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| OP Session, Apr 9, 1985 (2005) | ||
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| joef |
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   Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PMLocation: Portland, OR Posts: 2112 | Well, now ... what a crazy op session this one turned out to be. Once everything was all said and done, it turned out to be one of the most fun and unique yet! It all started last month with me accidentally melting a turnout in staging with a halogen lamp, and me having to suddenly cancel the session because the Medford end of staging was put out of commission. Then thrilled to be back up and operating again, we geared up for this session and had lots of guests standing in line to attend, including my good ol' hobby buddies from the past John Shore and Dale Trongale. First, John couldn't make it because of issues with his car. But Dale showed up and things were looking great, with another 5-6 guests likely and a full crew of regulars. The evening came and we had 17! Wow, nice crowd. We all walked around the layout, kibitzed, and geared up for the session. Then just as we were about to start at 7:30 ... BAM! The power in the neighborhood went out. Everyone braved it in the dark, swapping railroad stories for an hour and half. Finally, the ranks cleared out. Dale was pretty bummed, having come over 500 miles to the op session. Just as the last of the folks were leaving ... z-z-zing! On comes the power. We took a head count and found Dale and 4 other brave souls still around. A hasty bit of organization, and we decided to have the op session ANYWAY, shorthanded or not. We figured the regulars went on strike, and we had crossed the picket line to run the railroad as best we could with a short crew. What fun it turned out to be! Over the next couple of days, the report on this very unusual op session will follow ... Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting!  In video ... | ||
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| JeffShultz |
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  Registered Member #6 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:30PMLocation: Stayton, OR Posts: 582 | My dad had arranged to be home this weekend (he's a long haul trucker, home one weekend in 4 or 5) in order to come to the operating session. Father/Son bonding and all that - and I think some true curiosity about what the heck his son was getting into. I"m afraid I'll have to take the blame for the power going out. You see, I'd just bought an Atlas GP40 for my layout, and like the GP38 before it, I needed to use Joe's DCC controller to make some adjustments that were beyond my Prodigy DCC system. Joe had literally just put the engine on the programming track when the lights went out. A couple seconds later they flashed back on and then out again - and this time they stayed out. As Joe said, we spent the next hour or so swapping stories, and talking about the layout, and Espee (some of the movers and shakers in EspeeInOregon were there), and CORP (Tunnel 13 and derailments) and a variety of other things. All in all it was a very interesting time. My dad later stated that he was impressed by the sheer knowledge that some of the people there had - some of them have been studying these subjects since the 1960s. Come 8:40 or so, after someone made a joke that if we all left, the power would come on 15 minutes later, word came down that we shouldn't expect the power to come back before 11:45pm - previously we'd heard 8:45 or 9:45, depending on who you were asking. Chuck Clark offered to host an impromptu op session at his layout in Salem, which I hadn't even known existed, much less seen. So we took off in the direction of Salem. After all, my goal was to show my dad the fun of quality model railroading - and we couldn't do that if the power was out. Naturally, as soon as we hit I-5 southbound, the lights of Woodburn came on. It was exactly 8:45pm by the clock on my car radio. Oh well. I'm glad that Joe and a few others had a good time. Meanwhile my dad and I drove down to Chuck's house in Salem. Or, more properly, to the separate building housing his Modoc Lines layout. For those who haven't seen it, the layout itself is in two rooms - the "public" side in the front room, and "the Mole" staging yards representing Klamath Falls and someplace else (Fernley, NV?) in the back room. Both rooms have helixes.... and Joe, while there is nothing at all wrong with your benchwork, Chuck was a professional woodworker and it shows - his helixes (helixi?), and the rest of his benchwork is pure artwork. Chuck doesn't use DCC on his system though - he uses an older system called Railynx, which doesn't send signalling through the tracks, instead it uses infrared transmitters in the controllers to directly send signals to recievers in the locomotives - so you have to aim at the cab windows. It can make control slightly iffy, but it really doesn't end up being an inconvenience, it just adds to the fun somehow. Of interest, you could take Chuck's locomotives