Roger, Good to hear from you. I hope you enjoy Colorado. I am starting back up on the old software. I was able to add about 2 dozen more cars to the system. I decided not add the new town and industries to the session this month. I'll try to add them for next month. I'll be happy to run thru Rabbittown this month! I guess I'll continue to push the old system until the system, the computer or the printer dies on me. I hate to allocate the cash for a new operating system when I have soooooooooo much layout I want to get back building. I'm still leaning towards ShipIt when I make the change as a friend used it for awhile and I know I can get it work about the same way as the current program. The ops crew may not want me to change as think ShipIt would allow the stockhouse at the blast furnace to be switched more than one time per session. LOL Only 4 days to go and the bridge isn't finished yet and the staging yards are not accessible by rail. West Staging yard has some damaged track to be replaced. East staging yard doesn't want to line back up correctly. Fortunately, I work a 4x10 schedule so I'll have all day Friday to work on it. If you get down this way, let me know and I will try to set up a session. Glenn
I'm enjoying it so far. LOTS of operating layouts. All but one are HO. Rocky Ops weekend is coming up in October. I, too am on a 4-10 schedule. My commute is ugly, though. An hour and 20 minutes each way and the last 15 miles is into the rising sun with nothing but Kansas mountains to block it. Oh, wait, Kansas has no mountains.
I have gotten behind in posting to this thread. I got the two staging yards up. I then had to complete the main line. In order to install the ME viaduct trestle, I needed some bridge abutments. I decided to cast them in hydrocal. I made a couple of quick molds from scribed siding.
I got the bridge assembled and painted. The installation is temporary, so I can remove it when I build the canyon behind it. The first engine crossed the bridge without any problems! The first operating session went well considering there was only half of the required crew and they were all new to ops. Also had a major power issue in the steel mill that took a while to correct. Also had problems with the lead into west staging yard. I didn't do enough testing of the track. We still managed to get 1/3 of the session completed in 3 hours. The second session had a larger crew and we finished all of the mainline freights. The passengers were annulled due to lack of crew. Most of the steel mill and branch line trains were run. The session was made extra special by an old friend making a long trip to attend the ops session.:tb-biggrin: Mike has the new record for distance travelled to an ops session! This session marked the first time Rabbittown was switched. The lead to west staging worked better, but needs to be improved before the Nov. session.:tb-frown: Since the session I have managed to get two locomotives back into service. Still have one engine that needs couplers and a decoder. Glenn
Yes, getting the bridge installed has only been a 2.5 year project.:tb-frown: It still needs another coat of paint. Then I need to installed some sort of base to the trestle legs and slap a little scenery around it. Shouldn't take more than another 2.5 years.:tb-biggrin: Glenn
