End Of The Month Operating Session

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad and my blog!

Last night ( Wednesday 8/28/19) I hosted our end of the month operating session. Since it was a holiday weekend, and the true end of the month was last week, we switched the session to the last Wednesday night of the month. I've hosted quite a few Wednesday night sessions and they do work out well and everyone has a good time. 

My last blog post showed the new addition to the dispatch area and the panel indicator lights for the Morris Plains Interlocking. All that was left to do was to wire in a second set of switch controls for both crossover tracks to the dispatch panel. That was completed earlier in the day. Now I have complete control of the lower level going up and down the helix.

Last night's session had 4 other guys show up. John, my right hand guy who knows my railroad as well as I do, Rich T. my lead yardmaster, and 3 other guys. Two of them have operated on the railroad and one was a guest who came along. It's nice when people ask if they can bring someone over. 

I gave his friend the tour, showing him all of the industries, panels and staging along with the freight yard. Once he got over the initial shock and overload, we started our session. 

I had Rich make up a local train for Jim and Kai (new guy) to take out once they brought up a mixed freight from staging. The local consisted of freight cars for Ideal Auto Parts, Marcal, Freihofers and Mike's Lumber. 

A total of 12 freight cars were picked up and 13 freight cars were dropped off. Below are the end results. 

Meanwhile, John was busy with 2 trains during the session. First train was the auto racks, and once he switched them out, he went at it with the intermodal train. Since both are dedicated trains and share the same secondary tracks, only one of these trains can be drilled at one time.

John was getting ready to bring his train on to the secondary tracks on the south side of West Harold Interlocking. 

The last industry to be drilled was the Cargill Grain facility. 9 cars were taken out and 12 were dropped. This move was handled by Mark, one of the other operators who has run the railroad. He lives a few blocks away and is building a very large layout in his basement centered around the mining and more in Morris County, NJ during the 1910 period, and has a narrow gauge railroad as well. It's coming along very well and I will be there Friday night to help him with some control panel planning. 

Here's Cargill switched out with the new inbound. 

Rich did some moves in the freight yard and has it ready for me to restage the yard or just continue to make more moves. Whatever I decide, it will always be fun!

We ran the session for close to 2 hours and then did a recap out in the lounge (dining room area) with some non-alcoholic drinks, cookies and fruit. Final wrap up was 10:30PM. The new guy had a nice time and I told him that he's welcome to come to another session when I host. 

Thanks for reading!