Progress Report 09.24.11

Stayed up late last night continuing to integrate in the 650 new waybills.  Made it about 2/3rds of the way to completion.

Today, I operated as the yardmaster in Warwick, New York (in the early 1960s) on the Lehigh & Hudson Railroad.  Had a blast.  I really enjoy working as Yardmaster.  It's a good mental challenge. 

This evening, I finished re-staging the layout and integrating the new waybills!  Yes!  All looks well for the next op session.  I'm curious to see how it will play out.  The new operating scheme replaces 4 east/west general freights with six. 

Progress Report 09.23.11

Installed one slide switch at Vandelay Industries.  We had a derailment there last session due to the thumbtack not holding up.  A drum of latex spilled everywhere! 

I have spent most of my time this evening removing the old waybills, integrating the new waybills into the system and re-staging the layout all at the same time.  It is a huge chore, but I made good progress tonight (probably half way through).

The ROCK Track Schematic

I created a new track schematic of the layout.

Progress Report 09.22.11

Installed a decoder in an SD40-2 last night.  I have continued working on the new waybills to follow more protoypically freight trains of the 1970s on the ROCK.  Below is a map of the train routings.

Progress Report 09.20.11

Today, worked out more details on converted to a more prototypical train list including revised locals.  If all goes well, I hope to implement the conversion for the next op session in November.

Installed JMRI's Decoder Pro on my MacBook, but unable to access the serial port connection.  I was able to connect using a virtual Windows XP machine in Parallels Desktop.  Connected to a locomotive and was quickly and easily able to change the speed table among other settings.  I really like this!  I will have to play around with it more.

In other news, I have a Atlas GP7 that appears to be demon possessed.  The light keeps flicking on without having it set to come on.  The unit seems to run ok, but it is like it has a short somewhere.  I will have to investigate further.

Researching ALCO C-415s. 

Progress Report 09.18.11

Installed the Micro-Trains coupler conversion on my eBay find U25B.  Thanks to Marcus for picking up the pilot coupler conversion.  It wasn't without a minor situation though.  When pulling the trucks off to clip the rapido (rapy-doo - Ha Ha) couplers, the truck exploded!  It didn't look too bad to put back together except for a mysterious metal clip/spring.  I wasn't quite sure how it was to be installed.  I went to pull the second truck to use as a reference.  Well, immediately upon touching it, it exploded into numerous pieces.  Oh my!  Not good!  Called the Kato/Atlas tech support hotline in South Carolina (aka Larry) for assistance.  Thanks Larry!  I'm happy to report all is back together and operational now. The locomotive will be placed into service for the next op session.

Today, the day after the op session, I went around taking note of how many cars were spotted at each industry.  I will log this data in my spreadsheet to generate randomly how many cars will be required for pickup and set off for the next op session.