First Official Op Session since 2014! Session 02-20-16

Well it came and went. The first operating session since 2014. I can't believe it's been two years. Everything went great with the usual little Murphy things going on. But other than that it was awesome. Here are some photos.  Next session March 19. I plan to operate monthly to keep the momentum.

2 Years Later!

OK so you may or may not know that I have not operated the layout in two years. The last session was I think February 6 of 2014! Without going into boring details, I'm back!

Since this past Thanksgiving I've been working on the railroad, specifically the JMRI operating system. I have spent a considerable amount of time refining how this railroad operates with JMRI and fortunately with the help of one of the designers, Dan. His assistance has been invaluable!

And during this time I have done three shakedown sessions to make sure that things work properly. Yes there are still gremlins, but there is not much that I can do about that until they pop up and I can squash them. That's just part of model railroading.

In addition to working on the operating system, I have had to repair a number of turnouts and replace one more so far. Additionally a few electrical connections have decided to come apart for some strange reason, and I have fixed those.

The next step is to have another shakedown/qualification session on February 6. During this time I will have several of the operators come over and we will run the layout so that they can get used to the new operating system as well as get more familiar with the railroad.

All of this is leading to a more formal operating session on February 20. Even still, during that session I am going to have operators train and rotate on the various jobs on the railroad. I would like everyone to learn and know as much as possible about operating the railroad. I think that makes it more fun for everyone. And it certainly makes it less stressful for me having to train everybody every single time.

Some other things I'll be working on before the operating session is making sure all the track is clean, and that's usually not a problem because the room is very sealed. I also want to get a number of other locomotive speed-matched so that things run a little better together.  I have also cleaned up certain "work spaces" to clear up some of the clutter. And I still need to add about 300 cars to the layout! That's a bigger challenge because they all need to be weighed, have the proper trucks and couplers installed, and have metal wheels and resistors applied to the cars. That is a big project.

Oh I'm sure there's other projects I want to accomplish before the operating session but I'll save that for another post. Enjoy the photos below.

Frank Kenny

Progress at Monolith!

See my previous post about my Monolith thoughts.

This afternoon I figured I would layout some track and see how I could lay this out and still have it be operational.  This is not the final plan, but just something to start with for ideas.  Photo below.

Monolith on the CPRX 1-25-15

I thought I had a Walthers Medusa Cement plant kit but guess I don't.  I have everything else in N scale though...that I don't need!  OMG!  I need to get a cement plant kit so I can test fit structures and then figure out what I want to have and what I want to omit.

Here are some pix from the internet of Monolith and the plant, now called Lehigh Southwest Cement.

Photo by Ron Lehmer

Photo from CaptureKernCounty.com

Photo from CaptureKernCounty.com

Photographer unknown

Photographer unknown

Photo from GoldenStateRailfan.com

Photographer unknown

Photo from us.geoview.info

Frank Kenny, CPRX Railway

Progress finally???

Well, I wouldn't exactly call it progress just yet.  It's been almost a year since I have done anything on the RR...literally anything!

I received the latest LDJ, #54 and was reading it when I came across Byron Henderson's article about cement plants.  Included in it was the Monolith plant.  This got me thinking about what I could do in Monolith on my own layout.

I'm sure I have a cement plant kit in all the RR crap I have and it's just a matter of finding it.  But first, I need to make a track arrangement.  There is no track in Monolith (on my RR) yet.  So I went into the RR room last night to take some measurements and to plan what I wanted to have there.

The space available is an odd shaped space due to the fact is that Monolith sits on the outside of a curve, between the track and the backdrop.  Roughly the dimensions I have to work with are about 67" by 12", with a little extra on the right and left ends due to the curvature of the track and backdrop.

The biggest challenge to having track here is that my Monolith sits between Tehachapi and Mojave and that track is on a 2% grade.  So any track I lay at Monolith will be on a grade.  Obviously I don't want to do that because cars will roll, I will need to build-up the scenery level to be even across the length.  This should be easy with sculptamold, however, the real Monolith plant area is totally flat and level with the mainline.  Gotta have give and takes somewhere!

Ok, so that's what I will do then but first I need to figure out the track and building arrangement, which I will work on.

So the photo below is of Monolith currently (blank space!) and it shows what I am working with.  On the far right is the turnout that comes off the main railroad tracks for the plant.  My idea is to have the track curve to the left with 2 or 3 turnouts for the service tracks at Monolith.  The coal delivery track will be the rear track and extend to the far right at the backdrop.

The photo below are some notes and drawings that I made last night.

Cars for Monolith will need to be dropped off and right now I plan to drop them off (and pick-up) on the front service track.  A switcher will sort the cars and deliver to the appropriate areas of the plant.  The track you see in the photo are the main lines and the third rear track is what I call the Monolith Siding.  This track allows a train switching Monolith to get out of the way!  No, it's not prototypical but I didn't want to cause a bottleneck either.

Oh, and I tried doing research online for info and photos of the Monolith plant but there is very little. I couldn't even find any model RR info on Monolith.  I you have any photos or info, or can direct me to some good info I would appreciate the help.

Any thoughts or ideas, please feel free to email me at CPRXmodelRR@gmail.com.

