After months of preparation, I finally gathered a crew to begin shaking down 1950s equipment and operations. The era shift reminds me of the initial effort to bring the railroad into operation in 2015. At least the railroad remained in place.
1950s operations have begun on my SP Cascade Line. The highlight of the day was seeing Train No. 9, the Shasta Daylight, make its way Railroad-West, seen here at Cruzatte.
I succeeded in attracting seventeen of my regular crew on a holiday weekend to begin operations in the 1950s. Although I billed it as 1958, that was a very loose year definition. Many era anachronisms were necessary to hold some semblance of an operating session. No model railroad physical plant was changed even though some of the industries were built after the 1958 date. Similarly, I retained use of a few large wood chip gondolas as stand-ins for future construction of GS gondolas with wood chip racks. A few other out-of-era freight cars snuck in just to fill out trains or provide appropriate car types for service. The anachronisms will largely disappear over time. I needed to stop holding off the era shift and get on with it!
We used a timetable slightly modified from a direct transcription of a 1952 SP timetable. That SP timetable served as my operating base as it included the post-war streamliners, the Shasta Daylight and Cascade, and was before CTC (Centralized Traffic Control) was installed on the Springfield Subdivision (1955). Not only was I changing the equipment era, but also the train operating system changed to Timetable and Train Order.
The timetable was modified slightly from the 1952 timetable to move a couple of timetable meets between trains to stations (sidings) actually modelled on my railroad. Results of this first develop- mental session point to further adjustments. The most notable concerns adjusting for my great compression of distance between Springfield and Oakridge. I may need to yield the desire for the on-the-hour departures of the Second Class westbound freights from Eugene Yard (my staging yard) to make way for scheduled meets at Oakridge. I expect further adjustments after that, but we needed to run the “real” schedule at least once with my 3:1 fast clock.
Setting up for the operating session found me having to place into service many new freight cars as well as pulling out of storage and moving bins my 1950s-era equipment that was last used on the California Central Club layout in California—more than fifteen years ago. As I set up for operations, I reminded myself to “protect the load.” In this case, that meant I began by placing cars at on-line industries that would be serviced during this first session. This meant cars were placed both at the industry for pickup and other cars placed in the Eugene classification yard and arranged for several outbound local freights. Other spots were ignored, notably the Marcola Branch, as it would not be switched during the session.
With the local freight service accounted for, I then built up four road freights in each direction to begin development of that service. I did not have enough era-appropriate cars to fill those trains to my desired twenty-five car train lengths, but I was happy to find those eight trains fill out to 15-20 cars. The trains were built with those cars, the new locomotives that I installed decoders in during the summer and what turned out to be a sufficient number of era-appropriate cabooses. I had lost track of just how many SP cabooses I completed in my California days. The Walthers model of a C-30-1 caboose became a major foundation for those operations, augmented by a number of Precision Scale brass cabooses of both cupola and bay window designs. Finally, I pulled out my passenger trains—the Shasta Daylight (a brass Coach Yard set that I painted and completed), the Cascade (a styrene scratch-build effort using Union Station laser-cut car sides), and the Klamath mail train (a mixture of heavyweight cars from various sources).
Setting up for operations. Cars are placed at Eugene industries, local freights are arranged in the yard, and four road freights have been built with available cars on yard tracks as seen by the car card packets leaning against the F7 road power sets.
I was glad I selected beginning 1950s operation with the day shift (8 am-4 pm) as that meant only one streamliner (the Shasta Daylight) needed to run with the single operational PABA passenger locomotive set. As crunch time approached, I was only able to get my Rapido PA set into service—with SoundTraxx decoders. The Precision Craft set experienced yet unexplained operating issues and I have not yet begun adding decoders to any of my other PA sets.
Working right up to the arrival of crew-members, it became time to turn attention to bringing the railroad alive. We began by holding “rules class” where we reviewed operating using Timetable and Train Order (TT&TO) rules. Most of the crew has experienced such operation on another large local layout, but it was important to review some key rules for both experienced TT&TO operators and for the couple of crewmen who were new to such operation. My operation explicitly includes the use of train sections, so several rules such as following distance/time were emphasized for all.
