had two things that happened. You had a lot of radio chatter
because crews would have the permission to occupy the track
between town A and town B, and at about town B they would
be running and suddenly go, ‘where was I going to?’ So you
had to call the dispatcher to find out, plus you had to clear
blocks behind you, which also created more radio traffic.
“With this layout, with the amount of trains we were going
to have running, if we had DTC there was going to be a lot of
radio chatter. So I got a track warrant form off the Internet and
tailored it to what we were going to do. I was a little bit con-
cerned because I wasn’t sure if the members were going to like
doing track warrants. They might figure it was going to be cum-
bersome, slow and all that stuff.
“The first session we did, for some of them, after two warrants
they just went out of the gate running. Everybody likes it.
“As far as CTC, that’s a lot of money. We’re looking more
towards ABS. We went to the Medford PCR-PNR convention
in May and saw the Rogue Valley Club set-up, and those of us
who were there really liked it. That might be a possibility. For
right now, everybody seems to be happy with dark territory
and warrants.”
MRH:
“A lot of different people in the club – a lot of different
prototypes in the area – everybody tends to have their favorite
prototype. How do you keep everybody in line instead of hav-
ing rainbow fleet on the railroad?”
David:
“When people join the club, they are given a very
clear understanding of the conditions of the railroad – 1979,
September, what kinds of equipment run, that we do opera-
tions – this is not a show club, this is not just bring down any-
thing you want.
Columbia Cascade and Western - 12
“Everything has to meet certain standards. All rolling stock has
to have metal wheels, it has to use couplers that match up
with everything else. Engines, as far as decoders you don’t just
bring anything in for an operating session and say, ‘here, I want
to run this.’ It has to come down early and have an approval
given by the engine foreman.
“There are a lot of different interests. And we invite the differ-
ent interests. But at the same time we make it clear that we
cannot necessarily meet all the different interests.
14: All railroads run on paperwork. Track and rolling stock
defects have to be written up, dated, and initialed. Another
form is a checklist of coupler, weight, and rolling inspec-
tions for cars to be placed into service, and the club also
has its own track warrants.
14
MRH-Feb 2013
