Tuesday night at the Huff & Puff 12/20/16

With a light crew I don't know if we needed to assign switching crews, but just as Roland's shift ended, 2 long freights descended into Heron's Landing, so he left wishing us good night with 1 last piece of peanut butter fudge in hand, thanks Glen! Donald also encountered a sudden influx of traffic after just watching trains go by most of the night. We need to think out this problem. Do we need to increase the length of the freights so they stop at more towns? Do we need to decrease the number of cars going to each industry? With a full crew, will the train orders space out the trains better? Would having more runarounds in Springbank, Heron's Landing and Valleyview help? Would helping out the little lost engine help (smiley face)? Yes, Glen was busy taking pictures for his continuing saga of  the lost engine. Jim verified the new block wiring map so I painted the gaps yellow. I my go back and paint the gaps for switchable blocks red. Jim's idea for using tracks 2 and 4 as the inbound and outbound tracks is working well. With Jim switching the branch he noted problems with a longer wheel based engine and over 40 foot cars. He also questioned if the better rolling characteristics of steel wheels was worth the increased risk of shorts caused by derailing. I also noted that pro-typical wheel sets, with small flanges, need bullet proof track work. I do know that we need to make the new Wellington yard a large as possible to reduce the congestion in Elsewhere!