Hey there...As usual, not much posting of activities.  I've been doing some work on the railroad, however, not as much as one would think with a pandemic and staying home.  I'm Frank and I'm a workaholic!  LOL  If you have real estate needs, lemme know because I'll definitely get that done!  Railroad...um, not so much.  BUT!...

The good news is I just hired someone to build the Dispatcher Panel and he started yesterday!  Yeah, that's a project that keeps being revisited and ya know the hangup is that every time I revisit it, I have to RE-LEARN everything all over again, which takes time, more time that I have to learn and build a panel!  Talk about groundhog day!

Well, as of this morning here is the less-than-24 hour update in a photo!  Looks pretty good huh!

Aside from this, I've been selling off trains from the previous era (over $10,000 already!) And of course "investing" in trains for the current era, 1979-1980!  It's great!

I've also lost my "work bench" AKA place where crap accumulates and am finally planning and laying the track for the Fresno city area.  My original plan in my head was to have tracks winding through tall 2-4 story buildings in an industrial area.  Fortunately common sense kicked in and I've spread things out because whats the point in having trains wind through buildings if you can't see them to get car numbers while operating!  My crew will thank me!  The fun part was using Google Earth to follow the tracks and "find" industries to model!  The main one I came up with is a corn syrup facility that will service 12 cars at a time!  Another is a transload facility that will service 9 cars and then several other industries that will service from 1-4 cars each.  This job alone will be service by on operator on the SJVR.  It should take a while to complete the work, so that's great!

Also, with the industry and turns in Mojave, that will be another operator position, servicing trains to/from Trona, Mojave itself, and Monolith.  Perfect for keeping one busy!

Oh, and Joel and I were finally able to get the phones installed and working!  Wayne Lawson came over and helped with the Bakersfield and Traffic Center buzzer/light notifications.  All operating now!

I don't anticipate any op sessions until at least mid 2021 due the the pandemic.  Best to be safe than sorry.

OK that's it for right now.

Enjoy!

Frank Kenny, CPRX

2020 Post during Covid-19 & Railroad Update

Hello,

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.

Phone added at the door between the two train rooms.

Phone located in the Traffic Center.

Fresno phone that will also serve Mojave, Monolith and Kingsburg.

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.

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