Re: workday in Jan

["Ira Schneider" <ira_schneider@iname.com>]

On Wed, 7 Nov 2001 18:28:49 -0600, bj.smiley1@juno.com wrote:
>hi  steve from jas.e.smiley
>in my opinion we need to refer to two days of work and running in Jan.

I think most of us know that we have the clubhouse for both Friday and Saturday.  However, I also
think that since most of us work, we are only going to be able to use Friday late afternoon or early
evening to set up and maybe do some preliminary testing.  We should be able to use all of Saturday
for testing, debugging, and fixing our problems.

>and:
>	 establish an  under load test proceedure to test for voltage drop on
>all tracks on all modules. . all trw cinch jones	 plugs 	should
>resoldered.  all soldered connections of track to track should have
>stranded cu, jumpers incorporated into the 	soldered connections to take
>the stress that solder alone cannot do satisfactorly, track to harness
>and harness 	to 	harness should be resoldered. electroic tuner spray
>might be used on all removeable surfaces.

I think it is a waste of time to resolder all connections (cinch jones plugs, track to track connections,
harness to track connections) when we don't even know what the problem is.  We need to diagnose
the problem first, then decide how to fix it.

>	any track with dimpled ties should have the tie  releveled.

Good idea.

>	any rusty track pins should be replaced.

This sounds good.  However, this implies that we disassemble all modules to find the rusty track pins.
Again, we don't even know whether or not rusty track pins are causing our problems.  Once we isolate
the problem we can decide on how to proceed.  This MAY include replacing pins, resoldering connections,
etc.


>	Modules should follow the balast width specified in the club rules.

I don't understand what this means.  I also don't know what problem this addresses.


>	the horizontal and verticle clearances should be checked for compliance 
>to club rules

This would help our alignment problems.

>comments :   i suggest  club rules  be amended to consider the plight of
>long trains and the time needed to set up and take town. 

What do you mean by "the plight of long trains"?  What are you suggesting?  I hope that your are not
suggesting that we limit the size of our trains.

>i would recommend that the fat controller  allocate no more than 1 hour on any
>track to permit rotation of all tracks to waiting members.

You are assuming that there are "waiting members".  At Flatonia, on Saturday we only had four members
present.  Each member had a track for the entire day.  On Sunday we had seven members present.
As Fat Controller I had tentatively assigned each member a track for half the day (4 hours).  We didn't
actually keep this schedule since some members didn't want to run for their full 4 hours at a time.  Also,
due to the problems on certain tracks, some members gave up their time much earlier.  That was a shame,
since other members were able to use those tracks for long periods of time.  Yes, we had problems, but
some members were able to circumvent the problems while others refused to even try.  No amount of
legislation on the part of the Fat Controller will solve this kind of problem.

>their is a maximun skyboard height of 8 " someplace. where ever it is ,
>it is not easy to locate and should moved to the fat controllers duties.

I don't know what you are proposing here.  There is a stated skyboard height of 8" above the module
level and 3" below.  What does this have to do with the Fat Controller?  Also, what skyboards do we have
that exceeds this limit?  Why is this a problem?

>  when we not paid for our participation , i suggest that we pass up the
>show rather that have our club running a raffel tabe to come out with
>finds to meet our expenses. i personally perfer running trains over
>running a raffel. bye,    bj.1

We go to these events to run trains and advertise our club.  I agree that running trains is much more
interesting than sitting at the raffle table.  However, if we have more than four members present at
any time, the members that are not running trains can certainly sit at the raffle table for an hour each.
When we ran the first raffle (at the AMRE show), I thought it worked great that we had a published
schedule of 1 hour slots for manning the raffle table.  Each of us knew when we were supposed to
be at the table.  At the Czhilispiel we had no schedule.  As Fat Controller on Sunday I tried to assign
the members who weren't running trains to the raffle table.  This didn't work as well since I made up
the schedule on Sunday morning and not everyone was present and those that were didn't know
when they were supposed to man the table.  My wife was at the table most of Saturday and for a large
part of Sunday.  With this all said, I think the raffle is a viable alternative to the event organizers paying
us.  I think we actually cleared more profit from the raffle than if the Czhilispiel organizers had paid us
to attend.



Ira