Tehachapi, BC

[jagged ben]

- I found it best to have the helpers set to run slightly faster than the leaders on the upgrades and slightly slower on the downgrades. 

That jives with my experience, especially if there are fewer pushers than pullers.

Uphill you want the pushers to reduce the portion of the train that is pulling on the drawbar behind the lead locomotives, so that there is slack somewhere in the middle of the train.  Going slightly faster in the rear accomplishes this.  As the pushers push more cars they slow down to the same speed as the front locos, and this settles into a decent equilibrium if done right.

Downhill you want to reduce the weight that is pushing on the drawbar behind the lead locos.  To do this, you stretch the whole train out by running the rear locos slight slower.  If done right, the rear locos are pulled just a little bit by the front locos, and this brings them up to the same speed as the rest of the train.

[GaryHinshaw]

jb, do you run pushers with a 2nd crew person?

[GaryHinshaw]

Time for some railfan photos from session #1, graciously supplied by our very capable company photographer Tim Horton.  (Thanks Tim!)

A northbound BNSF bare-table train approaching Summit, passing the (future) site of the the cement plant at Monolith:



A southbound UP Z train passing the bare-table and heading down the east slope (these photo back drops are still temporary):



[Tim wants to come back and take some more careful photos with focus stacking, but these shots are still way better than I can usually manage.]

SD40-2's are still around and kicking in DPU service; one is seen here having just exited Tunnel 17 and rounding the curve at Summit, about to enter double track:



The same DPU, now starting the descent past Monolith, meets a northbound auto-rack train led by a CP 9516, which is waiting to enter single track and continue its journey back to BC:



[The Van-Kam trailer (Tim's model) is coming from BC.  This is the obligatory Canadian content.  ]  The same rack train is seen a while later descending the Pass, having just navigated Tehachapi Loop and seen here crossing Tehachapi Creek just below the Loop:



And finally, another meet at Walong (the Loop itself):



The crew: Bill Dixon, Andrew Hutchinson, me, Tim Horton, Rene Gourley, and an extremely tall Mark Dance.  We all fit!



The experience of watching your layout come to life in the company of a very talented group of good friends is truly hard to beat!    

A big thanks to the crew for helping get the most out of this first session.

Cheers,
Gary

P.S. This one calls for a funny caption contest:



[Does this make me look fat?]

[jagged ben]

jb, do you run pushers with a 2nd crew person?

No, I run them on my own with a dual control Digitrax throttle.

[LKOrailroad]

Looks like a ton of fun!

[conrail98]

Congrats on the first ops session!

Phil

[Seligman Sub]

Long time lurker first time poster here. Love the second pic, looks like it'll be a great scene, especially with the photo backdrop. Looking forward to more updates!

[GaryHinshaw]

Thanks gents, it was really fun!  Looking at the pics again, I'm struck by how much more work there is to do to get this pike "finished".   All that plywood and all those naked Kato diesels, to say nothing of a first level and staging...  But this is my best shot at "The Big One" and I just have to take the long view.  Being able to have interim sessions like this help me to: 1) make sure I'm not too far off in my concept and/or execution, and 2) stay motivated and focused, because running trains is so much fun!

-gfh

P.S. Welcome to Railwire, Seligman.

[Coxy]

How about some video Gary, even crappy phone vids would be cool.

- Steven

[BCR 570]

How about some video Gary, even crappy phone vids would be cool.

- Steven

Better to shoot video during a dedicated session when there is far less background dialogue than during an op session . . . 

Tim

[mark dance]

Better to shoot video during a dedicated session when there is far less background dialogue than during an op session . . . 

Tim

...but inane background chatter is what *makes* an op session Tim! 

md

[ednadolski]

Absolutely fantastic work Gary!   It's really great to see how things are coming together!

Ed

[Kevin C]

It was great to see you have your first Op's session Gary. It gave your layout it's first workout. Progress sometimes is slow but when it eventually does come together, the results are all worth it.
As mentioned in one of the previous posts, a short video of one of the trains completing a full circuit will also be worth the wait for those of us following your progress

Kevin

[GaryHinshaw]

Video is definitely on the list, but since my son just took our video camera to college, I'll have to commission Tim to come back and shoot some, even if the layout is still only half-baked.  High on the list of subjects is the loaded grain train which I've got up to 40 cars and 6 locos in a 3 x 2 x 1 configuration.  It's pretty dramatic.

[BCR 570]

I'll have to commission Tim to come back and shoot some,

Anytime - I haven't shot a lot of video but this would be a good learning opportunity.


Tim
aka Corporate Photographer