The Sudbury Division recently woke from a long sleep. Maybe it’s more like it came out from under anaesthetic, since it was undergoing surgery for the past two years. It had been that long since the layout was being operated regularly and in the meantime we had been making a brave attempt to extend its mainlines up to the second floor. To get the job done we decided we had to stop operations so we wouldn’t have to take pains not to disrupt the routes needed for them, and so that we wouldn’t be distracted with staging sessions and even the operating sessions themselves—that was one more day we could spend building, after all.
Like many of our projects, it was only partly successful; the mainlines still aren’t upstairs and several other projects which we wanted to get done have languished. Nevertheless, much had been accomplished to get us closer to our goals. We had completed most of the flooring on the top floor, had built a new intermediate walkway, two half flights of stairs, rebuilt Romford with permanent track, built a new lift gate for the entrance and done extensive wiring upgrades. With a few months more effort in a big push the mainlines could have breached the ceiling above Ramsey Lake and found their way to a new staging yard on the top floor.
However, most of us had had enough of the endless building and wanted to see Sudbury once more come to life!
The catalyst for getting the layout operational was the Doubleheaders Open House which took place at the end of March, the same one which featured Tim Warris’ Bronx Terminal and the O scale Aberfoyle Junction. At the beginning of January we had no way of getting trains across the entry and we were still missing all the trackage at Romford. We realized that without a concerted effort, all we would have to show for the tour was a few trains running up and down the Webbwood Sub branchline. After an urgent call to action we started putting in lots of weekend time and had many more members show for the work nights and so we managed to pull it all together. We were still working on trackwork and wiring the week before the tour, but in the end, it was all ready to run.
Jurgen Kleylein is making some final adjustments to the newly-installed Romford Junction trackage a few days before the Doubleheaders Tour.
The tour was a success, many people came through and lots of folks made favourable comments about the progress we had made and how much they looked forward to seeing the layout whenever they could—which I always found surprising considering how much plywood still needed to be covered with scenery. The trains ran, sort of (that will be the subject of another Tale, I’m sure…), and other than requiring a few little adjustments, the new track ran well. Now that we had it all put back together, it was time to have a real operating session again.
We decided we were going to make the first session an event. In past years we had run three hour sessions running between 7 and 10pm on Saturday nights. Each session ran until ten o’clock was reached and then the clock was stopped, where or whenever in the day it happened to be and the next session just picked up where the last one ended. This had made the sessions hard to follow since operators seldom had an idea of when in the day it was supposed to be, in spite of having the time displayed on each throttle. For this session, we decided to go back to the way we originally ran them: we would start the fast clock at midnight, and using a 4 to 1 ratio, run till midnight the next day; that’s a six hour session. The session would start at 4pm Saturday afternoon, run till 7pm, have an hour break for supper and then continue till 11pm. It remained to be seen if we could get enough members out to run for such a marathon.
Time to Start the Clock
Saturday afternoon came around and I got out a couple hours early to make sure everything would be ready to run. I was surprised I was the first one out, since a several other members had planned to be out then as well, and as anyone can tell you, being on time is not my forté. Eventually several others showed up, including our president Bob Kelly, our own Dr. Phil Trudel and ops specialists Ted Kocyla and Chris vanderHeide. Distance member Peter Korschefsky and Jacques Richard who comes all the way down from Goderich for our sessions also turned out early (Phil was good enough to put up Peter for the night so he wouldn’t have a long haul after the session to get home). Throttles were tested, radios were unpacked and line-ups were printed. We were still short a few operators for full operation, but there were enough to get things started.
I decided to take the mole position in the Toronto staging yard. That job entails guiding trains in and out of the staging and throwing the as yet one and only operating switch machine in Romford, which is over the operator’s head; he’s seated between the arrival yard and the classification yard, with the Romford scene covering both up above. Eventually Romford will be a full interlocking with several remote turnouts and signals, but that will take a few months yet to realize. For now, my job was also to act as the Cartier Sub dispatcher, giving trains instructions for travelling in and out of staging and through Sudbury. We are only using the lower six tracks of the arrival yard so far; the upper level needs tortoises and to have its detection wired yet, so we were a little tight down there—five of the six tracks were occupied with trains ready to depart. After consulting the lineup I lined everything up to allow any inbound train to go into the only open track and decided to check out what was going on at Sudbury.
