3 Days of Ops on the Columbia & Western

[mark dance]

Well the C&W just wrapped up three operating sessions as part of the biannual Vanrail Ops invitational along with 7 other Vancouver-area layouts (and one Whidbey island layout - Al Frasch's Pilchuk Division).

Over the three C&W sessions:

    22 visiting operators were hosted including amongst them two guest Dispatchers.
    60 trains were called most of which terminated.
    And I would estimate between 800 and 900 cars moved over the three days not including restaging.

The layout preformed pretty well and there were a lot of smiles on the operators' faces which I take as a good sign!  Here is my friend Don Marenzi switching the Celgar pulp mill.



A huge shout out of thanks to the C&W's home road crew for their help: Len Thompson, Rene Gourley and TRW's own Gary Hinshaw! 

Should you enjoy these types of things there are photos of the sessions below:

Friday session photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/27907618@N02/albums/72157658171547279

Saturday session photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/27907618@N02/albums/72157658180308558

Sunday session photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/27907618@N02/albums/72157658524832216

thx

md

[GaryHinshaw]

Congratulations Mark!  There were indeed smiles all around and many of the guests told me during the sessions how impressed they were.

Well done!

[OldEastRR]

Since I live between Vancouver and Whidbey Island, I'm wondering how one gets invited to one of these events?

[Scottl]

Congratulations Mark (and the Home crew).  It looks like everyone enjoyed the sessions and the layout looks fantastic.

[mark dance]

Since I live between Vancouver and Whidbey Island, I'm wondering how one gets invited to one of these events?

If you go to the Vanrail website you can contact the Registrar, Rene Gourley, through that. We had spots up to the last minute. Actually a British rail fan and modeler found the site by accident while looking for local Vancouver places to railfan, contacted Rene out of curiosity, and that was how he got invtied!

Next Vanrail event will be Fall of 2017 but Soundrail in Seattle (and Whidbey) is next March and Northern rails in Edmonton is a year from now.

Hope that helps.

[sp org div]

Layout is looking good Mark.
Good times hosting, no doubt... a bit of a reward looking at all the happy faces too.
SoCalOps biannual June of next year for this layout (similar ops invitational down here).
Good motivator to make some more progress.
Regards,
Jeff
http://espeeoregondivision.blogspot.com/

[Ed Kapuscinski]

3 days. You Canucks are hardcore!

Very awesome. One of these days, I'd love to be a part of that.

[railnerd]

Looking great Mark!  Hope to make it back for the NEXT VanRail…

-Dave

[Santa Fe Guy]

Great stuff Mark. Allowing these fellows to come and operate on your RR and judging by the look on their faces you sure have made a lot of men very happy.
Well done.
Rod.