"Cut the power and head for the house"

Op session #6 went off with out many hitches at all, overall it was the best session we've had so far.

We had seven members show up, including one who hasn't been around for a while, but I'm guessing he'll be back for the next session; Calvin.  Welcome back Calvin.

The problems that we did have were minor.  One train ran out of sequence, two of the longest trains almost had to do a "Saw-By' at El Dorado, two boxcars or reefers were misplaced and the El Dorado switcher derailed and rolled!

The RRampMeter worked as expected, we kept well within the expected limits of power usage.  It never fell below 11.2 volts and the highest amperage draw that was noted was 1.17amps.  That came when we had about 60 locomotives total on the layout,  including two heavy trains with three motors each running, the yard goat, two units on a local and the switcher at Malvern!  Not bad at all..

We started at roughly 6:30 ran till 10:30.  Every train but two through freights made it to the mainlines.

The DCC system worked almost flawlessly, I say almost as the only thing that had a hiccup was one UT4r would loose connection when it went into wireless mode.  After talking to Quin tonight, it might have been due to a dead battery.

All of my locos have been speed matched and no one complained about locos being dragged or spinning their wheel while in consist.  Although some of them would start a little quicker than others, but for the most part most ran pretty evenly once they reached a nice cruising speed and even during switching moves.

The Wheel report, as far as we can tell worked just like it was suppose to.  What errors occurred could be due to operator error.  With that said, we had two members who decided to team up and take on the most daunting job on The Little Rock;  The yard crew at El Dorado.

Don and John did a fine job for working it the first time.  They got a little help from Quin, Doug and a bit from me.  Way to go guys!  

Also with a little help from Doug, Roger worked the entire Malvern job for the first time.  After Doug figured out what problems were plaguing Roger, he got him setup with a UT4r throttle.  It's bigger throttle knob was a little easier to work than the two smaller DT402 throttle knobs.  The other problem was Dirty wheels on the ALCo RS2.  Amazing what a little Alcohol can do for continuity.  Bravo Roger and Doug.

Calvin even grabbed a throttle and worked the ICG interchange, the first half of the Riceland job and at at least one of the manifests before having to leave.

I was able to run a few trains including one of the manifests while taking a bunch of pics with the handy iPhone.  Most of the pics turned out kind of blurry due the lighting and the slow lens on the iPhone, but I will have some to post as soon as I can get them cleaned and uploaded.  Along with the pics, Quin and I got a couple of videos as well.

So stay tuned as I get them ready to post........