I had told my friends that if I ended up being where I needed to
be by the end of June, that I’d take July to clean up and prepare
so that the op session could commence as planned in August.
That’s exactly what happened.
Sometimes it’s nice to have a deadline! A massive cleanup ensued,
and the op session rolled along beautifully in mid-August with
minimal hassles – a few stray cars that needed trucks or coupler
tweaks, two or three small sections of track with minor problems
that were quickly fixed, and a recalcitrant turnout in Mehoopany.
Jim Lincoln ended up staying late for a couple of hours until he
methodically got it to work to his satisfaction. We moved over
250 cars in prototypical fashion using switch lists, and everybody
agreed that not only was it about time we operated here again,
but that it should not be years between sessions!
Some other discussions about things I’d been on the fence
about resulted in a few interesting scenic changes in an area
to be called Athens, which on the prototype and my railroad is
just south of Sayre, PA. I scheduled another op session for early
November 2013, and the plan is to rough-in Athens, plus do
some other scenic efforts before cleaning up again for it, then
take the winter and really hit the scenery in and around Towan-
da as hard as possible. It’s great to see the layout Getting Real!
I plan to post video of operations in and around Mehoopany as
an adjunct to this column.
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