Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff 11,28,2017.

A Simplex receiver was installed and tested, worked great. During the week a turnout was installed to separate the team track and piggyback ramp in Springbank. Ralph's cement plant background was installed, Don supplied some Lumber,  pipe and crate loads to add to the layout.  The defunct Ontario Western leased 14 new pieces of rolling stock. Glen also added scenery around the piggyback ramp. Shelves were added under Valleyview. Cliff tried out his passenger train.  Next week is work night.

Glen replaced the engine house removed previously.

Reality 101

Thanks to a heads up, I realized in my enthusiasm to create the perfect system I forgot to keep in mind our 2 basic rules of K.I.S.S. and KEEP IT FUN. In doing so a F.T.R.S. system was created. When people don't Follow The Rules we degenerate into policing the layout to correct errors, and the fun goes out the window.

First problem, not switching Elsewhere requires almost perfect switching, to keep the consist intact.  NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
 Second, switching 1 for 1 car type negates the self correcting system of removing all rolling stock when switching.
 Third, mixing of the cards and switching errors. As an example I found both sawdust cars at the sawmill, no covered hoppers at Zorra Cyclone, and main line box car and stock car cards in with the branch line flat car cards, worst of all none of these are even the same colour of Cards?
 Fourth, members want to keep  the switchers, especially in Lincoln,  which complicates the "no switching Elsewhere strategy " and car forwarding.

The fix (as I see it), return to the lowest common denominator!
First, continue to make up trains in Elsewhere.
Second, Return to the self fixing system of removing all cars in a siding,
No fix for mixed cards, but they will get sorted as trains are made up.

The car forwarding and Elsewhere yard design as agreed to, are not effected, but as always are open to better ideas.

Other ideas about districts, switchers at towns being traffic regulators, and others, have been tossed about and look forward to these ideas being developed.

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff 11, 21, 2017

Another night of running trains, with the usual congestion in Lincoln.

Springbank was busy too.

Parry Sound

Photo from Jim Long

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff, 11, 14, 2017

With a couple of our members home from holidays the car forwarding and the new cards got a workout in earnest. Even a first time user had no problems with it. The changes to Elsewhere and it's ramifications were also discussed during the operating session. As we now have the required turnouts I think the sooner we can do this the better, from a confusion point of view. I wonder if we could can do it in stages. First cut in the 3 turnouts on track 5. Then cut in turnouts for tracks 4, 3, 2 and the 3 turnouts on track 1, for the ladder to the right hand yard. This would leave 2 stud end tracks in the left hand yard, but all the feeders intact. Then add the last 2 turnouts to connect the 2 stubs. Then extend the length of the left yard and connect the turnouts. Then add the required feeders and ballasting the new track work. Or would it be best to redo it all at once.

Some of the action.

NMRA

NMRA-WOD Clinic and Layout Tours Nov. 25, 2017.
I believe members of the Woodstock Model Railway Club took out 6 month NMRA
memberships to attend our convention this past May. I would appreciate if you
could forward this invitation to them as well as to your entire membership.
Members of the Woodstock Model Railway who do not have an NMRA membership will
be permitted to participate in this event. If you prefer, I could notify them
for you if you are able to send the membership list to me.

Turnouts arrangement for Elsewhere

The best arrangement I can come up with for the turnouts in the middle section of the new Elsewhere yard.  It includes long and medium Peco turnouts. Tried to use the longs where the most traffic would be. This arrangement is under 2 feet long with the needed space between each turnout.

Meeting night Nov 10, 2017

Dues for this year are $100. PLUS $25. for insurance. The insurance fee is paid by everyone including students. If something expensive comes up we may be asked for money to cover this unexpected cost. You may also pay $10.. a month plus the $25 insurance fee.
New cards were made, mainline cards are white or yellow card stock and branch line are blue.
Changing the Miller coal dock to a gravel dock and having gravel hoppers only run on the branch line and having the branch line switch in Herons Landing and Jutland was adopted. So was limiting the sawdust cars to the branch line.
The coal train idea was also thought to be a good idea.
All the problem turnouts were talked about, however Jim's home made Over-center Springs may make some of them operate properly,  see picture below.
The no switching plan for Elsewhere was approved. Basically the turntable stays where it is and the yard is split into two, double ended yards. Trains in Elsewhere will remain intact with their cards hung on the appropriate hook. Construction will begin when turnouts are available  (after Sunday).
Work nights will be scheduled and not necessarily tied to meeting night. As an example we can unplug the branch line to rework the area around City Service and OLKING Coal. We can also do the same with Elsewhere. Something on the mainline like the turnout to the piggyback ramp in Springbank would require that the system is shut down, maybe done on an off day.

Over-centerspring installed. 

Coal train

There are 2 benefits of this idea, first we have a very different train to run and secondly we reduce the types of cars stored in Wellington.

Picking up a caboose in Wellington yard you proceed to the coaling tower and pick up the empty there. Following the high line you stop at Valleyview to pick up another empty at Zorra Cement. Arriving at Springbank you swap out the 2 empties for 6 loaded coal hoppers at the mine. After hooking up your caboose you proceed down through Lincoln and Jutland.  You deliver the 6 loads to the power plant and pick up the 6 empties. Run through Herons Landing taking the lower loop by ADM coming out of the tunnel by Oxford Sand and Gravel and go through town again and back up to Springbank. There you drop off the 6 empties picking up the last 2 loads. The mine now has 8 empties to load. One load is dropped off at the cement plant and the other is delivered to the coaling tower in Wellington., dropping off the caboose completes the run.

Note there are no coal hoppers in the Wellington yard. If we want to use empties and loads, they would need to be swapped on Friday or before the next session.  We would only need 16 hoppers for this run, we have 28. We could set up 3 branch line trains with 2 coal hoppers requiring 6 more. What do you Think?