This winter is shaping up to
be one impacted by snow in the Willamette Valley. Western Oregon is a mild climate, albeit wet,
but every few years produces a winter with several snowfalls. Such is this year, with two snows locally in
December and another one this first weekend of January. I already can hear the derision from other
parts of the country. Fair enough if one
plans for snow as a routine. Such is not
the case in the populous regions of Oregon, although the Columbia River Gorge
weather effect is well known to residents of the Portland metro area. Suffice to say our modest snowfall on top of
frozen ground this weekend was enough to cause significant transportation
difficulties.
Anticipating bad road
conditions, I had to cancel my regularly scheduled formal operating session set
for Saturday, January 7, 2017. I had
twenty folk scheduled to operate coming from as far away as Eugene and Oakridge
and Kalama, WA. I owed to my crew to not
force them into what would be a nasty return trip after the session. The forecast proved correct, with snow
beginning here in McMinnville in late morning.
Crewmembers from further south in the Willamette Valley reported “ice
rink” conditions early in the morning.
By the time we normally would have completed the session in mid-late
afternoon, a couple of inches of snow had fallen here and chain controls were
posted for Interstate 5 through much of the Valley. This was a good weekend to stay home and off
the roads.
Snow comes to McMinnville in
early January, 2017.
The snow cancellation was
unfortunate, as earlier in the week I had a group of four regulars come out to
help re-stage the railroad and clean track.
The railroad got a good cleaning as did all of the locomotive
wheels. I was beginning the re-stage
process when my snow cancellation wiped out my enthusiasm for that effort. Sigh.
Today, I responded just as
the big railroad would—I called out the flanger! The flanger in question was the one regularly
assigned to Oakridge, SPMW 329. A fine
model of this flanger was imported by Albrae Models a couple of years ago.
I noted my acquisition of
this model in a previous blog post:
It was time for me to pull
the flanger off the plow track at the end of the Oakridge wye and take it up
hill.
Gathering the flanger at
Oakridge.
Taking the flanger out for a
run up hill proved quite useful. First,
I found the flanger trucks needed adjustment to the spring force. This is a common issue with brass
models. The spring force as built and
delivered often is too stiff. The solution—properly
done by the owner/modeler-- is to clip rings of the spring until it just barely
applies pressure to the truck bolster.
This permits the truck to rotate more easily. I am still working on this for this model, as
backing through switches still leads to some derailments.
Flanger train climbing out of
Oakridge.
The second positive effect of
my run up the hill was to find several track sections needing maintenance. Some of these would have shown themselves—quite
negatively—if the scheduled operation had taken place. This is a challenge for owners of large
layouts—getting a chance to operate one’s own railroad. Often, I have to trust my operating crews to leave
notes where they encounter problems—as they are asked to do. Still, there is nothing quite like experiencing
an issue oneself to draw immediate attention!
Flanger passes AMTRAK Number
14 at McCredioe Springs. Yes, even
AMTRAK can be put in the hole for snow equipment!
The low interior humidity
accompanying cold weather had an impact on my benchwork. At least one spot of rail now needs to be
trimmed and spiked. The contraction of
the wood benchwork was more than the minimal rail shrinkage with slightly lower
interior temperatures. Sigh. The maintenance must continue.
Flanger being turned on the
Cascade Summit Wye. Now would be a great
time to finish installation of the switch controls to make the wye fully
functional!
I hope the start of February
is kinder with schedule issues and weather so I can get my railroad back into
routine operation.
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