and controllers, put them on Joe's layout, and they'd work perfectly - the voltage on the layouts is close enough for it to work, from what I was told. After getting a tour of the layout, we started running trains, with John from Whistle Stop (Joe, please fill in his whole name), Rod Loder from Espee In Oregon, another gentleman who's name I didn't get (this was the first time he'd been back to the Siskyou Lines in about a year), myself, my Dad, and Chuck. I may have missed one or two people... I wasn't really counting heads. John manned The Mole, setting up trains, and I was given the honor of leading the first train out. It was a WP through freight with a GP35 in the lead with an F7B and F7A following. The advantage of this through freight was that I got to lead the train around practically the entire layout, gaining some familarity with the controller and switch controls. Everything is slow motion switch machines controlled by facia mounted switches. All trains were run as extras (no dispatcher beyond the staging yardmaster telling you your throttle address), and the controllers limitations become an advantage, as you are forced to stay close to the head of the train to avoid collisions. I did have to wait at the top of the helix for the SP coal train that was coming from the other direction to climb it. The other train required helpers, and while there weren't any derailment problems - the locos were perfectly matched, and identical controller settings resulted in identical speeds - except that one car had a coupler that wouldn't stay coupled. After playing with it for a few minutes it was ejected from the layout. Of note, all locomotives currently on the layout are either Kato's or Athearn Genesis F7's. Slow speed performance is exceptional. The second train I was assigned was a WP "Peddler Freight" with three F7s. Starting at the east end of the line on the upper level staging, I dropped about half the cars in Wendel (someone else would switch them out to the industries) and then proceded around the layout to the helix, going down it to the bottom level at Likely. From there I proceded to Alturas and set out the rest of the cars. If it hadn't been for another similar train ahead of mine picking up all westbound loads, I would have picked up anything there as well. Happily, halfway around the layout Chuck grabbed my dad, and ignoring his protests of never having done this and just being along to watch, gave him a throttle and assigned him the through grain train. Perhaps my statement that we weren't going home until he finished running a train had an impact (I was driving). As is, Dad had a wonderful time running the train around the layout, which was my whole goal for the night, and he admitted that he could easily see getting addicted by such things - and I would like to once again thank Chuck Clark for stepping in and welcoming us all into his layout on pretty much no notice at all. Jeff Shultz Willamette & Pacific - Oregon Electric Branch W&P RR Photo Gallery | ||
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| joef |
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PMLocation: Portland, OR Posts: 2112 | The turnout that lost to the halogen lamp Here's a photo of the turnout that started this rash of "first time in the life of the Siskiyou Line" streak of "OP Session oddities" in March. As you can see, this Atlas code 83 turnout lost in the competition with the halogen lamp. It's my own dumb fault for thinking I could work quickly enough to reset a rail joiner that the lamp wouldn't cause a problem. But the rail joiner correction took longer than the 30 seconds or so that I expected it to take ... So by the time I had fixed the rail joiner, here's how the turnout to the number 3 staging track on the Medford end of staging looked. Without proper staging, we really couldn't run the session, so I cancelled last month's session at the last minute. That was March ... and so now, here's April ... Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting! In video ... | ||
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| joef |
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PMLocation: Portland, OR Posts: 2112 | The April session roster ... Here's the signup sheet for the April Op session, and we had a whopping 17 in attendance! It was promising to be an exciting session indeed ... and it was great to have the layout operational again after the March turnout meltdown. Things were going great until just past 7:30pm when it was almost time to start the trains rolling ... and then ZZZOT! Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting! In video ... | ||
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| joef |