At first I thought I would have to pitch in as a yard engine operator for a bit, but I found Peter had already had the same idea. He was scheduled for 912, the eastbound Webbwood through freight but while he was waiting for its departure time he was completing a couple of switchlists for yardmaster Chris. In the meantime Phil and Bob had pulled into the yard off the westward Cartier Sub with the empty pulp train from Cartier, otherwise known as the Nairn Turn. The Turn was, appropriately enough, in the process of turning for its run down the Webbwood Sub. About then Jacques showed up as the East Yard crew and started on a third list for Chris. After snapping a couple of pictures of the action, I headed back to the dispatch office where Ted was giving the first clearance to the pulp train to proceed down the branch. Some of the radios had bad batteries and there were some problems with a couple of throttle cords which distracted me for a while after that.
Shortly after midnight on the clock, Peter Korschefsky switches a cut of hoppers in Sudbury yard, while President Bob Kelly works on getting the Pulp Train turned to run down the Webbwood Sub.
As Bob and Phil Trudel (left) pull out with the westbound Pulp Train, Peter waits his turn to use the yard lead. Meanwhile, Yardmaster Chris vanderHeide (right) is on the radio to dispatcher Ted Kocyla discussing upcoming movements through his yard.
Eventually, Peter brought 912 into Sudbury after negotiating his way through the pulp train’s work limits by Nairn. This was the first time I saw the power on 912. Peter had put some of his own locos on the train, since this session was officially designated a “Junk Night”. Junk Night has been a tradition on the Sudbury Division for many years and has always been the first session after April 1st. Normally, the club runs with appropriate CP or leased power for all of its operating sessions, but on Junk Night, anything goes. So, Peter had brought a CN widecab SD40-2, a whiteface BN SD40-2 and a heritage BNSF SD40-2, plus a CN chop-nose GP9u. Three of the units had sound, and it’s the first time I heard so many sound units on one train. I found them a little loud, but the sound, which was a combination of Tsunami and Loksound, was excellent.
After that I had to get to work in Toronto, as I had to guide 912 into its track and get its westbound counterpart 911 ready to leave. Toronto staging is a very manual operation on our layout. We could have set it up so that crews could line things up from the aisle, but we decided to have the whole thing run from under the layout. The yard is in the shape of a large reverse loop consisting of three tracks on each side of the loop which converge at the far end. The choke point at the top end of the loop is far from the yard operator, so detection has been installed to enable the operator to keep track of where trains are and to make sure they aren’t parked fouling turnouts. Yellow lights also confirm the routing of each ladder so the operator can be sure of which track is lined up. Since the yard is a reverse loop, auto reverse circuits have been installed on six tracks, 3 on each deck. The shortest tracks are still long enough for a 40 car train; the longest probably could handle two of those. So far only the bottom deck is in use, but once full staging is possible upstairs we can start working our way to a full schedule of mainline traffic; right now we run less than half the trains of the prototype. The yard will also be used to actively restage trains during sessions in the future, so a class yard is going in on the opposite side of the operator’s pit. Along with his duties routing traffic as the Romford tower operator, this will make the Toronto operator one busy guy.
A shot of the Toronto Staging panel illustrates the track arrangement on its two decks. The layout power was shut off when this photo was taken causing false occupied indications on the detector lights; normally when a train is parked correctly only the inward green light will be lit indicating where the units are sitting.
Operating problems, prototypical and otherwise
By now several more members had arrived and we had all the minimum crew positions filled. Brian Askett showed up with some Junk of his own to run a bit later, but he drew a couple mainline jobs for now. Crews were finding that locos which had had their wheels cleaned before the session were still having lots of problems with stalling after a short while. This would continue to be a problem for the remainder of the session. Brian ran 956 down from Cartier and into Toronto before Peter could get finished with his work in Sudbury, so when Peter arrived at the end of double track at Romford, he had no tracks free in Toronto. 912 just had to sit at the Romford junction till things cleared up a bit.
Since he had nowhere to go with his train, Peter decided to take the next train out of Toronto, which was 955, the Toronto-Sudbury local/drag. 955 had Conrail and Penn Central power, but this wasn’t because of Junk Night. Rather, it represented units spending the weekend in Toronto off the Buffalo-Toronto Kinnear transfer being appropriated by CP for a short-haul run. Power short CP was constantly doing that sort of thing, and the Sudbury Division is entirely too prototypical in that we always seem to be short of appropriate power, too. Unlike the prototype, however, the Atlas PC/Conrail power was among the best running units on the layout, so Peter had a quick but smooth run getting his train over to Sudbury.
A C-424 is substituting for an ailing S-2 on the West Yard job. In the foreground in tracks 2 and 3 are the cars off 955 from Toronto, still waiting to be sorted. Hope CN doesn’t find out about those CV and DW&P cars diverted to local newsprint service.
