OS Omaha 2025, part 3

With half the session over with, the next train that runs will be the NB #776.  The crew will pull the fresh power from the house and tie onto the cars on track #2 and head north.

As the train runs north, they are running R to L on the schematics.

Before 776 leaves Winnfield, they are instructed to shuffle some MOW cars that are sitting on the old main line (below the Union Scrap siding).  They need to move the rear car to the right) to front of the cars (on the left), this is more of an exercise that keeps the journals from freezing up as they sit waiting for use.  There are instructions for this move on the switch list.

Here at Ruston, the NB 776 will reach back into the Jct. and pick up any cars that the ICG left after the 775 left Ruston.

At this point before the #776 gets to El Dorado, train #35 will leave Little Rock and head south meeting the #776 at El Dorado.

  

At Haskell, AR, not only does the 776 work the interchange, it also works the Gavilon Fertilizer complex.  In doing both of these moves, 776 is allowed to run on the trackage that leads to Malvern.

Once finished in Haskell, the crew runs to Little Rock where they cut the caboose off on the engine facility loop and parks their train back on track #2 from where they started.  Then they cut the power off and return it to the fuel pit.

Now the yard switcher goes to work and retrieves the caboose. 

While this is going on in the yard, the Malvern PM crew pulls cars in Malvern and runs to Haskell, works the interchange and returns to Malvern to spots those cars and then the session draws to a close.

OS Omaha 2025, part 2

At the beginning of the session, the Malvern AM train starts the day by gathering up the cars that will be moved to the interchange at Haskell, AR.

The next train to run is the Little Rock Switcher.

There will be some changes made to the yard switcher sheet in time.

Once the switcher is done, the 775 crew will move the power from the fueling tracks and tie on to their respective train.  As the train runs south, they are running L to R on the schematics.

At this point before the #775 gets to El Dorado, train #34 will leave Alexandria and head north meeting the #775 at El Dorado.

At Ruston, the 775 stops to drop off some cars for the ICG.  In this case, the crew of the 775 breaks the train on the north side of the road crossing and pulls forward to clear the turnout so the ICG can get onto the main and grab the cars they need to pick up.

Ruston is the last job for the SB 775.  When its done, it heads through Winnfield, LA and pulls into the yard at Alexandria, LA.

OS Omaha 2025

Some of you know what OS Omaha is all about, some probably do not.

In a lot of larger cities across the US and elsewhere, layout owner in those cities all get together once every other year or so and open their layouts to an Operations Weekend.  They send out invite across the country to anyone who enjoys operating layouts.  A lot of these invites are to other people in other cities who do the same thing.  I've heard of these before but have never had a chance to go let alone have my layout included. 

Several years ago I got invited to an N scale Operating Weekend in KC because I knew some friends from there.  While down there I ran into a few N scalers from Omaha.  We got to talking shop and one thing lead to another and before long we were sharing addresses.

I got invited to a couple of layouts in Omaha and I returned the invites to them and their friends to come down to my layout.  After a couple of sessions had played out, they asked me if I'd be interested in having my layout included in the OS Omaha 2025 weekend?   After going to a few of their meetings last fall, I said sure, why not?

So my my big push this year is to get my layout up to snuff and operating to a good standard. In doing this, I decided to revisit some things that I started working on a few years ago but let go stale as I started working on scenery and some new trackwork, like what I did in Ruston recently.

One of the first things I did was to work on some paperwork.  I made a train assignment sheet or call board using Excel.  Then I started reworking the train instructions.  My goal here is to get this down in black and white for reference as well as to reduce the amount of time it takes for a pre-op briefing.  

I also need to do some tweaking to my JMRI switch list and see if I can get some bugs worked out, which I'll post about once and if I can get them fixed.

To start off with I wanted to get some town signs made up and placed on the fascia so the crews know where they're at.  This blossomed into a small project with the help of a friend who has a 3D printer.

The next thing was to work on the train instructions sheets.  I tried to keep them as simple as possible and easy to understand.  These will give the crews simple instructions on what each train does during a session.  Once I had them printed up I placed them into some plastic badge sleeves to keep them clean and easy to handle.

I also updated the small schematic sheets for each town since several of my towns do not yet have scenery or buildings in place to visually see.

What I'm going to do is to start in Biddle yard in Little Rock and work my way south, counter clockwise around the layout and show images of the instructions, town signs and schematics of each town.

I'll break this into three posts to keep the length down to a manageable size.

Lets start in Little Rock at Biddle yard on the north end of the layout.  The layout is staged with both the SB and NB locals (#'s 775 and 776) sitting in the yard.  Train 775 is the SB local and it starts in Little Rock and works south.  When it's done it'll return to the same track that it left from in the same yard, but it's now considered to be sitting in the small yard in Alexandria, LA. according the JMRI switch list.  Sitting on the next track over, are the cars that will make up the NB train 776.  The SB crew will store the power at the house and the new crew will grab a fresh set of power that's sitting on the fueling track and tie onto their train and head north.  When they are done, they will return to the same track from where they left, but they will be sitting in Biddle yard in Little Rock, AR.

As each local is working their jobs across the layout, they will each meet a through train that is running in the opposite direction and with the lack of long enough sidings, they will meet at the halfway point in El Dorado, which has the only siding long enough for a meet. 

Here's the over view of the layout.

The 2 through trains are sitting on the green staging tracks.

Train #775 is sitting on the black SB track and train #776 is sitting on the black NB track. 

In the next two posts we'll be following the 2 locals as they move across the layout.