Test Run for next operation session

Mike Hamer is on his March Break and me... I am burning up the last of this fiscal year's holidays:) I asked Mike to drop over so that I could bounce some of the ideas I had for operations. We started by operating the coal drag to see if indeed we could keep an engineer and brakeman active for two hours. I put some traffic on the mainline (A BNSF GP60M and its B unit hauling a dozen BNSF grain hoppers. We started out with our snake of 19 atlas green momba coalveyors hauled by a BNSF SD70 and AC4400 in the heritage II scheme. Five times around the layout as the main line run. At turn four the grain train crossed over onto our main and we proceeded to cross over to their main giving us access to the passing siding next to the mine. We put the hoppers into the siding and sent the two locomotives to the engine facility for servicing. Two CN RS18 road switchers came out to the coal drag and promptly lookeded at the switching problem.
There was a string of five well container cars in the runaround track. They had to be moved first. Took them to the container transfer facility and came back. The next step was to replace 12 coal cars in the three track mine with the empties we brought. That being done we now had 12 full and seven empties on our train. The switchers went back to the yard having completed their mission and a CN SD50AF 5501 and BC Rail Dash 8 BCR 4612 moved across to pick up their coal train on the passing siding.

The train was now ready to travel back the other way 5 times around the layout. It finished its run in the visible staging. Wow it took two hours. Perfect for the next operating session. Next it was a grain train move. We grabbed our BNSF power and proceeded to staging where we picked up seven cylindrical grain cars from the elevators. We proceeded to town to the main grain terminal and parked them in the classification track. We moved five empty cars from the terminal and placed them on the back of five fulls on the next holding track and then put them in the terminal track. We pulled the fulls out alone and linked them to the empties we brought from the elevators. We then put 5 fulls on the holding track. We kept two fulls and five empties to go back to the elevators. We then took the two fulls from that cut and put them in the flour mill track removing the two empties there and took those empties to the elevator as well. Enough for another pair of operators two hours. I guess we will have to do the intermodal, tank train and mixed freight next and have a classification track operator as well. I think we are good to go for next month's Friday Night Boys visit.

That was great...Then it was off to OVAR where we were treated to a fine presentation of slides entitled 50 years of Railfanning with pictures dating back to the 30s of Railroads in the east. The meal was excellent as usual Breaded veal with pasta veg, salad and dessert.

Great converstation was had by all at our table as we teased Stan who purchased a new RR book but would not open the seal until he was home. Fred and I got some old MRs and we all did the video loan for the next month. I would encourage anyone who is in Ottawa for the second Tuesday of each month and join us as our guest.