OLYOPS 2025

Catching up with posts on what was a VERY busy Fall.  Almost every weekend in September and October had a rail-related event for me—either model railroad operations or prototype railroad history.  After my usual October operating session on the first weekend, the second Saturday of October found a number of us invited to Olympia, Washington, for this year’s OlyOps.  OlyOps features six to eight local layout operations, with guests assigned to operate on two of those layouts with a morning and an afternoon session each.  

 

My carpool was assigned to operate first on Brian Ferris’ Port Townsend and Southern, a proto-fiction railroad operating much like the prototypic Northern Pacific joint line between Portland and Seattle, albeit single tracked.  I have operated on Brian’s layout several times before and always enjoy the return visits.  Most of the layout is contained within a single large room, with staging in the garage.  My jobs this time included one local freight on the mainline and then a switching job on the fringe of the one major yard.  Both of those jobs had me dodging higher priority traffic, whether higher class per the timetable or simply that I was a lowly switch job needing to get out of the way of traffic using the mainline.

 

Overview of Brian Ferris’ Port Townsend and Southern.  The train order operator (Rick A. with back to the camera) sits in the middle of the room with view of most of the mainline.

 

Switching the main yard on Brian Ferris’ Port Townsend and Southern.

 

Our carpool’s afternoon layout assignment was on Scott Buckley’s Tehama Valley Railroad.  Scot’s layout is another proto-freelanced railroad, set in California’s Sacramento River Valley and extending into the Sierra foothills.  This is another layout I have operated on several times.  In many ways, this year’s OlyOps was like “old home week” for me.  Scott’s railroad also occupies a single room.  The railroad is about half-scenicked and captures the look of a short line extending from the middle of the valley up into the foothills.  I paired with Craig Townsend, with whom I got acquainted via one of the on-line RR e-mail groups, but have also met in person at events around the Pacific Northwest.  This is one of the fun social aspects of these operating events—bringing together folk interested in model railroad operations and other aspects of model railroading.

 

Our local freight is returning to the main yard connection with the SP and ATSF, seen here crossing a long low trestle that spans a water course.  This scene is very reminiscent of scenes in California’s Big Valley (north and south).

 

Vic N. switches in an unfinished part of the Scott’s layout.  One does not notice the lack of scenery much when operating a train.  More important is “where does that car go?”

 

The last couple of OlyOps have concluded the Saturday operations with a banquet held at a local golf club.  This brings most of the day’s participants together in a social setting where the discussion often covers model railroad topics as well as some side discussions among event organizers.  I look forward to each Fall’s OlyOPs, hoping it does not conflict with other railroad events held in October.