WRS on the Road Again

Once a year or every second year, the UMG gets together to setup and operate the UMG modular layout. This year's Hillfest was held at the High School in Hillsbrough, NB. On Friday the layout was assembled. When finished, late Friday night, the mainline was roughly one hundred and fifty feet long with a branch of another twenty five feet. Saturday morning the cars were set out at the Industries, there were roughly one hundred spots at the industries, plus the two yards and car float.

Then it was time to operate, the Crews had a choice of six locals, two mainline trains and RDC service. Plus a Dispatcher and Freight Agent. I was the Freight Agent and Junior Dispatcher for the show. Because of the layout size, a Junior Dispatcher was added. As Freight Agent, I helped the Crews with the new operating system and reset the "Industry" Cards between sessions.

After the first session, it was time for pizza. Then it was back to operations. Two more sessions were ran in the afternoon. For supper a few brave souls when out in the rain and barbecued. After supper, it slide show time.

Sunday I woke to a power failure at the motel, but luckily it was only a local outage. Did not want to take down the layout in the dark. After breakfast, we got one more operating session in. Then after cleaning up the leftover pizza from the day before, the layout was taken down and vehicles were packed. After goodbyes were said, it was time to head home. Monday was unloading the car and taking things to the basement.

It was a great time. To see more info on Hillfest visit http://theumg.wordpress.com/posts/

Now that Hillfest is done, it is time to get back to working on WRS. The first operating session will be Sept 14.

later

Doug

All Quiet

I have not been working on the WRS this month. Or at least on the main layout. The end of August is Hillfest, a gathering of the UMG for a major operating session on the UMG layout. Last count, there are one hundred spots to place cars at industries, plus three yards.

I will be taking four modules and maybe a fifth to the show. Two of them needs only minor repairs, but two of them need to have the tracks reworked. Then there is rolling stock and buildings to check and pack.

Also I am helping with setting up the operations on the layout. We are going to try a system based on "Industry" Cards. Each spot at each Industry has its own Card, which tells what type of car is required at that spot. It should be interesting.

That is all for now, hopefully we will get back to operating on the WRS in September.

later

Doug

The new WRS - Update

With the sunshine, I have not had much time to get any work done on the layout itself, but did spend a little time working on the new layout plan. After remeasuring the basement, I gained a few important inches.

The industries in Blue Ridge have not been added. At present I have lost nine industries from the old layout and I have to look at which ones of the nine, I want to add to the Blue Ridge area.

The Oxbow Branch will be source for wood chips for the Paper Mill and lumber loads for the world.

Northbrook and Southvale will be staging yards for the layout. The plan is that each yard will have three staged trains of 12-13 cars.

Now with the rough layout design done, it is time to start working on the operations side of things.

Until the next update.

Doug

The New WRS

The redesign of the WRS, all started after an operating session a few months ago. During that operating session, where was an issue with people movement around the layout. The Mill is the busiest area on the layout with two operators, on the opposite side of the aisle is Riverside. This aisle is only three feet wide. So at one time there was four people in an area three feet wide and eight feet long. Then the brakeman from the train working Dogwood want thru this same aisle so he could get to the other side of layout to assist the engineer in switching a section of Dogwood. This required everyone to stop and find some spot to hide in, while he when thru. Then ten minutes later, it happened again when the brakeman wanted to get back to the Roseton. During this time there was only one person in an area four feet wide and sixteen feet long, the aisle between Roseton and Dogwood.

So the redesign started. First the Mill was going to move completely in its present arrangement, to the area next to the stove. This would increase the length of run by twenty feet from the Yard to the Mill and address the issues of crews being in the same place at once.

this is a early version of the planned changes.

This would require first removing Junction and Blue Ridge area and a two foot section from Roseton and replacing this with a 180 deg corner set. Then adding a balloon section to the end of Dogwood and then a long straight section to collect the Mill in its new location to the layout.

I was planning to add a two track hidden staging yard between the Mill and the new corners connecting Roseton and Dogwood. This would address another issue I had with the present layout of having only one connection to the "outside world".

At the end of June, we had an operating session, where I tried the new operating plans. A Northbound train was staged on Track 1 at the Mill to begin the session. It worked better then planned, except I found that I would need more then two trains heading North from staging. So back to the drawing board. I am still working on the plan, so that is why I have not posted any drawings of the new layout.

Since I am re-using my present modules for most of the new arrangement, it will still be a single level layout and not the double deck that I presented back at Christmas, which is on the back burner until I can address a few issue with the design and the basement. Also the WRS would be out of operations for six month to a year as the layout was being build.

So that is a little history of why the changes are happening. At present, the new connection between Roseton and Dogwood has been done after old connection was removed (see past postings). The layout is back in operating condition. During the next few months, I have to work on a few items in Stage 1 that still needs to be completed, before I start on Stage 2.

later

Doug

Stage One - Update 2

The connection between Greenfield and White River Paper Company has now been finished and rail service to the Mill has been restored.

Now comes the hard part, finding a new home for the modules that were removed and all the "stuff" that was stored under them.

later

Doug

Stage One - Update

WRS Inspection Train on its way to Dogwood

WRS is pleased to report that rail service has been restored to Dogwood. Management is hoping to have rail service to White River Paper Company completed before the Mill finishes its yearly shut down.

later

Doug

Stage One

Stage One of the new WRS has started. This week I have removed the last section of Roseton, Max's Corner, Newtown, Junction and Blue Ridge sections from the old layout. The Newtown section will be reused as well as one on my older corner modules.

This is looking down the line at Roseton at the new sections.

To square up the layout a wedge was added between the end of Roseton 0n the right and the old Newtown module, dark brown corner module. On the far left, between the two corner modules, is where the "river" is going.

That is Roseton on the back right, the edge of Dogwood on front right. The old corner module, is the one with green on it. The gap will be closed when Dogwood is moved and connected to the corner module. The track on the corner modules will have to removed and relocated, since the old corner module was build to Group "X" standards for the first Railfest.

Now back to working away on the layout.

later

Doug