the MRH Forum

3 Days of Operations on the Columbia & Western Operation and maintenance
Reply
Regular poster 240 posts Mark Dance Regular poster 240 posts
Mark Dance

 

bob_5.jpg 

 

Bob Hadlow pilots a train up Pup Creek in the Friday session.

  •  

    Well, we just finished three days of prototype ops as part of the bi-annual Vanrail invitational.  The Columbia & Western hosted 18 visiting operators and dispatchers over those days.  Most (all?) of the visitors hail from the Western states and provinces.

    I think a good time was had by everyone judging by the smiles.   The layout and equipment performed very well which left the Superintendent tired but very happy.

    Photos of all the mountain operations (pushers, brake checks, thermal test, barge operations, and even a double saw bye) are included in these Flikr sites...

    Friday: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjJexU2o

    Saturday: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjJeBC2u

    Sunday: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjJeCvkm

    I hope you find them interesting.  Each photo has a caption with the participants in and the contents of the photo.  To turn the captions on make sure "Show Info" is clicked in the slide show. 

    It was a lot of fun.  For me this is what Railroad Modeling is all about!

    md

(My apologies for the cross-post from the yahoo forum)

Mark Dance, Chief Everything Officer - Columbia & Western Railway

Videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/markdance63       Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27907618@N02/sets/72157624106602402/
Reply 0
BCRMLW Active Member 37 posts
BCRMLW

Looks like the weekend was

Looks like the weekend was fun Mark! Someday I'd like to get out to the coast to check out your amazing layout!

-Trevor
Reply 0
Beaver11 Active Member 97 posts
Beaver11

Great Stuff!

Mark,

 

Thanks for posting photos from your part of VanRail.  I recognized several friends among your crews.  Perhaps I'll make it to some future biannual cycle.

 

Bill Decker

http://espeecascades.blogspot.com/
Reply 0
Peter Pfotenhauer Regular poster 362 posts
Peter Pfotenhauer

Mark, all those photos make

me wish Vancover was closer to Washington, DC. Hinshaw knows how far apart they are. Haven't seem him posting on RW since your event so I think you wore him out.

As always, your layout impresses with the plan, scope, and execution. Terrific work all around. 
Reply 0
Tore Hjellset Regular poster 328 posts
Tore Hjellset

Excellent!

I love seeing pictures of people "interacting" with the model railroad instead of just extreme close ups. Looks like you had a lot of fun.

Those pine trees look great by the way! Are they home made?

- Tore Hjellset, Norway -

Red Mountain Ry. (Facebook)
Reply 0
Mark Dance Regular poster 240 posts
Mark Dance

Yes, I love seeing people

Yes, I love seeing people interacting with a layout.  Otherwise for me a Model Railroad is "just a model", no matter how well executed the modeling is, and the hobby can become no different than building scale amour or planes.  When people operate a layout to achieve its purpose, and have fun doing so with little or no frustration, it comes to life and the social aspect takes the hobby to a different level for me.  Sorry...too much philosophy.

As to the pines, not sure which you are talking about...The eastside of Farron hill is dominated by trees modified from Heki (at highest elevations) and Woodland Scenics (lower down) mass produced trees.  The lead photo to this email is on the east side for example.  And so is this shot...

-1_small.jpg 

The west side of the hill gradually transitions from these trees to sparser ponderosa pine trees from Architrees which I need to do very little to to be happy with.

_update2.jpg 

Hope that helps!

md

Mark Dance, Chief Everything Officer - Columbia & Western Railway

Videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/markdance63       Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27907618@N02/sets/72157624106602402/
Reply 0
Tore Hjellset Regular poster 328 posts
Tore Hjellset

Architrees

Great overview picture of your layout! I guess the trees I'm looking for are the Architrees. I've just placed a bid on them on Ebay, so let's see what happens

- Tore Hjellset, Norway -

Red Mountain Ry. (Facebook)
Reply 0
Reply