Celebrating one year of operations

On December 18, 2010, I hosted the fifth operating session on Version Two of the layout.  One year ago this month, several crew members braved the elements (ice and snow) and came out to run a trial session in December 2009.  Operations that day were very much preliminary, and I'm happy to report that they are in full swing a year later.

I also hosted my biggest crew ever, with 13 operators plus myself during each half of the session.  A total of 14 operators were on hand during the day, with a few leaving after the morning portion of the session was complete.  It is definitely different hosting a crew of that size, especially when I was accustomed to 6-8 crew members including myself on the old layout.  Thankfully, everyone seemed patient and understanding if they had some down time between assignments while I scrambled to put people on trains.

There were 40 trains planned for the six-hour session, including three pusher calls.  I did not intend to run all of those trains, and we did not get through the entire lineup.  With larger crews on hand, I wanted to be sure plenty of trains were available in case we got through the lineup faster than I expected.  That did not turn out to be the case.  If my count was correct, we ran 32 of the 40 trains during the six-hour session.

I split the work into two shifts, with a morning shift and afternoon shift separated by a lunch break.  Most people chose to stay for the entire day, but some attended only half the session.  This seemed to work out okay, and when the crew got lighter I simply annulled trains that are not critical.   The positions for each shift this time included:

East End Dispatcher
East End Assistant Dispatcher
Lewisburg Yardmaster
Lewisburg Yard Crew
K&N Dispatcher/KN Tower Operator at Meadow Bluff
Road crews (8)

I began the session by assigning road crews to pools.  I had three "extra board" crews that would take jobs on the west end of the railroad from Lewisburg to Charleston (a short run into staging) as well as jobs on the Kessler & Northern coal district.  Those crews would also be pressed into service on any other job on the division if needed.  The other five road crews were assigned to the Lewisburg-Roanoke crew district.  The majority of trains swapped crews at Lewisburg, meaning two crews would have to be lined up for most trains. 

Although the crew district concept added a lot to the realism, it also added a lot to my workload and confusion as I tried to remember which crew was assigned to which pool.  Several operators had longer than acceptable (to me) down time as they waited for trains on the appropriate end of the railroad even when trains could have been run on the other end of the railroad.  As a result, I scrapped the concept after lunch and I do not think it will be repeated.  In the future, I believe we will simulate a crew change at Lewisburg for all trains by building a pause into the train's schedule.  The exceptions will be trains going to or from the K&N District, which will swap mine run crews with road crews.  That is an element of realism that I am not willing to drop.

In celebration of the one year anniversary of operations, we ran a steam excursion powered by CR&E 4-6-2 #622.  The excursion ran from Roanoke to Lewisburg, where the cars were tied down on Main One at the passenger station while a K&N crew took engine 622 to Kessler, WV, for turning on the wye.  Upon the engine's return to Lewisburg, it took on coal and water for a few hours on the west yard lead, all the while with the passenger train tying up Main One.  This turned out to be quite a challenge, and the double-track railroad through Lewisburg was single-track for several fast hours.  The yard crews and dispatcher managed though and would often use the Kanawha Pull-In track as a second main for trains arriving and departing Lewisburg.   You could hear the collective sigh of relief when the eastbound excursion departed Lewisburg, allowing everything to get back to normal.

Lewisburg has become a two-person job with the additional responsibilities of handling mine run power in and out of the yard, working local industries, and running the Brushy Mountain Railroad Turn.  Although I didn't spend much time in the yard, one person seemed to mostly work the east end classifying cars while the other person worked the west end and industries.  Both operators in the yard on both shifts seemed to stay busy as far as I could tell. 

The East End Dispatcher job was also run as a two-person job to help with some of the radio calls between the yard, trainmaster, and operator at KN Tower.  It may not always be a two-person job, but it seemed to work okay this time and helped break in some new dispatching talent for the railroad.

I also assigned a K&N District Dispatcher/Operator at KN Tower.  The duties of this position included writing train orders for the K&N, routing trains through the scale track at Meadow Bluff, keeping up with the hopper yard inventory at Meadow Bluff including shipper car needs, and switching the Sam Creek Prep Plant facility using former Shoreham Railroad VO1000 #20.  Larry Keller graciously took this job for the first half I very unintentionally buried him with work.  At one point I remember seeing three train movements waiting to come off the K&N while two others were trying to get over to the yard at Meadow Bluff on the mainline.  Talk about hectic.  Todd Arnett took the job for part of the second half, but there was very little activity over there then.  Obviously some resequencing is in order!

Steve Holzheimer and David Ward were the first shift dispatching team, while Josh Blevins and Dave Koss handled the yard at Lewisburg.  On the second shift, David Ward and Tim Heckman were dispatching while Steve Holzheimer and Kevin Beck ran the yard.

Attendees of the session included Todd Arnett, Kevin Beck, Josh Blevins, Cooper Dwiggins, Steve Holzheimer, Larry Keller, Dave Koss, Terry Harrison, Tim Heckman, Jeff Lindstrom, Mike Pennie, Tony Sissons, Scott Teague, and David Ward.

My thanks to everyone for their participation in the session.  It was the biggest yet and I hope to continue making things better!

Marcus