FORTIETH OPERATING SESSION

Following time off for summer activities and my trek to Vancouver, BC for VanRails 2019, it was time to return to regular operations on my SP Cascade Line.  The session held October 5, was the fortieth session using the full mainline of my railroad.  Nineteen experienced operators made this one memorable.  

A full twelve fast-hour line-up was run.  The slightly lower crew size worked to our advantage, as most mainline trains ran with single-man crews.  Though more work for conductor-engineers, fewer bodies made working through the aisles easier and greatly reduced distractions.  Model railroad operations are a social event.  Lots of railroad related discussion takes place as a common purpose is pursued.  Still, the reduction of bodies in the aisles helped train crews to remain on task and respond promptly to radio calls from the Dispatcher.

The session began where we left off in August.  That session ended with a jumble of trains in Oakridge.  My re-staging efforts removed one of the mainline trains from Oakridge, but that left two such trains in town ready to move out when the clock started.  Added to this was the Oakridge Turn.  That train had only just begun its work in Oakridge when we stopped in August.  The new crew needed to organize their work and complete their switching tasks.

Oakridge Turn crew Tom D. and John B. organize their work and switch the Oakridge house track while the 01-RVEUY occupies the siding.  It looks like the Oakridge Turn crew is using the rear of the siding behind the caboose for the RVEUY to hold a couple of cars they just pulled from the house track.

At Springfield, we started the session with the first Springfield job in town and a repositioned 02-EULAY freight train occupying the mainline.  As with the Oakridge Turn, the Springfield job needed to organize their work and complete most of the normal switch moves for their job.

With the mainline traffic cleared out of town, the First Springfield job works the depot side of the mainline.  Separate Springfield jobs are called for opposite sides of the mainline.  With only one of them in town at a time, a siding is kept clear for Dispatcher use.  Mike B. and Mark K. are working the "Springfield-A" job.  Behind them, Jeroen G. works the RR-West end of the Eugene classification yard.

Assistant Chief Dispatcher Craig P. confers with First Trick Dispatcher Dave H.  They had to work hard at session start-up to deal with six trains either on the line or needing to start immediately. 

The Eugene Classification Yard crew at work.   Jordan D. (near-right) works the RR-East end of the yard.  Randall P. (middle) organizes the work as Yardmaster.  Jeroen G. in the distance works the RR-West end of the yard.

The Santa Clara Tower Operator position manages the reverse loop staging yard at the RR-East end of the modeled railroad.  The job title derives from the tower operator position needed to control the complex trackwork at the throat of the reverse loop and extending into the RR-East end of the Eugene depot and Classification Yard areas.   Here, Santa Clara Tower Operator (really a yardmaster) Vic N. (right) is contemplating his next moves with his Hostler Jim L. (left).  Several trains are ready to depart RR-West from the tracks near the wall.

Later in the session, Vic N. and Jim L. are building new trains on the "back end" of the staging loop tracks.

Santa Clara Tower Operator Vic N. confers with his opposite number, Crescent Lake Operator Scott B.  Crescent Lake is the upper end staging, representing a site more than a hundred rail miles away at the top of the Cascades.

Jim M. and Brigg F., the crew of the 01-KFEUY (identifiable by the orange DRGW box cars at the head end) await the arrival of Amtrak Number 11 in Oakridge.  Behind them, Rick A. (red shirt) and Helper engineer Pete H. (left-above) remove the mid-train helper from the 01-EUOAY at Cascade Summit.

With the meet with Amtrak made at Oakridge, Jim M. pilots his 01-KFEUY RR-Eastbound at Westfir.

The 01-KFEUY continues past Westfir through Natron on its way to Springfield and Eugene.  In the distance, Assistant Chief Dispatcher Craig P. (wearing a green cap) confers with Pete H. (blue shirt) and Mark K. (rear) on their next train assignments.

Mike L. guides the 02-EULAY over Salt Creek Trestle as his Helper engineer David L. waves and ACD Craig P. looks on.

Tom D. took over Dispatching duties in the afternoon with assistance and procedural advice from Dave H.

Late in the session, Helper engineer Pete. H. returns light (locos only) over the Salt Creek Trestle on his way back down to Oakridge to help another train.

Our happy crew ran twenty-one trains over the course of a twelve fast-hour (3:1 clock ratio) session.  I take it as a good sign that they wanted to stay until 4:00 pm to complete the twelve hour line-up.  Some sessions break up around 3:00 pm as fatigue sets in.  This session defied that with smiles instead of exhaustion.  My railroad and its operations have matured such that both my crews and I can enjoy the sessions.

