At the beginning of June, we held our regional operating event: WOOPS 2023 (Western Oregon OPerationS). We had about fifty “Boomers” (traveling railroad workers) join us for operations on a dozen area layouts. I held two sessions with the first on Friday and the second on Sunday. A mad scramble by me re-staged my railroad on Friday evening and Saturday. Fortunately, my Eugene Yard crews on Friday did a great job so my re-staging was considerably easier than often is the case.
As one of the founding layouts for WOOPS and as one of the larger layouts, our scheduler used my layout and the similar-sized Willamette Model Railroad Club layout (also a founding layout) as the assignment “float” wherein crew size adjustments could be made to balance the rest of the layouts with desired crew sizes. That resulted in a modest-sized “Boomer” crew on Friday and a full crew on Sunday. Fortunately, my half-dozen local helper/mentors filled remaining crew slots on Friday.
As it happened, my last regular session in May had ended close to the stated start time for one of my standard train line-ups. This made my staging for the event very direct and gave me the assurance that this part of the line-up would work well for the WOOPS session. We had done this time slice before.
Follow along with photos from the first (Friday) session.
Especially important with a guest crew was the in-briefing to start the session.
The in-briefing was followed by crew assignment selection using numbered poker chips to establish “seniority.”
Two of my local helping crew manage operations in the critical track throat between the Arrival-Departure Yard and the Classification Yard and depot area. Bill S. (gray shirt) served very well as Eugene Yardmaster. To the right, Eugene West Switcher Bruce M. confers with another crew- member.
Operations in the track throat area between the two Eugene yard areas took a b rief pause as necessary railfan photography was done.
The Springfield-B local freight job was performed during this session. This job performs the local industry switching on the aisle side of the mainline at Springfield. Meanwhile, a through freight rolls through Springfield RR-Westbound using the depot and drill tracks—a routing option provided to the Dispatcher by keeping the local freight switching on the other side of the mainline.
A RR-East train heads to Eugene as it rounds the curve at the end of the Springfield-Marcola peninsula. In the distance up on the mountain grade, a train is in the siding at Cruzatte with a helper crew engineer taking a break.
Mid-train helpers have been entrained at Oakridge to assist the climb up the 1.8% grade to the summit of the Cascades.
Later, the Oakridge Turn is in town, rearranging the train for efficient switching.
A RR-West train has made it to Cascade Summit and its helper has been cut out for return to Oakridge.
The smiles tell the story of the Friday session!
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