Operations Session

February 21 the W&A hosted its first official ops session! Long time coming it has been. We were honored to have six friends partner up in crews of two, one engineer with a brakeman. 7:00 PM crew members arrived to orient themselves to their schedules and plan their ways of working. 7:30 the clock started and everyone was completed by 9:15. Of course there were many breakdowns that were communicated to the superintendent, providing LOTS of maintenance work orders. But this is to be expected, although he (I) was more disappointed than expected. Bottom line is that it appeared all had a fabulous time.  
Engineers were responsible for operating the locos. Brakemen had responsibilities for coupling, re-railing cars when necessary and ensuring switches were set accurately. 
The schedules were challenging in that the timing of arrivals caused negotiations in order to ensure that their respective time tables were successfully met. 
The image below, with a Yankee who somehow infiltrated as a brakeman, shows Paul with Jimmy at the throttle. Shortly after this shot, another consist came barreling through with DC at the throttle causing one of those "challenging" situations. However, when considering this is 1863, trains were constantly running at all times in order to meet both military and civilian demands. Hence, this was quite prototypical. However, schedule adjustments will be made for the next session.

This next photo has brakeman Christopher questioning engineer Martin's instructions on how best to build their consist in Chattanooga. Martin is a veteran engineer and Christopher... well, this was his first time in this role. He had a steep learning curve, and did quite well.

Below, my good friend from high school and college, Dave Eberhardt, is on his maiden run as a first time brakeman with DC at the throttle. Dave had a layout in the '70's, my first experience helping to build structures and learn a few basics. Here they are building their consist in Atlanta. 

This one below is the opening of the session, two crews setting up their respective runs.

Prior to this evening, one of our favorite modelers and friends, Brian Kammerer visited. It had been quite some time since his last appearance. He did not like a bird I had set into the backdrop because of the shadow. So in his nature for clean imaging, we were able to get him to add a small flock of crows to the backdrop, the latter which he had painted in the early days of layout construction. So good it was to have his rare visit to the W&A. Here is a link to his art work http://www.cwbattlemapart.com 

DC arrived early to complete his scratch build of a prototype fire house in Chattanooga. "Look what I did!" And it is ridiculously exquisite! 

Shorty after, he wanted to see the cars he had built for his own future layout run on our W&A. All was well until he begin to uncouple. He pulled the pins, however, the links were a bit tight in the coupler pockets. As he pulled one car off it pulled the next... HO dominoes resulted! Although there were a couple of casualties, they were easily repaired. Lesson-do NOT uncouple on elevations!

This ops event was a much welcomed achievement given we've been at this since 2003! Using the hindsight factor, I would have ... but hindsight also says there is only so much planning; best is to get into it and be open to learn, adjust and have great friends to share the joy along the way.

NMRA MER Division Meet Open House

A short video of events and travails.

The General has a Voice

Sound on the Western & Atlantic

This is a maiden run by LeBron's Mantua General. He has completely retooled this 4-4-0 including scratch building the boiler from styrene. As you will shortly experience, if you have not already played the video, LeBron is one of two people that I know of who have successfully installed a Tsunami sound decoder in a completed, fully functioning model. Sound takes the experience to a very enjoyable level. The rolling stock include repainted Mantua house cars, IHC cattle cars, and two of my first scratch built cattle cars. The latter two are based on drawings in the April 1969 issue of Model Railroader, "Cars of the 1860's". The bridge is a Howe Truss modeled after photos of the type used on the W&A, most notably over the Tennessee River. 

Howe Truss

Photo curtesy PictureHistory.com

The W&A was known for having many railroad bridges along its 138 mile line. Over Chickamauga Creek alone there were about 12 crossings. Many of these were covered bridges, two of which we have modeled on the "North Branch". If you follow our yahoo site, American Civil War Railroads Historical Society, you may have read references to my layout as the North Brnach. LeBron Matthews operates his version of the W&A and is reffered to as the "South Branch" since he lives in GA.

Period photos, especially along the Tennessee River and Chickamauga Creek, show remains of bridges and some that were rebuilt. Although slight alterations may have existed, I am more interested in the reamins as they are more likely to be most prototypical.

The Howe Truss pictured above, which crosses Chickamauga Creek, is my template for a  bridge I chose to model.

Researching bridge construction was done through photographs primarily. One find was that bridges were made with 30' timber lengths. I estimated (guesstimated) that these bridge sections, in general, were approximately 90'. This offered the opportunity for a bridge model long enough for that dramatic and more authentic appearance. The model below was built to accomodate three 90' sections spanning 270 scale feet.

At this stage the bridge is completed, abutments have been placed and we are now contouring the river's landscape. Brian Kammerer has been working on the backdrop and has included Lookout Mountain, a most prominent land feature distinguishing the Chattanooga area. I will be sure to include photos of Lookout Mtn. in a future posting.

The following photos are described below the picture.


This section on the W&A is positioned just on the outskirt of Chattanooga. The bridge is constructed with mostly bass and spruce with some balsa. Piers will be a styrofoam core wrapped with a new Chooch product, Flex Wall. I was considering carving the foam but this product is dead on for the actual stone.   

  

Here you can see an error in my modeling of the bridge cross ties. Looking at the period photo these initially appeard to be planks. A thanks to Bernie Kempinski, and my realization on how shadows can be deceiving, I have replaced the planks with standard beams, I believe 8"x8". The pier is this photo is from ARC or AIM (?). I believe someone on our yahoo site mentions this manufacturer in one of his notes as to who manufactures HO piers.

One of the many questions regarding bridge construction was how did engineers join bridge sections. One of my 'senior advisors' and construction engineers, Christopher, while helping me view photos, saw what appears to be a long brace connecting these 90' sections. The piers of course would be placed just below these braces and the section joints.

Stay tuned for more posts as we reach completion.