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PMLocation: Portland, OR Posts: 2112 | The night the lights went out in Woodburn ... Don't adjust your monitor, there's nothing wrong with the image above -- it's supposed to be all black. At just past 7:30pm, the power went out in Woodburn, so this is what the op session looked like -- nothing but blackness.  We all sat around in the blackness for an hour and a half waiting for the power to come back on, swapping railroading stories. But I was bummed that we had so many guests and could do nothing. I was especially bummed that my longtime railroad buddy from Idaho, Dale Trongale, whom I had not seen for over 20 years had travelled 500 miles to come to this op session and now it was turning out to be bust. :x After an hour and a half, we more or less gave up on the session and people began leaving. Just as the last of the folks were heading out, suddenly the power came back on! By this time it was 9 pm and we were down to 4 die-hards plus Dale and myself. Well, by golly, we were going to take lemons and make lemonade!  Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting! In video ... | ||
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| joef |
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PMLocation: Portland, OR Posts: 2112 | Jordon Dobson hastily sets up to dispatch ... Fortunately, Jordon Dobson, who had signed up to dispatch was among the die-hards, so we had a dispatcher. Jordon quickly organized himself to prepare to dispatch. We decided the regular crews were on strike and we were "scabs" who had crossed the picket line to work during the strike! So we were a skeleton crew who were going to do our best to keep the railroad running! We decided to use mostly one person crews instead of two person crews, although the one newbie who was among our number was Dale Trongale, so I paired him with Jim Laycock. Also still here were Ken Lass and Jerry Sheffield. And I would yardmaster Roseburg Yard ... Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting! In video ... | ||
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| joef |
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PMLocation: Portland, OR Posts: 2112 | Joe assesses the situation in Roseburg Yard Roseburg Yard actually was in pretty good shape. We had a 23 car Seagull East all set to go, and the rest of the cars were all sorted. Primarily, I just needed to switch the industries in town, and wait for the Seagull West to make it into Roseburg since that train has all cars that go into the Oakland and Dole turns later in the session. Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting! In video ... | ||
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| joef |
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PMLocation: Portland, OR Posts: 2112 | Jim Laycock takes the Seagull West out of Eugene staging Jim Laycock (and Dale Trongale, out of the photo) prepare to take the Seagull West out of Eugene. Jim is shown here looking at the rear of his train, and he's going to conduct. The train will actually exit Eugene, which is to the far left out of the picture. Not shown: Jerry Sheffield takes the Siskiyou Line West (tied up in Roseburg last session) in Roseburg and runs it to Medford. Ken Lass takes the Dole Turn (just finished up last session) and runs it from Dillard to Roseburg. Of course, the SLW is a train on the main that needs to get through Dillard at the while the Turn is still in town! Right off the bat, the dispatcher had some headaches! Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting! In video ... | ||
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| joef |
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PMLocation: Portland, OR Posts: 2112 | Meet Dale Trongale And I was very glad visiting operator Dale Trongale (pronounced "Tron - golly") was getting to run some trains on the Siskiyou Line! Dale is acting as the engineer on the Seagull West, and all he has to do as a newbie is do what conductor Jim Laycock tells him to do. On the far right, that's Jerry Sheffield's shoulder ... the dispatcher elected to give the westbound SLW priority, which is correct SP practice. Westbound is the superior direction on the SP, so Jerry made it through Dillard and into Medford before the Siskiyou Line East (SLE) got to leave Medford. Meanwhile, Ken Lass gets clearance to Roseburg for the Dole Turn back in Dillard (out of the picture). Now that the SLW has tied up in Medford, Jerry gets the SLE next, since it's going to be leaving Medford and heading to Eugene -- exactly the reverse of the SLW that Jerry just tied up in Medford. Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting! In video ... | ||
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| joef |
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Wed Dec 08 2004, 09:01PMLocation: Portland, OR Posts: 2112 | Ken Lass brings the Dole Turn back to Roseburg Ken Lass next got clearance from dispatch to depart Dillard with the Dole Turn and bring it back to Roseburg. Here we see Ken pulling into the yard. As the yardmaster, I told him to pull into the yard track three, then cut off his power and stow it on the turntable lead. The Dole turn cars almost always go to Eugene, so I take the cars and begin making the next day's Seagull East (that's the Roseburg to Eugene train). Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 200,000 hits and counting! In video ... | ||
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