Tehachapi, BC

[Scottl]

That is an impressive list of summer accomplishments.  The layout looks nicely trimmed up with the fascia and the location signs will be welcome to those who don't know the geography.  With so many levels, twists and vortices, the direction gets a bit tough to follow!

I know you are pressed for time, but I wonder if simple protection for the loops would be useful if you plan helper operations?  Some strips of cardstock stapled on would be a fast solution.

[GaryHinshaw]

Amazing progress, Gary.  Remarkable transformation from the first pic:

LOL.  Indeed, progress since that photo.  And yet still so far to go.   

I know you are pressed for time, but I wonder if simple protection for the loops would be useful if you plan helper operations?  Some strips of cardstock stapled on would be a fast solution.

Yes, a few of the "hot spots" should get that treatment.

[coldriver]

My hat's off to you Gary - the non-visual progress is what I'm least motivated to accomplish, even though I know it pays off big time in operational improvements.  My brother Brian Ferris is coming up to Vanrail and I know he's operating at Mark's but I'm not sure about yours.  Say hello if you happen to see him. 

[mark dance]

My hats off to you Gary - the non-visual progress is what I'm least motivated to accomplish, even though I know it pays off big time in operational improvements.  My brother Brian Ferris is coming up to Vanrail and I know he's operating at Mark's but I'm not sure about yours.  Saw hello if you happen to see him.

I'll try to show Brian (and all our guests) a great time.  We have quite a diverse line up of layouts.  http://www.vanrail.ca/node/18

md

[GaryHinshaw]

VanRail 2017

Whew!  I think I survived the first two weeks of September... They have been the busiest two weeks I can remember having in the last ten or so years -- with VanRail 2017 sandwiched right in the middle. 

As regular readers will know, I've been gearing up for VanRail for months, and I think it went ok.  The event spans 3 days, and this year we had 11 local layouts open for a group of roughly 50 rotating crew members (each visitor operates on 3 layouts over the course of 3 days).  TBC was open for a Friday afternoon and Saturday morning session. On Friday we had a crew of 4 visitors and 1 home road crew member; on Saturday we had 5 visitors and 1 home road crew.  I was not able to meet @coldriver's brother Brian, but I did have the pleasure of hosting @railnerd (aka Dave F., see below).  Thanks for coming Dave!

This post contains a photo dump, the following one has some closing thoughts.  Thanks for looking,
-gfh

Fri Sep 8, TBC session #13

The Friday crew (after the session) - Brian K., Andy L., Victor G. (home road), Bill K., Ray W.:


The Friday road crews at work, with Victor (out of picture) calling the shots as D/S:


Brian and Ray bring the heavy Friday grain train down the Hill:


Bill K. checks his signal aspect at Summit (while Andy has disappeared...):


My favourite maneuver of the day involved the helper on the southbound vehicle train.  Auto-racks are pretty unforgiving on this Hill, so we decided to put the (live) helper on the head end for the climb, then we pulled it at Summit and put in on the back to manage coupler compression on the descent.   The next 4 shots follow the sequence of moves required at Summit.  These kind of activities add some nice spice to a session.

The lead helper sets out in the Monolith lead, while the vehicle train pulls forward.  The dispatcher is holding a northbound empty lumber train during this maneuver:


Once the train clears, the helper pulls back onto the main:


The helper couples up to the rear of the train and is just about ready to get underway again:


With the swap complete, both trains are ready to roll:



Sat Sep 9, TBC session #14

The Saturday crew (after the session) - Brian S., Victor G. (home road), Norm S. (visiting D/S), Jarett D., Dave F., Jim B.:


[Norm S. is a professional CN dispatcher from Edmonton.  I was nervous about how TBC would measure up!]

The Saturday road crews at work:


The Saturday road crews at work, while Norm dispatches in a cubby in the background:


Brian adds a lead-unit helper to Jim's vehicle train at Caliente for the climb to Summit:


Brian and Dave manage the heavy Saturday grain train down the Hill:


The Saturday grain train rounds the VanRail Horseshoe Curve™ at Caliente:

 


Finally, a huge thanks to Victor G. for serving as home road on both days!  As noted in the next post, he was extremely helpful in preparing for, and running, these sessions.

[GaryHinshaw]

Some closing thoughts on these two sessions (mostly for my own benefit...):

* For the most part, the layout performed quite well, technically.  There were no serious issues with CATS, JMRI, or the DCC setup.  We did have a few minor issues with dirty track here and there, and a few minor derailments, but those are almost inevitable.  Visiting D/S Norm was able to navigate the CATS panel with almost no instruction and he had some useful comments for me afterwards.  (Thanks Norm!)

* We moved the D/S desk from its old spot in front of the Loop shelf to the cubby under the right side of said shelf.  This gave road crews much more freedom of movement in the "main pit" and kept the complicated Vortex area more accessible.  However, it did preclude crew members from getting a cool view of the Loop.  Once we get voice comm. set up, we will likely move the D/S into the house (or onto the Internet).  However, the two weekend D/S's report enjoying watching trains go by from the cubby vantage point, so that will likely remain an option for those who prefer it.

