Slow Weekend

Yesterday, I made my way over to Anthony’s place for his monthly Operations Session.  I was the only NSW modeller in attendance, now that Brendan has changed his stripes to Yellow (or should I say Gold) on Blue.  I was joined at the session by Brendan, Mark, Jeff and Jeff’s father Ian who was on holidays in the sunshine state on this rather dreary day, as well as our host – Anthony.

As usual the session ran very well.  Everything runs very well at Anthony's place.  I could not claim to doing too many things wrong during the session, and I did get the job of SAR Operator No. 2 and thus I had a number of shunt trains to operate.  I had a grain train that was 6 bogie wagons long and a van and the siding could only hold 5 wagons.  Also the van could not go under the loader.  Bugger.  That was taxing my brain as to what to do.  I then had to top up fuel in loco at the other end of the yard and also add a PWS wagon to add to my train just inside the van, on my return trip.  Bugger again.  I forgot to make allowances for the PWS, so had to do some more shunting.  All this was occurring in the middle of a very busy Tatiara Downs yard controlled by Station Master Brendan. 

Another train I had was the stonie.  This runs onto the branch at Border Junction and sets back into the stone loading facility siding at that location.  Again more mental arithmetic needs to be done, as my van and 9 empty stone wagons are on the train and the wagons can only be loaded 3 at a time.  Luckily there is a small storage siding off the loading siding for me to stow 3 wagons and the van.  So after a bit of a soft shoe shuffle in lots of three wagons, and a couple of ventures out onto the branch in between trains, I finally got this train loaded.  Then I need to get down to the branch terminus so I can run around the stone train.  Again not so easy as I need to end for end the guards van as well, before I can come back.  I also have a single ended loco, so off to the turntable so I can see what is happening as I head on my way back to staging.  

One would think that the layout owner might spring for an extra van in his inventory so it would make the drivers job of this train a bit easier, with a van at each end.  No not this scoundrel of an owner.  But all these little scenarios come together to make the session the success it is, and most enjoyable.  Apparently this was the 30^th session that has been held.  I’m pretty certain that my number of attendances is under half, but could be as high as 12 sessions I’d guess.  This is a great afternoon.  We even get to drink and drive.

I wonder if I can work some of these puzzles into my timetable escapades?

There was also another branch train, a passenger, that needed to do some drop offs of a couple of fast goods wagons to the dock siding at Tatiara Downs, before I made my way onto the branch.  Once at Jameston, I also needed to drop a passenger van at the goods shed for later return, before running around, turning the loco, adding two extra cars to my consist due to it being school holidays and I was away back to Tatiara Downs.  After the passenger disembarked at this major station, I have to run around my train (I was getting dizzy) and then had to shunt my carriages into the carriage siding next to loco. 

My simplest train of the day was the first.  It was taking control of the Overland from Tatiara Downs following the loco swap from VR power to SAR power.  Once I got to staging I also had to take the motive power off the train, and shuffle the locos into another siding (Siding A) as the train is too long to sit in No.1 track with motive power attached.

Today I unpacked the items into the shed that I took to the Model Railways for a Day Seminar last Sunday.  These had been sitting on the dining room table drawing the ire of the financial controller.  Well it has rained all week so I did not have time.  (Well it didn't rain on Thursday - but I mowed the grass on that day, so I think I was allowed some grace due to that)

Today my only modelling work was attaching 42 x 44 gallon drums to some masking take and then painting them all silver.  That will be the base colour before I had other colours to these drums on another day.

Who knows what will motivate me for next week?