Last Post for 2017!

Well, managed to get a little time with the hobby over the last week or so. Here's some updates:
The Albion module was moved and the backdrop installed and partially painted.

Next, some switching operations with Alexander at the helm. Its been a while since anything ran on the Albion modules. Yes, the shingling on the potato house has begun!

Then some operations on the Deer Creek and Laurel, more fun for Alexander to watch trains run and do a little switching as compared to a lot of switching and a little running..

This weekend, I finally started the Albion station. Quite a bit of progress for the short time period. Happy with the results so far. Had to modify the windows a bit but they look close enough for my efforts! On to the new year! Let's see if I can't get Albion completed by September 2018, two years since starting the project only one year longer than anticipated. See you in 2018!

Back to the Sandy River and Rangely Lakes On2

Over Christmas break I had the chance to return to Al's On2 Sandy River and Rangely Lakes layout. He kindly invited dad and I over to operate the layout. Al uses NCE for control, which I also use, so I thought it would be a cinch.  However, he uses active braking on TCS WOW decoders, which I have tried but it had been a while..after pushing a few wrong buttons, I was ready to go! Al put a switchlist together on the fly for me and I grabbed number 15 in Farmington and off to make up the train.

 

I quickly goofed by pushing #8 instead of #7 on the controller for braking and  somehow cancelled the manual braking on the system. With the momentum on the loco and the lack of braking, I quickly called for help. Within seconds, Al had me off and running again with engine #19.

 

 

After making up the train, we headed North towards Strong. 

 

Stopped along the way for some some switching.

 

Pulled into Strong for some more switching. A couple of difficult moves, a few drop offs and a few pick ups and we were off again!

Switching the International Mill just south of Philips

Made it into Philips, more complicated moves. Hard to believe that Philips only had a two track run around given the traffic that passes through. While the line heads north, we were out of time. Had to head home. What a great opportunity!

A few observations:

This was by far the largest and most complete O scale layout that I have ever had the chance to operate. It was a BLAST! Took me about 3 hours, with talking, etc. to get from Farmington to Philips with a 10 car train, more or less. The ability to run longer trains and  rod engines was really fun.

I also liked using the momentum and braking functions. I think using these would be very difficult for new operators (I made a few wrong button pushes) but really adds to operation. I think I might set my WW&F up this way for a while and see how it goes.

Larger/Less better?
While switching in Farmington, a thought that I've had before re-occurred to me.  When you don't have enough room to model the whole, maybe a small part fully, could be more? For example, my layout space is only 21 feet long and 9-1/2 feet wide. No way to model the WW&F in O scale in its entirety. However, one could just model one yard, close to full scale or maybe two?  Al's Farmington really demonstrated how this could work. The yard is not all of 30 feet in length but close. Switching the train to get ready to pull out towards Strong was quite fun and took quite a while. I'd never had the opportunity to see this concept in action. It really worked well. Of course the passing sidings are closer to actual length rather than compressed for space, really fun just making up a train. Just an idea...........