Sunday 28 February 2016

February 2016 Operations Session


The February Operations session on the layout was held on Saturday 27/2/16. The session was an afternoon session and the timing was prompted by the fact the I was hosting 3 people from Gladstone some 7 hrs drive away and we had to meet some appropriate timelines for there travel. 

Nev, Brad and Anthony Left Gladstone at 4am in the morning and drove  to Brisbane, arriving at my place at around 11:30am. We started with a meet and greet and then an overview of the layout as these guys had not been here before. I believe this was the first operations session for the guys and I wanted to present an entertaining and educational session. 

Not all of my usual operations team were available this weekend so we got proceedings underway at about 12:15pm. I followed the tried and true method of partying a new operator up with one of the experienced guys. This usually works great and on Saturday there was no exception to the norm.

In attendance was: Tony Weber, Martyn Jenkins, Roger Henry, Steve Ord, Trev Phillips, Neville Ward, Brad Huston, Anthony Sopaios, Jeff Grenfell, Chelsea Grenfell, Wayne Meier, your truly.

Before everybody arrived I took the opportunity to take some starting photos (8) of the layout which shows the different areas of the layout. These were done following the layout from West to East.


Wallula
Portland staging
Boardman

Snake River Canyon
Cheney
Spokane overview
Yardley Yard
Lakes and Empire
The ops session ran from 12:15 pm until about 4:45 pm, when we called it quits to have a well earned BBQ sausage sizzle and a debrief on proceedings. All reports are that the guys from Gladstone had a great time and it would seem want to travel a bit more and participate in a few more sessions going forward. 

The only drawback on the day was the heat. Lessons learnt - I need to hold these day time sessions in winter and night time sessions in summer. 

Below are photos taken during the session.





6 Photos - Nev and Roger switching industries in Boardman, OR





2 Photos - Anthony in control of the HOTSHOT Reefer train heading to its destination in Boardman

5 Photos - An autorack train. This is headed by a visiting loco from the Allegheny Midland Railroad. 






Malcolm and Tony supervise a train in Palouse Canyon
Switching action in Wallula


An Eastbound MT coal heading for Canada to get more export coal
Hey it looks like these guys are having a hoot
3 photos - More switching action in Wallula


4 photos - Some action in and around Spokane




6 photos - Another Manifest about to follow the Snake River to Joso Trestle





3 Photos - Jeff is watching Chelsea drive the train through Snake river canyon. It was awesome to see Chelsea's smiling face as she negotiates the Joso Trestle that had a slow zone due to heat affected track.


Trev is testing which switch operates which turnout!!!!


Half the crew 
Brad and Steve are contemplating there next move in Yardley Yard Spokane
East Staging - The end of the line
So as an end to the blog. I would like to thank the guys from Gladstone who traveled so far to check out my layout and participate in an operations session. I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as me!!!!!!