OUTHOUSES AND WOODSHEDS

Continuing my construction of structures for the company "villages" located at stations up the hill on the Cascade Line, my attention turned to the small auxiliary structures supporting the main structures of the "village.  Most of the housing had a woodshed--a good fuel choice for these remote sites.  Wood for heating and cooking would be plentiful in the Cascades, especially given the 1926-27 construction date for these structures.  

Station plats and photos show a wood shed for each of the operator houses, the four-family bunk house for the section gang, and the section foreman and signal maintainer's houses at most stations.  A couple of sites, notably Wicopee and McCredie Springs, do not have wood sheds for the section foreman's house or signal maintainer's house (Wicopee). Instead these houses were built on a hill slope that provided room for the woodshed within the skirting underneath these houses.  I will build these structures, including the extended skirts at a later time.  For now, I needed thirteen woodsheds for the housing at Cascade Summit (7) and Cruzatte (6--no signal maintainer house).

ALW Lines kit SP 13 covers the standard wood shed.  http://alwlines.com/?cat=2  My kits included a mix of old and new, with the older kits using peel-and-stick shingle strips and the newer kits using laser-cut plastic shingle sheets.  I much prefer the newer shingle sheets, but the older shingle strips work fine and provided a good place to use shingle-strip ends saved from the four-family bunkhouse project.

Woodsheds getting laser-cut shingle sheet roofing applied.  

My other small structure project built four four-hole outhouses for the section gangs.  ALW Lines kit SP 11 covers this structure.  Both the wood shed and outhouse are simple builds with four walls, a floor, two roof pieces and appropriate trim.  With its four doors and board-and-batten siding, the outhouse trim is a bit more involved, but the peel-and-stick trim makes the job easy.  My basic construction technique for these closed structures has me assembling a pair of walls with an interior corner post.  Two of these sets are then joined on top of the floor, with the roof pieces following after the glue sets on the wall-floor assembly.

Outhouse wall assembly.

Completed outhouses and woodsheds.

Section gang structure cluster at Cascade Summit.

The developing village at Cruzatte.

Although small, these structures are needed to complete their station scenes.  In all cases, I needed these structures to guide terrain forming.  Each of the station villages along the Cascade Line above Oakridge were built on hillsides that came down to track level.  In most cases, this means the wood sheds and outhouses are behind and slightly uphill from their respective houses.  I am close to completing my first full station sets of structures for the company villages.  This will allow me to form the base terrain behind these villages--an important goal for this overall project.

VanRail 2019

One of the benefits of building a model railroad focused on operations and then using it to host regional operating events is reciprocal invitations to similar events.  I attended VanRail (Vancouver, BC) in 2017 and quickly placed it at the top of my "must do" operating event list.  This year's VanRail featured a dozen wonderful operating layouts.  I immediately responded to the invitation for VanRail 2019.  Last weekend we met in the Vancouver, BC, area for the 2019 edition.  

In addition to the gracious hosts, VanRail draws operators from all over North America, providing an opportunity to meet with old friends from past events and make new friends.  This is the social aspect of model railroad operations.

Many of the layouts of VanRail run using Timetable and Train Order (TT&TO) dispatching control and that certainly applied to all of the layouts I operated.  Fortunately, I am versed in TT&TO just enough (to be dangerous) from model railroad operations here in Oregon, so I looked forward to the fun.  All three of the layouts I operated on were at the top of my personal preference list for the event.  Two were new to me and one was a repeat--a reflection on the great time I had in 2017.  

VanRail began operations on Friday afternoon.  My assigned layout was John Green's Coquihalla Valley Railway. John models the Canadian Pacific line through this valley--one of the CP secondary lines in southern British Columbia. His modeling era is the mid 1950s, so we had lots of maroon and gray CP power.  I drew one of the road engineer jobs, as I wanted to experience as much of his mainline as I could.  I primarily ran through, but had major block swaps at the main yard at Brookmere.  

Bryn E. works the Brookmere yard on John Green's Coquihalla Valley Railway.  Just beyond Bryn and the yard is a two-track helix which provides serial staging in both directions through its turns.

The Coquihalla Valley features wood trestles and steel viaducts, and lots of tunnels. The backdrops are just enough detailed to convey the distant scene and support the immediate 3-D railroad model.

John Green's impressive steel viaduct and mountain rockwork.

