I hope you and your family have been and are safe!
As probably with you, this has been a very trying time for me. We've been on lockdown since about mid-March and while you'd think there is so much time to work on the railroad, that certainly hasn't been the case. I'm a workaholic and I feel the need to always be working and yet, all the work I've been doing to stay in business is without pay. Long story short, it took me about 3 weeks to get my bearings and create a new schedule (I'm a big planner and time blocker) and then work to have the rest of the world fit into that schedule. It's still difficult but I've made daily progress. Financially, we'll see what happens in the future. I've sold lots of trains, furniture, and miscellaneous at the house, taken on a roommate, moved my office to my house and sold much of the office furniture, and have cut business expenses dramatically. I think we're ready to get back to work in a much leaner, meaner version!
And for the railroad...Since I have not been able to mentally put my mind around doing much work on it, despite much prodding from friends, I finally was able to make a major accomplishment this past weekend by installing the 5 phones needed for operations. I had to pull all the shit out from the railroad (sold and trashed some but not enough) and string telephone cable all around both railroad rooms. All that is left to do is to install the dispatcher phone at the dispatcher desk in another part of the house. Now there is a phone in each isle, one at the door between the layout rooms, and one in the Traffic Center...and YES, they work! It will be really nice to operate without the headsets and FRS radios so many of the crew don't like to use. Here are a few pix and please ignore the mess! Thank you tremendously to Joel Morse for taking countless hours working with the manufacturer of the phone system on getting it to work and for creating the bases the phones are attached to.
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| Phone added at the door between the two train rooms. |
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| Phone located in the Traffic Center. |
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| Fresno phone that will also serve Mojave, Monolith and Kingsburg. |
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| One of two control panels. This one connects all the phones together and allows them to talk to each other. The other panel will be at the DM desk. |
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| Bakersfield YM phone located behind the operators to keep it out of their way. This is one of two with a light and beeper so the DS can call the YM. |
Moving forward from there, today I was able to secure some time off of work (the calls and follow-up needed to keep us in business moving forward), for Thursday-Sunday from my employee as he will cover me so I can take a much needed vacation. I think it's been a year or so since I had a vacation! During my vacation, now a stacation, I am going to tackle the LocoNet. At first I was going to add a second LocoNet to the railroad. As of yesterday, I've decided to remove all the LocoNet and start over with two new LocoNet busses, moving the original LocoNet away from the DCC buss that it sits near in various locations. The railroad runs pretty good, but every now and then Murphy shows up so hopefully all this LocoNet work will kick Murphy out on his ass! Fingers crossed that 4 days of working on that will have it completed! Once done, I will then go back and connect the phone system and LocoNet to the dispatcher desk, which I wired under the house late last year. And if there is extra time, I'll get the CPRX Facebook page started!
Well, that's it from my end of the world. I'm looking to getting back to operating, as I am sure most of you are as well. The earliest that MIGHT be would be July 4th. We had originally planned a 4th of July operating party/BBQ/fireworks with wives as my friend Duncan was coming from Australia, however, those travel plans went out the door with the lockdown. Maybe he'll make a surprise appearance! ;-)
Let me know if you are interested in operating with us or helping as work crew on the railroad.
Take care and be safe,
Frank Kenny
CPRX Railroad
Torrance, CA
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