rick A. (center) classifies cars in the yard.  In the distance, Mike L. (center, rear) reaches to uncouple a car at the Eugene Planing Mill.  A Springfield area local freight crew is on the other side of the aisle working the RR-East end of Springfield.

 

Engineer Loren M. and Conductor Mike L. work the Springfield-B job which switches industries on the aisle side of the mainline in Springfield.

 

Later on, the Springfield-B crew must wait as a through freight passes on the mainline, crewed by Jim L. (black shirt, left).   Note that the aisle is wide enough to permit a lot of operators to be near their trains in spite of the heavy switching taking place on both sides of the aisle.

 

On the other side of the Springfield track lobe is the Marcola Branch area and in the distance, Westfir.  Engineer Greg P. (seated on a stool in deference to joint issues) guides his RR-Eastbound train past Westfir and around the Marcola area as he heads toward Springfield.

 

Early in the session, Engineer Mark K. and Conductor Jim M. worked the Western Lumber complex at Westfir.  Engineer Greg P. (back showing) is behind them controlling his train at Wicopee, the mid-point siding on the mountain climb.

 

Just past Westfir, the Oakridge Turn crew switches tank cars for the helper engine facilities located in Oakridge.  Helper Engineer Rodger C. (blue denim shirt, center) watches their efforts.  In the background, Craig P. watches from the Cascade Summit platform as his train works upgrade through tunnels toward the summit.

 

Helper Engineers Rodger C. (blue denim shirt) and John B. (green shirt) work their light helpers back down grade around an uphill (RR-West) train at Wicopee.  Noisy Creek Trestle is in the corner in the background and Cruzatte is above us to the left.

 

Engineer Greg P. has been holding at Wicopee for the light helper move.

 

A RR-East train drifts down-grade over the Salt Creek Trestle, a signature element of the Cascade Line.

 

A RR-West train exits Tunnel 5 and its rock shed on the climb to the summit.

 

Helper Engineer Rodger C. uncouples his locomotives from the midst of Jim L’s. train upon arrival at Cascade Summit.

 

Managing all the traffic on the railroad was Dispatcher Dave H., one of the regular Dispatchers for the railroad.

 

I was surprised by a framed certificate signed by the crew for this final 1984 operation on my SP Cascade Line.  Thanks Guys!

OPERATING SESSION 96

It seems a bit hard to believe, but I am closing in on hosting a hundred operating sessions on my railroad.  As I do so, the itch to change eras has gotten very strong.  As seen in a couple of the preceding blogposts this year, I have been making moves toward a major back-date of the equipment on the railroad.  With my usual July break in operations coming, the time to end the current operating era is almost here.  

 

Operating Session 96 was conducted this weekend.  It will be one of the last in gray and scarlet locomotive paint, at least for some time.  Two of my close friends from my Californian days elected to drive up to participate in this session.  Wayne C. has operated a couple of times.  Dave S. was new to the railroad.  Indeed, it has been a long time since I last saw him, but I was delighted he made the effort to see and participate in what I have assembled and participate in a regular operating session.

 

This session began, as usual, where the previous session left off.  We had four road freights out on the line and the Oakridge Turn finishing up work in Oakridge before returning to Eugene via Westfir.  Follow along with the photos to get a bit of the flavor of a typical operating session as they have been for the past eleven years.

 

The session began with trains at Wicopee and Cruzatte plus Oakridge.  Here, Dave S. (right) serves as engineer on the RR-West train that began in Wicopee (lower level) and is now climbing into Cruzatte as it crosses Nosis Creek Trestle and traverses Tunnel 10.  Rodger C. (center serves as Dave’s conductor and local mentor.  Pat L. (left) watches the train cross Noisy Creek Trestle as he controls the mid-train helper.

 

Wayne C. is seen at Montieth (aka, Rooster) Rock with his RR-East train drifting downhill.

 

Pete H. (center) and Jeroen G. (right)discuss switching strategy as they work with the Marcola Turn.   While the transfer of a long cut of cars to Weyerhaueser is relatively easy, the other switching, such as Neste Resins (left) requires some strategy.  In the background we see Wayne C. with his RR-East train rounding the curve at Westfir.  Above, to the right, Mike W. brings his RR-West train into Wicopee.

 

Earlier, Mike W. (left) was down in McCredie Springs with his helper engineer Mike L. watching their train climb through this first siding (on the modeled RR) above Oakridge.

 

Jeff S. (right) and Rob S. (center) worked the Oakridge Turn.  Here they are switching the Western Lumber mill at Westfir on their way back to Eugene.  Their SD9 locomotives are the only motive power currently on the railroad that will survive the era shift back into the 1950s.  They have been a paint and detail anachronism for 1984, but they will be right at home in 1958.

 

At a different time in the session, regular crew member (one of the original operators on the railroad) Mike B. works his RR-East train past Westfir.  Pat L, working as a helper engineer is in the background, likely with his power either helping uphill or drifting back to Oakridge on the mountain grade part of the railroad.

 

Keith K. (center-right) worked as the East Switcher for the Eugene Yard.  Mike L. (green shirt, center) took his usual position as the Eugene City Switcher, seen here working the industry spurs in the pass-through area between the Eugene Yard and depot and the Arrival-Departure Yard in the back room.  Mark K. (black shirt, left) served as the switcher for the Arrival-Departure Yard.

 

Early in the session, A-D Yardmaster Randall P. (left) and A-D Switcher Mark K (right—looking at something overhead in Crescent Lake at the top of the modeled railroad) are sorting through the work in the Arrival-Departure Yard.

 

Loren M. served as Dispatcher for the session.  He filled the Dispatcher’s Block Authority Sheet over the course of the session.  He kept the traffic moving and all trains moved that were on the line-up—a major success!

 

Although a few minor glitches show up—they always seem to—the railroad ran well.  The experienced crew moved the traffic and completed a twelve fast-hour line-up.  I am happy to be closing out this part of the life of my railroad with a mature operating scheme and mostly cooperative equipment.  The planned era and equipment shift will introduce all sorts of chaos, but resolving that chaos will be a fun challenge.