Lead VanRail organizer Scott Calvert and his wife hosted a Friday evening social event at their house.  This gave me an opportunity to check Scott's progress since I last operated there in 2017. Scott models Canadian Pacific's Boundary Subdivision 2--another part of the CP lines in southern British Columbia. It formed part of a secondary mainline across the mountains of the area, gathering traffic from mines, timber and other natural resources.  

Scott Calvert's railway is headquartered in Nelson, BC, with this imposing depot serving as the subdivision's headquarters.  

My Saturday layout assignment was with Mike Chandler's Western Midland Railroad.  This was my much-appreciated repeat for VanRail.  Mike used a John Armstrong plan from the 1960's as the basis for his layout.  This is an "island" layout with operator aisles around the outside against the walls.  In spite of that older layout configuration, Mike's railroad works very well for formal operations.  He operates in 1938 with steam locos drawn from Colorado Midland prototypes and a few other sources.  Everything works like Swiss watches!  

Mike uses a Dispatcher--a retired CP Dispatcher--working remotely over the phone from Calgary.  This places the four train order operators in their proper roles as the Dispatcher's eyes and ears and deliverers of orders.  Other than the passenger train on the schedule, all other trains do at least some work on-line.  Typically for VanRail, one of the train order operators is drawn from the guest (Boomer) pool--a role I took in 2017, but deferred to others this time.  All of this was a lot of fun.

Mike Chandler's yards at Aurora (right) and Java (left) are joined through the turntable and roundhouse, but are otherwise separate.  One must run over the full railroad to get from one to the other. Mike's rockwork extends to the floor in many areas.

The other operator cul-de-sac on Mike Chandler's Western Midland includes the summit and a wye at Lofty.  I had a mine run that terminated at Lofty and had quite a tight squeeze fitting all of the cars into the mine and then leaving them on one leg of the wye.  Note the track diagram on the fascia.  All track controls are embedded in that full-size diagram.

Mike Chandler's craftsmanship shows in the sawmill scene at Neral.  This scene was fleshed out a bit more between my 2017 and 2019 visits.  The modeling is stunning--a feature of Mike's entire operation.

Saturday evening featured a buffet banquet, followed by a presentation on the Pacific Great Eastern Railway.  The PGE became the British Columbia Railway and eventually was absorbed into the Canadian National system.  I finally have a clear picture of this railfan favorite Railway, its service to the Province of British Columbia, and its connection to the North American rail network.

My Sunday layout operation was on Anthony Craig's CPR Kettle Valley Division.  This covered some of the same territory seen Friday on John Green's layout but with a concentration on CPs second mainline through southern British Columbia. Anthony operates in 1938, so I got a feel for CP steam operations on the secondary main.  I chose to operate in the road pool in the morning and then took on the Brookmere train order operator role in the afternoon.  That later position gave me a wonderful railfan perspective that I somehow missed when I was running trains in the morning. Unfortunately, I did not use my camera at that time.

Brookmere yard on Anthony Craig's CPR Kettle Valley Division.  Brookmere serves as the operational hub at the western end of the modeled railway.  The train order operator uses a desk just beyond the roundhouse.

One of the main operating aisles on Anthony Craig's layout.  Mainline runs are on both decks and both sides of the aisle. Anthony's railway presents a beautifully finished appearance--a delight to see trains working within.  Anthony sets a very high bar for the rest of us! 

Penticton serves as the other (eastern) end of Anthony Craig's modeled railway.  A way freight was kept busy here.

VanRail features great layouts run by wonderful people.  It is a delight to visit and have an opportunity to operate on their layouts.  The people interactions are great!  That combination has us "Boomers" (traveling railroad operators) wanting still more and promising to come back next time!  

I returned home Sunday night, tired, but enthused.  Indeed, I dug into my library to learn more about railway operations north of the 49th parallel.  That is a high tribute to our hosts.  Through their modelers' eyes, I gained a view of those railway operations--enough so that I want to learn more!

SECTION GANG BUNKHOUSES

After a long break for late spring activities--the Promontory Sesquicentennial and WOOPS--I returned to model building.  I continue to build the structures for company villages along the line. Previous efforts included the train order stations and the operator houses.  

https://espeecascades.blogspot.com/2019/03/train-order-offices.html

https://espeecascades.blogspot.com/2019/04/train-order-operator-housing.html

My attention turned next to the section gang bunkhouses.  Nominally set up for "four families," a pair of these structures provided housing for the section gang at each station along the line.