* We had 12 trains staged up and ready to go for each session.  This came close to saturating my currently-in-service rolling stock and loco fleet.  We got through all 12 trains in each session over about 2.5 hours.  Going forward, I would like to have about 16 trains staged and ready to go (with much more intermodal traffic than we currently have).  Happily, that number is pretty well matched to the staging capacity.

* For Saturday, we had a guest D/S, so Victor was able to act as Yardmaster, and I was free to roam and act as Superintendent and Rapid Responder.   I think this made for the best session we've had to date.

* We prepped for the D/S and Yardmaster jobs much more carefully for these sessions.  We had a train sheet available to the D/S so he could keep track of progress more easily, and we had good plans for how trains would terminate at both ends of the line.  Having a full-time Yardmaster is pretty important (but it doesn't have to be the same person for the whole session).

* I had some actual briefing material for the road crews prepared in advance, and we had a ~20 min. orientation before each session. (Thanks to Victor and several other local crew members for helping me hone the briefing material.)  Victor also made up some train cards for the Saturday session so that crew members would have some context for what they were doing.  The Monolith Turn card had instructions for the work required at the cement plant.

* Things work best when there are ~4 trains on the Hill at a time.  Fewer than that and life gets too easy for the D/S and crews.  So a good target crew size is 6-7 (not counting me): 1 D/S, 1 Yardmaster, 4 road crew and 1 helper/local crew.  We had 6 on Saturday and it was not too crowded.  If we up it to 7, we'll probably have to kick the D/S out of the room.

* I still don't have Edison in service, but that will add quite a bit of interest & challenge to the sessions.  I think I will run it in two shifts: one UP job that runs as a turn out of Bakersfield, and one BNSF job that runs as a sweeper from Bakersfield to Mojave (Barstow). 

* In order to keep traffic levels up, I don't think it will be feasible to run too many live helper trains with 2-person crews.  I'm thinking 2-ish trains per session with live helpers: the grain train and the vehicle train.  The other less demanding trains will take 1-person crews, with or without rear-end power.

With this event past, and no other imminent deadlines looming, I can now relax a bit and do some modelling again!

-gfh

[mark dance]

Congratulations Gary!  On all your successes over the last couple of weeks including TBC's inaugural VanRail.

We are just compiling the VanRail 2017 survey results but I couldn't wait to share some of the results for your layout given your post. 

From 9 respondents to the survey (that is everyone who guest operated on TBC, right?), TBC was rated:

• 100% for all of pre-session information, briefing and job assignment
• 100% for home crew support
• 100% for technical layout performance (!!!)
• 80% for interesting and engaging operating scenarios (we need to net out any "did not respond" on this)
• 90% for keeping operators comfortably busy (ditto above)

Wow.  Just Wow

md

[GaryHinshaw]

Wow - nice to hear!  Hoping to boost that 80% number when more industrial tracks get put into service.



P.S. Yes, 9 is the full list of guests, not counting Victor.

[Scottl]

Looks to have been a tremendous success Gary.  Do you think you will ultimately move the D/S out of the layout space, say into the house (or across the country?).

[basementcalling]

Looks to have been a tremendous success Gary.  Do you think you will ultimately move the D/S out of the layout space, say into the house (or across the country?).

International would be awesome.

[GaryHinshaw]

We definitely have the option to move the D/S into the house. The only impediment to that is getting voice comm. set up, and networking the CATS computer to the primary JMRI computer.  Both tasks are pretty straightforward but require some new hardware.  Exporting the D/S outside the house is a bit more challenging, but definitely doable, possibly via a remote desktop type of arrangement.  Once that is sorted out, I will be putting the call out in this thread for guest D/S stints.

[bdennis]

Would be kinda cool to D/S from Australia. Im sure there are a few that would be up for it..

[Ed Kapuscinski]

We definitely have the option to move the D/S into the house. The only impediment to that is getting voice comm. set up, and networking the CATS computer to the primary JMRI computer.  Both tasks are pretty straightforward but require some new hardware.  Exporting the D/S outside the house is a bit more challenging, but definitely doable, possibly via a remote desktop type of arrangement.  Once that is sorted out, I will be putting the call out in this thread for guest D/S stints.

Sign me the f up!

TT&TO for a day? hahhahaa

[GaryHinshaw]

Sign me the f up!

TT&TO for a day? hahhahaa

You got it gents!  Be warned that we usually run evening sessions here, which makes for a 10 pm - 1 am run on the east coast, and a (perhaps) more comfortable noon - 3 pm in most of Oz, this time of year.

Mark D. has floated the idea of running TT&TO some times, for variety.  Tehachapi hasn't changed much, so it's not too much of a stretch to run 30's-40's era gear on the current layout.  We could also throw caution to the wind and run modern equip under TT&TO, for fun.   

[C855B]

... TT&TO for a day? hahhahaa

Wow. Back in the '60s, the operators at Lancaster and Mojave would let me put on the headphones at the desk and listen to the DS line. What a rush! Wish I could remember even 10% of what I heard to give you guys a clue about how it was "in the day". The one phrase that keeps popping into my head was "Copy twelve...". That day 805 was running in three sections - green class lights and all - and the first two sections had helpers out of Los Angeles. Don't recall if they got additional helpers at Monolith, as things were getting real serious and the operator had to take over.

And, like an idiot, I didn't rush over to dumpster dive for the flimsies files when they closed Lancaster.