Making time for the layout --- and Sam Creek Branch (K&N District) update

As usual immediately following an operating session, I experienced a few days of motivation, ready to run the railroad again.  I like to use this time to accomplish some of the restaging work, since that can be last-minute drudgery getting ready for an operating session.  I need to discipline myself to basically restage the entire railroad immediately after a session, giving me the next two months to do other things.  I've seen others do that, in fact restaging shortly after everyone goes home on the night of an operating session.  I must learn from Mr. Beck and others.

Following the period of intense motivation, sometimes without much progress, I then fall into about a week or two of not really wanting to do much with the layout.  Walk in the room, turn the lights on, look at all the nice locomotives and freight cars sitting around, admire the track work, visualize some scenery, look at the growing number of projects to complete, turn the light off, close the door, and return to my comfortable chair for the evening.  That's how it goes night after night for awhile, with an occasional night of actually accomplishing something.

My "secret" to making decent progress is to accomplish a little bit every night.  Obviously from what I've just written above, I don't always follow my own philosophy.  However, when the heat was really on and I needed to have an operating railroad by February 2010, and I didn't start until November 2008, I used this philosophy extensively.   With work and family commitments, as well as all the other things that I like to do outside of the railroad room, large chunks of time often are not available.  It was common for me to start projects at 9PM and wrap up by 11PM almost every night, forging ahead a little at a time.

The blocks of time are smaller now, but the heat is also off.  Now what I accomplish is just additional progress that I can share with others when they visit the layout.  No long do I "have" to do something in order to make the railroad functional.  If 15, 30, or 45 minutes are available a night, using those minutes as many nights as possible will net a great deal of progress with only small amounts of time spent.

Last night I spent about 30 minutes gluing down a few feet of cork roadbed for the Sam Creek Branch extension on the Kessler & Northern District.  Tonight, I spent perhaps the same amount of time, maybe a little bit longer, gluing down the track on top of that new roadbed.  As a result, after only a little more than an hour's work spread out over two evenings, I now have a short passing siding and storage track for coal just up the creek from the Sam Creek Prep Plant and loadout.  The trackage, known as Ryder Siding and the old Ryder tipple (now abandoned), will be used by the shifter crews to stash loads or empties out of the way while working at the Sam Creek Prep Plant.

The subroadbed is installed for the remainder of the Sam Creek Branch, and now I'm waiting on some turnouts to arrive so I can continue the progress.  The subroadbed and risers were a Sunday afternoon project this past weekend, accomplished again in a just a few short hours of time available between other activities.

Sam Creek should be an interesting place for K&N District crews.  There will be a two-track yard for inbound raw coal coming from surrounding loaders.  A track to the car dumper will also be used to store the company's mine critter (an as yet undetermined locomotive model that will probably be ridiculously out of place and era, as real-world mine critters can be).   K&N crews will spot loads and pull empties from the raw coal storage yard, while the critter will handle moving cars out of that yard to the car dumper. 

In addition to the raw coal yard, there will be a track for flood-loading unit trains and shorter trains with prepped coal.  K&N crews will spot half of an empty unit train under the loader and leave the other half at Ryder Siding.  The mine critter will flood-load the cars under the loader and will take them to Ryder Siding, where they will drop those cars off and shove the other cut to the loader.  Once those cars are loaded, the critter will leave them under the loadout and clear up in the dumper track.   A K&N crew will come to Ryder, couple up to cars left there, then shove back to the other cars under the loader to build the unit train.  After the train is doubled together, the crew will continue to Meadow Bluff and then on to Lewisburg with the unit train.

A wooden bridge located between Ryder Siding and the prep plant will restrict the power used on that portion of the branch to four-axle power only.  For that reason, the Sam Creek Prep Plant's critter will handle the loading of the unit train.  When mainline power arrives to take the train to its destination, that power will not need to cross the wooden bridge.  The K&N job delivering raw coal to Sam Creek will need to be powered by four-axle units.  This will add some operational interest and a reason for the mine critter to do work.

