Bernhards Random Ramblings BACKUP

Once again , I'm helping to run trains for a day on the Swiss narrow gauge modules during the traditional pre-Easter Trains & Planes event at Hiller Aviation. I spent quite some time running the Chamby station module today. Here's my view during a moment of no visitors watching trains. The viaduct module was back in the arrangement this time. The Rhaetische Krokodil looks quite excellent on the bridge.

Tonight's ops session at Silicon Valley Lines was very well attended, with several guests visiting for the first time, which posed a little bit of a challenge to pair them up with a club member for their first couple runs. I ran with a guest, too, and we drew the Paso switcher, which had a bit of work to do. Later in the session I drew the Hallelujah Paper Mill switcher which was a good match, since it allowed me to help others with technical problems without leaving a train unattended in a siding or on the main line. This was also the first time that I ran this job during an official ops session. We start with some cars in the mill yard, and various cars spotted around the paper mill. After I pulled all cars from their spots and dropped them in the mill yard on tracks 1 and 2, train 380 arrives with 16 cars for the mill. The road power of train 380 switches the incoming cars into tracks 3 and 4 of the yard, and picks up the outgoing cars from tracks 1 and 2. Conveniently, this hap...

A nice ending to a very busy work week.

Pulled Pork from the Slow Cooker , with home made cole slaw.Yes, this is a messy affair, but, oh, so good. One of the few dinner foods that I didn't find stressful to make.

... a few more minutes.

I brought the conveyor installation down to the club for another test fitting to ensure the scratch-built base actually clears the highest cars we have on the layout. Mission accomplished. I'll leave this on the layout for now, while other projects take precedence.

[ Hallelujah Paper Posts ] After measuring the conveyor supports yesterday , it's time to build the supports for the conveyor transition housing. I started with four H-beams from my styrene stash. I slightly angled the H-beams outside to match the angle of the conveyor supports. I'm hoping to get the same clearance for trains passing underneath on the continuous running track, without building an awkwardly complicated structure behind the recycled paper warehouse. I was a bit concerned when I started. The beams looked rather odd. However, the structure started to look reasonable (especially for a background structure) as I added more cross beams and straightened out the arrangement. I might have angled the vertical beams a little bit too much, but that's ok, they are barely visible behind the warehouse anyways, so I'm not going to worry about it.

[ Hallelujah Paper Posts ] Tonight I test fit the supports for the conveyor to the digester. While I rebuilt the conveyor transition housing in styrene, it still sits on it's paper support. I need to plan for clearances and figure out how to arrange the conveyor supports. The photo below shows the general look and feel I'm after. Test fit the support towers with an auto rack car ... ...  and a double stack container car. This should work

Daylight Savings Time - check. Blue skies - check. California Poppies - check. Trees in bloom - check. Walking the dog in T-shirt - check. Looks like we started our one week of spring. In no time it will be summer and hot.

When I got to the bus stop today, there was this white stuff on the ground, and quite a bit off it. However, it was very concentrated in an area maybe 100 meters across. Remnants from yesterday's hail storm. On the few occasions when we had hail so far, the crystals melted fairly quickly. Not this time. The ice crystal structure from the 6pm storm hail shower yesterday is still visible this morning, even though some hail melted and froze again over night.

Almost time to head home...  We left SAN 2 hours after I took above picture, due to a flight attendant falling ill and Southwest struggling to get a replacement flight attendant for us. Better two hours late than a canceled flight, but that still meant we got home only by midnight. Phew.

Extra 215 was the last train I was called for this weekend. Looks easy enough: I'll pick up my train with a set of ATSF F units in Boron staging, and run downhill to Bakersfield. Since I knew I'd be navigating around some scheduled trains I figured this would get me into Bakersfield by about 5:30 - 6:00pm, which should leave plenty of time to for my return flight home at the end of the weekend. La Mesa doesn't use a fast clock. All times on paperwork and schedule are actual current time, we just need to keep track on whether it's AM or PM. The crew for this train was nominally called for 3:30 in the morning layout time, but I got to my train at Boron staging a bit early, picked up the switch list from the East End staging operator, and pulled out of staging into Mojave Yard. While the station agent called dispatch to get my paperwork, I checked the timetable to prepare for the trip. Since I'm going west, I'm looking in the eastward schedule for opposing trains. ...