Part of the crew assembled for Rules Class on the back patio. Oregon mist eventually drove us under cover.
Finally, it was time to send the crew to their positions and turn on the clock. I was reminded quickly of the teething issues of new (or long-term stored) equipment. I will be adjusting cars and locomotives for some time. In spite of equipment difficulties, the crew persisted in good humor and in spite of my growing fatigue and frustration as the layout owner and host. Sigh.
Dave H. held down the Dispatcher duty as he has done often in the past. He also has experience dispatching a couple of other model railroads using TT&TO. We agreed that we really missed former SP Dispatcher Rick Kang (R.I.P.) with his experience and guidance that helped bring the railroad into operation back in 2015.
Craig L. (left) ran the Eugene classification yard without much to classify due to my setup and the lack of freight cars. Mike L. (center) held his usual job as Eugene City Switcher. Mike B. (back shown, right) ran the Springfield local freight. Each have done these jobs frequently. I wanted their experience to help find issues with those jobs with the era change.
Mike B. works the “Springfield-A” job. New equipment created operating issues.
Rodger C. guides his RR-Eastbound train, X6302, past Westfir. My solution to providing train number indication uses an identity lanyard and pocket for prominent display of the train number. The SP had no scheduled Second Class freight schedules in the RR-Eastboud direction, so they all ran “Extra.”
Wicopee and Cruzatte Train Order Operator Pete J. (black shirt) watches action back at Cruzatte from his position at Wicopee. Pat LT’s RR-West train (leading section indicated by the green background on his train number indicator) waits at Wicopee.
I stationed three Train Order Operators around the layout space, each with duties covering multiple stations. Pete J. had the “easy” job of covering two mountain sidings at Wicopee and Cruzatte. Joe B. covered Oakridge, McCredie Springs and Cascade Summit. Rick A. drew the big job of covering Eugene—(A-D) Yard and Depot, Springfield, and Crescent Lake. As such, he had responsibility for launching trains from both ends of the railroad. As expected, I will need to develop more formal Train Order Operator work locations and tables.
Just after our lunch break, the big event got started—the Shasta Daylight made its inaugural run. I have fond memories of that train from my youth, so it serves as a major motivation for the layout and the current era shift. I assigned one of my new-to-TT&TO operators to run the Shasta. This is a great break-in assignment, as all one needs to do is follow the timetable. The Shasta was THE superior train on the railroad as it ran. It was interesting to watch the crowd of crew-members follow that train around the layout space.
The Shasta Daylight, train No. 9, pulls into the Eugene depot for its station stop. Engineer Doug C. is in the foreground-left. The yard is almost empty—something I will be working on over the next few months.
The Shasta Daylight pulls into Oakridge. It needed to wait for a while for its timetable time for departure—something I will adjust in the next timetable revision. A RR-East freight is on an Oakridge Yard body track rather than the siding, closer to the depot. The formal debrief discussed the need for changing this operating practice. Two RR-West freights are in the yard with one ready to follow the Shasta up the Hill (helper already in-train). The Oakridge Turn is in town also with a few of its cars in the yard and its power and more cars out on the Pope and Talbot industry spur.
The meet at Cruzatte. Tran Order Operator Pete J. set up a significant meet at Cruzatte with two sections of RR-West Train 673 meeting RR-East First Class Train 20 (the Klamath mail train). The freights had to put out flagmen to warn and instruct the mail train since the second section of the freight filled the rest of the Cruzatte siding and strung-out further RR-East on the mainline, block the Klamath. Exciting times!
We finally brought the session to a close in the later part of the afternoon, having run most of eight fast-hours of the day shift. We gathered on the back patio again for a formal debrief. I needed to hear from each of the principal operating crew positions and then from each individual in attendance. The “quiet” folk were heard! Although I was exhausted and frustrated by equipment problems, we learned a lot. The era has shifted on my SP Cascade Line!
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