First 2016 Ops session on the UPBNSF Joint Division

The first Operations session for 2016 on the UPBNSF Joint Division was held on 9 Jan. There were thirteen people in attendance and the night went very well. We commenced ops at 5pm and finished sometime after  9 pm. Everybody's legs were weary and yours truly was stuffed from 3 days of setup leading into the ops session. In the lead up to the ops session Trevor Phillips came over and helped clean the layout. We clean track and vacuumed. I have to be honest and say the amount of CRAP vacuumed off the layout was huge. It is obviously a long time since I gave the whole layout a big clean. 

The following sequence of photos were taken by Alan Shaw during the session. Many thanks to T2 for his help Pre session and to Alan for the great photos he took:

I'm holding the pre session briefing with all of the crew

BNSF M1 West manifest freight running along the Palouse River Canyon

UP Directors special, Westbound at Walulla

John Burt Switching Cheney

UP Maxistack Through Freight,  Eastbound, heading through the Trent Avenue area of Spokane

UP M1 Eastbound at Iron ridge, passing the UP Westbound directors special

UP M1 East at Summit. The manifest has just been given permission to enter the single track main and is 30 miles out of Cheney

UP is switching the yard at Atallia, whilst the UP directors special passes on the main

Darren is working Cheney to the Left and another train departs East Staging ( Chicago and Eastport) on the right

Jeff is running a train up the hill towards summit

UP Operation lifesaver C44-9w leads a Maxistack through freight crossing dry river near Summit

Ops lifesaver CNW C44-9W leads a  Maxistack train through Cheney

A quiet moment at Cheney

BNSF Unit Stack train rounding the S curve in Trent Avenue

Malcolm Jenkins is inspecting cars for his next move

Hands on action

Steve and Malcolm working out the moves afor another loacal at the spokane departure yard

The UP has had to seccond a MRL SD40 to help with switching duties in Boardman

2 cars are on the main as the Wallula yard is being switched

UP does the switching in Wallula

A BNSF West bound manifest passing through Attallia

West Staging Represents Brooklyn yard and Albina yards in Portland

Jeff is thinking about it all

Engines are in notch 8 as this BNSF manifest eastbound is climbing the grade through Palouse Canyon on its way to summit

The same BNSF Manifest reaches Summit

BNSF westbound at Palouse just shy of Joso Trestle