I have not yet decided how to handle the simulated loading and unloading of cars at Sam Creek.  I'm thinking that, in my role as Trainmaster during the session, I will "load" and "unload" the cars by placing or removing loads in them during a lull time in the session. 

I'm pretty enthused about this portion of the K&N becoming operational.   I envision two or three K&N jobs working there during a typical operating session.  Early in a session, a light engine move should run to the Sam Creek Branch to double together and pick up a unit train that was loaded "last night."  Later, the raw coal job should arrive with loads from the mines and should pull empties from the raw coal receiving yard.  These empties should be delivered to the mines on the way back.  Finally, an empty train could be brought to Sam Creek by another K&N job, with half the train being spotted at the loadout and the other half stored at Ryder Siding.  In addition to the K&N jobs, the activity of the prep plant's company locomotive, which will have rights to use the entire Sam Creek Branch, will make it more interesting.   Operations will vary, as a unit train may not load everyday.

The Red Sombrero Award

At the inaugural regular CR&E session on 4/17/10, crew member Todd Arnett just couldn't resist the large red sombrero that was stored in the layout room.  I got this sombrero during a 1989 high school graduation trip to Mexico, and it has been used a handful of times for comic relief at social gatherings over the years.

When I moved into the new house in the fall of 2008, several miscellaneous items were piled up in the then unused portion of the basement that is now part of the layout room.  This sombrero remained in the room even after cleaning and organizing for the NC Rail Run.  Todd saw it then, but somehow let it go.

Todd has suggested that we start a new tradition on the CR&E by introducing the "Red Sombrero Award" to the person who makes the most boneheaded move or decision during an operating session.  I suppose a local crew could clog up the railroad by making bad switching decisions, a dispatcher could set up a head-on collision, a yardmaster could send a whole train to the wrong location, or the superintendent could forget to provide snacks.  The possibilities are endless.

Although a number of, let's just say, not-so-smart moves took place during our first session, I think Todd's bone-headed idea of introducing this big red hat into our operating sessions probably outdoes them all.  Therefore, Todd Arnett is presented with the very first "CR&E Red Sombrero Award!"   May there be many more to come, just hopefully not for him....

Finally operating!

In June 2008, Version One of the CR&E was dismantled following our regular operating session.  Tearing down the layout was a painful process and uncovered many great memories of the construction sessions that got it to where it was.


In September 2008, I moved into the new house in which Version Two of the CR&E would be built.  Immediate attention needed to be focused on getting the house organized, but before long I was in the basement finalizing ideas and getting ready for construction.  Beginning in October, a group of friends helped me unfinish and then refinished the already finished side of the basement to make it more appropriate for a model railroad.  The first piece of benchwork was hung on the wall in November 2008!

Steady progress was made in the initial layout room through summer 2009, when the same group of friends and then some labored hard to frame out the second room for the rest of the layout.  Benchwork and basic trackwork was in place by Thanksgiving Weekend 2009 and we were up and running on a trial basis in December 2009.

Progress continued into February 2010, when the CR&E was a part of the NC Rail Run N Scale Edition.  A group of visiting operators attended what was the first full-blown CR&E V2 operating session that weekend.  The railroad experienced a few teething issues, but everyone seemed to have a good time.  The layout and the crew that built it received a lot of compliments.

On April 17, 2010, the CR&E was back in full operations with its first official regular operating session.  A dozen operators took part in the event, a six hour "dual session" separated by a lunch break.  I was very excited to have the CR&E back in regular operation again, just 22 months after the embargo in a previous residence.

A few photos of the first operating session can be found on the CR&E's website at www.kntower.com, under the Version Two Ops tab.

I owe a lot of thanks to family and friends who supported the rapid, focused construction of this railroad.  I hope to be able to share it for many years to come.