Frank Kenny, CPRX Railway

Absolutely no progress!

If you have wondered why I haven't updated you or invited you to operate its because there is absolutely nothing going on on the railroad!  Nothing!!  The last operating session was back in February. And in May I held a client party and had a few friends operate trains. Since then I have not really even been in the train room. One reason is it's been so darn hot this year and I don't have air conditioning. I attribute that to the global warming issue. The train room can get upwards of 90-100°. Not very exciting and there's no windows to open and again no AC. The other issue is I just haven't been interested in doing anything on the railroad. Which is really odd for me. Perhaps when the weather cools down, which it should already have, I will get back into it. Until then don't feel bad as no one has been herE and I haven't had any operating sessions at all. Heck I would be surprised if I even remember how to operate the railroad and the JMRI system!  Frank Kenny

Layout Prep for Client Appreciation Party

I haven't posted for a while now and that's because of two things.  First, I am still burnt out from the Portland guys visit in Feburary.  LOL.  Nothing negative, just a lot of layout stuff before, during and after.  Second, work has fortunately been busy and unfortunately that keeps me from the railroad.

Every year I host a Client Appreciation Party at my house and have the railroad open to guests.  They always love seeing the layout and the kids like it too.  I have a few of my crew over to run trains and they always let the kids (and adults) run the trains.  And therefore, I must get things cleaned up and running.  It's funny how one day things run fine and then the next time the system goes on, some things don't work fine.  Murphy....Get the heck outta here!

With that in mind, I put together a track cleaning train and ran it around the railroad about a dozen times.  I found two places where the track is dead!  I fixed one spot and the other will take a bit more time to repair.

My layout room is very sealed.  However, the cleaning train picked up quite a bit of "stuff" from the rails.  And it's amazing how much metal the magnet picks up from the track too.  Where did all this junk come from?  No one has been in here in 2.5 months!

Due to our recent earthquake in March, I had one 4' ceiling light panel fall to the floor and break.  Fortunately it missed all the cars in Bakersfield Yard and I don't know how it missed the yard because it's right under the panel.  Anyway, I replaced that.  No damage to anything else on the layout fortunately.

A while back I created maps for the railroad so operators would know where they were on the railroad.  This weekend I took one more step and used post-it arrows pointing to their location on the railroad.  Hopefully that will help people a little more.  See the photo below.  The top arrow is for the upper level and the bottom arrow is for the lower level.  Hopefully that is clear enough.

I was going to prepare several trains in JMRI Ops for the guys to operate during the party, however, I'm thinking they will be occupied with guests so I scrapped that idea.  I did add a few more cars to the layout however.  I ordered more wheels to replace the plastic on a number of new cars I'd like to add to the layout so hopefully they will arrive this week and I can bang that out.

I've been pondering a paint scheme for the CPRX but no concrete designs yet.  I'm going to send some shells out to get painted and see how it looks.  More on that in a future post.

And finally, I added a photo of the "temporary" engine facility that is becoming more and more permanent as I haven't posted that in the past.  See below.

I think that is about it for this post.  Thanks for reading along.

Frank Kenny, CPRX Railway

Route map with arrows added to identify the locations a little better.  Top arrow is for upper level and bottom arrow is for lower level.

Track cleaning train at work.

Bakersfield "temporary" locomotive facility.

Mike Stoner's SPSF Owens Valley Sub and Phoenix, Trains in Flagstaff &Sedona, AZ

This past weekend and week I had to go to the Phoenix area for a conference.  But first I visited with my good friend Mike Stoner who lives in Sedona.  We didn't have much time for a lot of activities but made great time with that we did have.

The first thing we did was visit Verryl Fosnight's Union Pacific Railroad.  OMG this is a BIG railroad!  Still being built it is housed in a huge warehouse building.  Here are some photos and you can see more details at the Yahoo Group, Wyoming_Division.

From there we drove to Flagstaff to see a few BNSF trains and that we did.  4 trains in all.  It was getting dark by then so we headed back to Mike's house for an update on Mike's layout.  Mike is building his 2nd railroad (the first got flooded in a friggin' water leak) and the new one is going to be awesome too.  Here are a few photos.

More GP60's!

Mike Stoner and me at dinner waiting for Brandi, his GF.  Until she showed up, we were getting weird looks here on Valentine's Day!  LOL

Mike's layout under construction...again!

Mike hand lays his turnouts!

He's a details oriented guy.

This is N scale!

Mike uses McHenry couplers and body mounts them on all equipment.  He likes these over MT's because MT's tend to have too much slack and bounce, causing strange things with the cars.  I agree, however, I'm not spending time body mounting anything!

The next morning I drove down to Phoenix to my hotel for the next 4 night.  Luck me, my hotel was right next to the UP tracks and at a RR crossing too.  My colleagues didn't think it was very exciting because 2-4 trains came by each night!  There's something comforting about a train horn in the middle of the night...to me anyway!  LOL  Here are a few photos of Phoenix, although most of the trains I saw were in the dark from my hotel room in the comfort of my PJ's.

This and the photo below are of a gypsum board mfgr yard.  Seems like they waste lots of board.

Yet another UP train in the night.

Frank Kenny CPRX