VanRail 2019

[mark dance]

Well another VanRail (http://www.vanrail.ca/) weekend is in the can and so begins the decompression.  Part of my routine is to post photos from the Columbia & Western Sessions and I hope Gary (@GaryHinshaw)  and Tim (@BCR 570) who also hosted sessions on their layouts can pile on this thread along with any other TRW member who attended.

First some background...VanRail is a bi-annual model RR Ops invitational located in the Greater Vancouver area and founded back in 2002 by Messrs. Brian Pate and scott Calvert - yes we know the date math doesn't quite work.  This year we had some 40 odd guest operators from all over North America who had the opportunity to run on a dozen layouts (8 HO and 4 N).  In addition there was a no host dinner, clinics, and a very well attended social for guests, home crew and spouses at the Calverts' (home of the C&W's "big brother, Scott Calvert's HO Boundary Sub 2.0).  From what I can surmise all went well and a good time was had by all.

As to my involvement, the C&W held Friday and Sunday sessions `cause my old body can no longer handle running 3 days back to back.  We ran under the arcane lore of TT&TO which involves sacrificing a few goats but is the default for Vancouver layouts. 7 guests at each session, a home road dispatcher at each and myself as host/trouble shooter and home road crew.  Things went swimmingly to the point where Sunday's Dispatcher, Rene Gourley, had me running pushers and through freights as well as my normal duties...what a blast!

Anyway a great bunch of guys who all know what they are doing.  For those of you yet to test your interest in operations I highly recommend this innately social side of our multi-faceted hobby!

Special thanks to Rene Gourley and Mark Simpson who Dispatched, Dave Falkenberg (@railnerd) and Mike Rademacher who shot some terrific photos many of which are included below and in the Flickr albums, and the other dozen guests who brought the C&W to life! 

Some pics...


BN power running around its train at Troup Jn (Mike Rademacher photo)


Happy Operators Bryn, Pete and Bill


Friday's Yardmaster Travers


Ted's pusher helping X4080E to the summit with Jim in background


Dave navigating the Kraft Switcher through its assignment


A packed Castlegar yard


Nelson shop (photo Dave Falkenberg)


Larry with the Cascade Turn in the Farron snow


Farron section house (Mike Rademacher photo)


Nelson power (Mike Rademacher photo)


Friday Dispatcher Marc


Eric at Rosebery


Kaslo sub wayfreight disembarking at Rosebery


My pusher helping #81 up the westbound slope of Farron hill (Mike Rademacher photo)

Should you want more Flickr albums of the sessions are here https://flic.kr/s/aHsmGNFJtq and here https://flic.kr/s/aHsmGPpm6r.

Now to get back to the real world...

md

[MVW]

Beautiful!

Well, not the men. But everything else. Just beautiful. 

Sounds like a blast! Congrats to all who played a role or visited.

Jim

[Maletrain]

Nice!!!

Makes me sorry to be 3,000 miles away.

[Santa Fe Guy]

Sounds like a blast weekend. Love the images of your stunning layout.
We always operate on each others layouts when our Friday group gets together as we rotate through our weekly Friday roster, always a lot of fun.
Well done for hosting.
Rod.

[pastoolio]

Wow, very cool! Definitely have to plan a trip up north when you all have this going on again.

-Mike

[railnerd]

Mark, thanks for a great weekend!

-Dave (@railnerd) Falkenburg

[railnerd]

@GaryHinshaw also did a great job hosting as well— his physics skill was required to assist with some quantum entanglement involving grain cars in the “Mojave Vortex.”

[railnerd]

Also had a great time operating at Brian Morgan’s Seattle terminal.  PICL books and switch lists FTW!

Was also my first hands-on experience with the ProtoThrottle.  I really enjoyed using it for switching, as Brian had a nice holder and his layout is 11’x12’.

[GaryHinshaw]

Finally got a chance to sort through a few photos from the weekend.  The event runs Fri/Sat/Sun, and I hosted a session on Sunday.  But on Fri I was able to get home early enough to host some visitors from Mark's Fri session (he's about 5 min away from me, so it's convenient for guests to stop by).  Here, Ted & Jim got a chance to run two trains around the layout with a meet at Walong:





Mark's layout is a tough act to follow, but they seem to be enjoying the Loop. (Ignore the grounded auto-racks. It's part of the scenery.)

On Sunday, we were supposed to host 5 visiting crew members, but one had to cancel a few days prior, so we ran with 4: Chris, Doug, Dave, and Eric plus home road dispatcher Mike.  This turned out to be fine as everyone kept pretty busy for well over 3 and a half hours.   Here Chris and Dave navigate a meet at Allard (with Doug in the background):



Chris is running the loaded grain train (back on the rails after the Vortex incident) down the hill with live helpers using a dual-throttle to control both loco sets.  That worked very well and is something I'd like to do more of.

Eric enjoys a close-up view of a meet at Walong:



Chris works Monolith while Mike takes a breather from dispatching to check out the action:



A meet at Summit, where signals call the shots:



Finally, a group photo at the end of the session:



It's a great experience to open up the layout to guests and watch them bring the machine to life!  It is also a great impetus to make progress.  (More on that in my Eng. Report.)

I always find it interesting to see what photos visitors like to shoot.  Here are a few from Eric.  The first is a look at the subterranean Bakersfield as seen from the yardmaster's stool:



And me surrounded by the grain train, in happier circumstances after the Vortex mishap:

[BCR 570]

This was my layout's second participation in a larger event and first participation in Vanrail.  I hosted on Saturday and welcomed fellow BCR modeller Jarrett from Quesnel, Don from San Diego, and Cal from Saskatchewan.  Michael was host dispatcher.

Jarrett took on the Chetwynd Yard job, while Don began with the Dawson Creek summer yard job above:




RS-10 581 switches cars in Dawson Creek:




Cal watches as his Work Extra 807 crosses the Kiskatinaw River bridge:




The eastbound Dawson Creek Switcher crosses the Pine River bridge:




Michael dictates a Manual Block Clearance to Cal for the Work Extra:




Don's eastbound Dawson Creek Switcher crosses the Kiskatinaw River:




RS-10 584 and RS-18 607 bring the southbound Septimus Turn into Chetwynd:




Jarrett disassembles the recently arrived Septimus Turn prior to building the Peace-Vancouver freight:




It is always interesting to have a new crew come in and operate your layout.  I enjoy seeing how well the throttles, control panels, operations paperwork work for different people.  The layout performed well, the operators did very well and seemed to have a good time.


Tim

[ednadolski]

(Ignore the grounded auto-racks. It's part of the scenery.)

Very prototypical tho!   Centerbeams would also work well.

Ed

[GaryHinshaw]

Exactly. 

[Blazeman]

Glad to see Jim Dahlberg running on a N layout.  I run at his place the first Monday of the month so I can chide him about his oversized layout now.

[Cajonpassfan]

Yes, what fun! Seriously, how did our larger scale friends adopt and enjoy themselves with our little trains?
Otto K.

[mark dance]

Yes, what fun! Seriously, how did our larger scale friends adopt and enjoy themselves with our little trains?
Otto K.

Most of the VanRail attendees are HO scalers and in my experience you can divide them into 3 groups:
1. those that will not operate on a scale smaller than HO
2. those who are scale agnostic and are happy to operate on N Scale
3. the skeptics who don't believe n scale is for ops but are coaxed to try it by their friends and are happily converted

After many years of VanRail the first group is getting smaller but they still exist .  However I would now put Jim and his traveling partners Ted Pamperin and John Rogers in group 3!

md