As the COVID lockdown winds down -- for those who are vaccinated -- opportunities in model railroading are slowly coming back. I made my first visit to a shop (White Rose Hobbies) in over a year, participated in an op session (Dave Trone's West Penn), and look forward to shows this fall (Great Scale Model Train Show), and undoubtedly November open houses (modelrailroadopenhouse.com).
I had a very successful quarter on the Middle Division, with the only distraction being surgery for a miniscus tear in my left knee. Not too much trouble though. Here's a recap:
- Ten 26' curb-side-door trailers were built up in anticipation of Rapido's release of F30D TrucTrain TOFC flats in the third quarter.
- Car cards were generated for my entire fleet of locomotives, freight cars, and varnish.
- Hundreds of waybills were generated, most using prototype industries and commodities.
- All of the switch machines have been installed in downtown Lewistown and track was QC'd.
- A new local control panel design was implemented in downtown Lewistown. Over time, this design will replace all of the local control panels, but not at the expense of delaying operations.
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Barring any emergencies, I plan to be open this November and start operating about that time. Here's the view forward:
- QC both WALL and JACKS staging yard throats and all tracks.
- Clean staging before replacing downtown Lewistown scenery tiles.
- Run all operations jobs solo as a test run.
- Have a QC op session to continue to test.
- Stage several mainline through trains.
- Clean the damned room for the open house!
Here is the full Report of the Chief Engineer.