operating session #24

The 24th operating session on the Burrlington Northern was held on March 13, 2020. Some video clips of the action are posted on YouTube here. We had been planning to host two full-day sessions that weekend as part of the bi-annual "SoundRails" event, but it was cancelled a week earlier due to Covid-19 virus concerns. However, three of the SoundRails travelers from out of town arrived anyway, so we gathered a few other local folks and had a small (10 person) op session anyway (thanks to Bill Sornsin for arranging this!).

Dirk Warwell, here from Germany for the second time in two years, worked the Everett/Bayside yardmaster job, while David Doiron from Phoenix was the Stacy St. yardmaster and David Cook and Dave Enger split the Interbay/Balmer yardmaster duties. Gordon Bliss from Houston worked locals all day, Tim Taylor ran Delta yard, Jim Betz from Burlington ran (appropriately) the Burlington yard, and Lee Marsh and Don Miholovich handled all the mainline traffic. Andy Dupree held down the fort as our dispatcher while I paced around looking quasi-managerial.

There were a number of improvements since the previous op sessions in December, all of which tested out fine (and most are covered in previous blog posts). The new phones were used frequently for communicating between yardmasters and between crews and the dispatcher, which cut down on congestion in the aisles. I had recently worked up a revised master train lineup, which reduced the total number of trains and modified the schedules so that the traffic flow in and out of the staging yards and between the operating yards was more even and predictable. The dispatcher's desk now included a laptop with crude JMRI panels, giving Andy the ability to line key switches for mainline moves. The locomotives had all been re-programmed to a maximum speed of 30mph, and lightly weathered, which gave all of us more time for railfanning between stations. And finally, for the first time, the Woodinville local was able to run correctly by starting in Everett and running to Woodinville and back, instead of the other way around.

The diagram below shows how we adapted to having fewer than normal operators for the session. The stations marked with an X we didn't staff or run, we just pretended they weren't there and/or ran through them. It seems that as long as we have at least a couple of yardmasters at work, we can have a good session.

Here are a few more photos of the action:

Andy hard at work at the dispatcher's desk

One of the new Walthers Proto switchers shoving one of my favorite shorty tank cars.

Dirk said that the momentum and braking settings on it were "perfect"!

Here you can see the advantage of 4-foot aisles.

And here you can see everyone practicing "social distancing"

And finally, David Doiron brought us a gift of this new 1 1/2 door boxcar he painted and lettered for his home road in Phoenix, called the "Lost Duchman". We put it in service right away, seen here headed south, passing through Interbay/Balmer yard. A real beauty!