The October operating session was host to a visiting photographer, the (in)famous Wayland Moore, aka O. Missing Link, late of the marketing department of the Western Maryland Moseley Division, and other railroads.
Here is a selection of these prime compositions, for the reader's enjoyment.
Please contain your shock and surprise. As part of the rebuild of XR, structures were to be installed.
Here is a pair of teaser photos for Taylor and Sledd food distribution warehouse.
Fitting sessions around other model railroad events can be a challenge in the fall, as September usually hosts the Mid Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modelers meet (https://www.marpm.org/), and October sees the NMRA's Mid Eastern Region (MER) annual convention, so we had to slide around from our normal 2nd Sunday window.
I have started to sign up an extra operator, as I usually have a late cancellation, and trying to manage an extra board seems to be an exercise in frustration. For this session, this strategy worked out well, as I had 1 no show, but with my extra operator already signed up, we had a full crew.
The yard looks busy in this shot - lots of trains and operators.
 |
| Yard Assistant Dan M seems to be contemplating his life choices as he switches the south end of Acca. |
We did uncover an interesting signal aspect failure during the session when a passenger train went around a southbound freight, and used the GN interlocking to reach the Track 4 passenger platform. The signal on Track 3 SB at GN didn't stay red after the varnish had made it over the mainline crossover. Whoops. This ended up being a missing check in the logic, and has since been fixed.
More photos on richmond-terminal.org
A full crew ran the railroad in September, after a long layoff due to summer trips, and a complete to benchwork rebuild of the XR control point.
Here's a shot of a good portion of the crew in the yard aisle. Like kitchens, yards attract a crowd!
A southbound train approaching the AY interlocking on the way to Rocky Mount, NC:
More photos can be found on the gallery at richmond-terminal.org
A full crew of operators put the railroad through in paces last Sunday. A few issues were found, as always, and have been noted for attention before the next session, planned for May.
A sampling of photos follows. More pictures can be found on richmond-terminal.org.
The 2nd weekend in March saw a crew put the railroad through its paces. I remembered to take a couple of photos, so what follows is the montage of shots that I put together.
The yard crew is getting a train put together for hand off to the road crew.
A northbound mixed merch train is heading out of Acca with some Conrail GE power up front, while a local is heading in.
More photos on the gallery.
2024 by the numbers:
5 operating sessions
2 work sessions
1 major rework - Doswell
Multiple small signals changes and tweaks
Multiple operational tweaks
In 2025, my goal is to move to dispatcher control, operationally. From a build perspective, I plan to rework the XR area significantly.
Maybe this year will see some light scenery.. It could happen.