As with other structures in this series, I am using kits created by Bruce Barney of ALW Lines.

http://alwlines.com/

These are laser-cut kits with tabbed primary construction and peel-and-stick trim.  The separate trim feature makes easy work of painting the trim color.  

One of the more tedious jobs for my early-production versions of these kits is applying the roof shingles.  As designed, these are peel-and-stick shingle strips.  Applying these to the roofs is made easier by the alignment lines laser-scribed onto the roofs.  Still, the job is tedious, with 25 shingle rows required for each roof half. With my older kits, I find it best to apply a coat of contact cement to the roof before using the peel-and-stick shingles.  The combination of adhesives ensures these shingles will stay down.  Fortunately, Bruce changed the kits in later production to provide laser-cut embossed plastic shingle sections, but the current building set had the old version.

Roof shingling underway.

Bunkhouses complete.

Once the shingles were applied, it was relatively straight-forward to paint the roofs, touch up paint, and install the chimneys.  Then it was out to the layout for my developing station villages at Cascade Summit and Cruzatte.

Cascade Summit bunkhouses.

Cruzatte bunkhouses.

THE RAILROAD AT YEAR SEVEN

Each year at the beginning of August, I do a photo survey of my railroad to mark the year's progress.  Previous surveys may be found by working backwards through the links for previous years. Last year's link is:  https://espeecascades.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-railroad-at-year-six.html  

This year's survey might be subtitled:  "On the Seventh Day (Year) He Rested."  I have been on a bit of a sabbatical break after last year's intense scenery efforts.  Still, as I look back, I see progress has been made.  Scenery gaps now evident to me from last year have been filled in, notably below Cruzatte and around Tunnel 20.  Company structures have started appearing, though none are set into their scenes yet.  This year has been more about operating the railroad, including support of the second edition of Western Oregon OPerationS (WOOPS).

Follow along as the 02-EULAY (Eugene to Los Angeles manifest freight) makes its way RR-West from Eugene to Crescent Lake.  Photos were shot after the August 3, operating session, with several trains left in place out on the line.

Our train is departing the Eugene Arrival-Departure Yard via Santa Clara Tower.

We are rolling past the Eugene depot.  Sharp eyes will see the track use label tags in addition to track numbers in the classification yard.  Similar tags are used by the Santa Clara Tower operator.  These tags help operators organize their yards and convey to switch crews that organization scheme.

Passing out of Eugene, our train crosses the Willamette River on its way to Springfield.

Crossing the river into Springfield, we roll past the Borden Chemical plant.  Borden extracts wood resin for glue.

The first Springfield Turn is at work as we roll through town.  This job works the depot side of the mainline.

Our journey continues out of Springfield past the Marcola Branch. Cars destined for Weyerhauser are on the interchange track between the mainline (left) and the Amerigas dealer (right-center).  The beginnings of my forestry project (a lifetime effort!) can be seen on the right.

We roll past Western Lumber at Westfir, one of two large mills served by the Oakridge Turn.

Rolling into Oakridge, we find a full house.  The Dispatcher has elected to have us entrain our helper using the RR-East mainline.  Another RR-West train occupies the normal yard track for entraining the helper and the mainline is occupied by a RR-East train.  Further complicating the scene is the Oakridge Turn with its power using the engine facility run-through track as it swaps ends with its train, currently occupying yard tracks 3 and 4.

With our helper cut into the train and the brake test performed, our train, X7480W, is ready to depart Oakridge.  A cluster of maintenance-of-way sheds has appeared at the RR-West end of Oakridge.

In a scene similar to last year, our train crosses Salmon Creek on its way out of Oakridge.

The distinctive Montieth Rock (aka, "Rooster Rock") now looms over the railroad as we begin the climb over the Cascades.

We pass more maintenance-of-way sheds on our way through McCredie Springs.

We exit Tunnel 20 on our way into Wicopee.

Climbing out of Wicopee, we cross Salt Creek Trestle, a signature scene on the railroad.

We exit Tunnel 10 and its rock and snow shed to cross Noisy Creek Trestle.

We roll through Cruzatte with its company village developing.

Shady Creek Trestle is the third and final of the large steel viaducts on the line as we climb toward the summit.

Tunnel 5 has another rock and snow shed protecting its RR-West end. These open gallery sheds are a signature element of the Cascade Line.

The heavy work ends as we work through the summit tunnel and into Cascade Summit.

Our helper has been cut off and is now moving to push the rear of the train into the rest of it.  Cascade Summit also has a developing company village.

Our journey ends at Crescent Lake--the upper staging yard on my railroad.