Saturday, January 12, 2008

Hillmovers construction was at work in November and December. The result was new scenery along Bear Creek and in Oakhill's westside. Amazingly enough, even with all the mess and confusion management managed to get the railroad cleaned up, restaged and operational. If you've never had a largish railroad it's hard to imagine what it's like transitioning from construction to operation and back. But Bear Creek management remains commited to keeping them trains a runnin' and so they did.

The crew call produced a group of 14 boomers lookin' fer action. We ran train line-up F (see the Session Info page for details) with its regular 14 trains. Much to the relief of the Superintendent of Nearly Everything the brass decided to stay in their ivory tower and so there was no unexpected special train. The session ran 12 fast hours with a 4:1 fast clock.

There were a few problems along the way. Firstly I couldn't manage to get the fast-clock repeater in the train room running. Eventually we gave up and ran without the repeater. Then the east Mill Bend turnout had a point disconnect from the throwbar. The railroad had to be halted while a track crew went out and repaired the sucker. Aside from these events the Bare Creek pretty much behaved itself.

The Superintendent of Nearly Everything managed to avoid dispatching as Norm A volunteered for the position. Norm had never been DS around the Bare Creek before but Joe B. agreed to do some training. After the first hour we threw Norm to the wolves. However he did a good job - especially for a newbie DS and the trains were kept more or less on time.

While not running trains the company photographer wasted a bunch of electrons with his digital camera. The results are presented here for your enjoyment.

Click 'em to expand 'em.

Charlie Comstock Superintendent of Nearly Everything
The Bear Creek and South Jackson Railway Co.