Eventually we got 912 into Toronto and decided to recycle Peter’s “Junk” units onto another westbound. The flexibility of reverse loop staging came to the fore as we were able to bring the arriving units around the loop and easily switch them out with the units already on his departing train. His four locos easily walked away with the 25-odd cars on 921--our trains were unusually short this session as our car forwarding system struggled to catch up with our new longer session format.
All did not go smoothly, however as the train kept breaking in two on the helix out of staging, right behind the trailing GP9u. Peter and I noticed that it was riding a bit high on its frame, making its couplers a bit on the high side as well. One thing we learned long ago operating on so many helices is that coupler height is one of the most important factors in reliable operation on a helix. The slightest undulation in the track can cause uneven couplers to ratchet upwards until either the wheels on the high car derail because their flanges climb over the rail, or the train breaks in two as the one knuckle climbs over the other and the couplers pop apart. Peter said he hadn’t noticed the problem on his own layout as it was usually used as a switcher and never saw this kind of service. Looks like a trip to the shops will be in order when it gets back on home rails.
Dinner and a Movie
Before we knew it, it was 7 o’clock; time for supper. The Commercial Hotel in nearby Maryhill had a servicable kitchen, so we took orders and sent a couple members down to get grub for the hungry crew. Ted had brought a laptop and Chris had some DVD’s of CP’s North Superior route, which entertained the crews as they ate. My chickenburger and fries hit the spot, but we could have used some ketchup. It looks like emu-burgers aren’t on the menu at the Commercial anymore.
The operators are back to work, but cartons and condiments from dinner still clutter the workbench in the office where the laptop is playing a DVD of eighties era CP operations. The job board in back looks to have all the important spots filled now.
The session started up again and trains continued to sputter across the layout. It was a little disappointing to see the issues we were having, but we figured it was mostly because the layout hadn’t been used in such a long time. Though track cleaning trains had been run and wheels cleaned and even considerable elbow grease was applied to the rails there seemed to be no end to the stalling. We would need to spend some time figuring out what our problem was after the session.
Train 925 rounds the west leg of the wye at Romford through in-progress scenery. The train has just reached the top of the big helix from Toronto Staging; when the scene is complete, the train will first become visible as it emerges from half-built rock cut. In the foreground you can see the roadbed for the continuation of the Cartier Sub towards Montreal.
From farther down the aisle we see engineman Brian Askett easing 925 from the Parry Sound Sub onto the Cartier Sub main. The trains visible below the backdrop on the left are on a hidden nolix used to change levels in the aisle behind the photographer, and will not be seen in this aisle at all. Below that the upper level of the Toronto Staging is just being used as shelf space for now. Two more shelves will be built on the left side of the aisle to carry the Cartier Sub through Coniston and the Falconbridge Spur to its namesake town. Shelves on the right side are almost ready for roadbed in Wanapitei and Stinson.
Other than the dirt, though, things ran well. We did have a couple cars derail, but we pulled them from their trains and inserted a bad order card in their card pockets. Derailments always happen for a reason and we would check those cars out and correct them. Running 40 car trains on helices puts a lot of strain on wheels and couplers. Each car needs good wheels, proper adjustment of truck screws and coupler heights, and adequate weight to run properly, so it takes some diligence to keep everything running as smooth as possible. Considering the dynamics of what we are trying to run, operation is very reliable for the most part. We are constantly working to identify sources of trouble and eliminate them until we achieve our goal of zero derailments.
With train 96 safely receding eastward in the background, Phil is now ready to request a clearance to follow it from McKerrow back to Sudbury with the Espanola Turn, presently idling on the wye track.
Some members had to leave before the end of the session, which was no problem. Things slow down on the Sudbury Division towards the end of the operating day, anyway. By the time 96, the Webbwood local, was turning in Sudbury things were winding down. Passenger train 428, the return run of the Webbwood local, was normally a single Budd RDC, but Brian had unleashed his Junk on that run: today’s 428 was a CN FPA4 and 4 Rapido streamlined coaches, with Tsunami sound! Listening to that FPA4 took me back 25 years to when VIA Alcos still pulled conventional trains through Kitchener. The sound on the newest decoders is truly amazing sometimes.
So with that last high note we started shutting things down. There were a couple trains yet to run, but lunch had run over and it was getting late. Those of us still there all remarked about the pickup problems and I decided I would take a couple units home and try to figure out what was going on. Maybe we could correct the problem before we ran again next month. Yet in spite of our problems, it was an enjoyable session. Thoughts turned to how much better they will be once we have more mainline running and some more of the industrial branches completed. Yes, we really had to get that done soon. That’s the way things go at the club, one thing inspires the next, keeping us coming out to get more of this crazy monster of a layout built. But for now we enjoyed what we had and the Sudbury Division had once again shown what it could do, and it was entertaining as always.
Jurgen