Re: SAMRA Show Retrospective

["Steve Wise" <swise@aoot.com>]

I agree that the show went pretty well!  No power problems.  This was GREAT.
A big thanks to everyone who helped work out the kinks!

Some trains still had problems with the switches and diamonds.  Anybody that
ran into problems care to comment?    I seem to remember Ed's texas special
cars had problems with switches, and Rick/Ricky's stock cars had problems
too.

I think the work Scott did with alignments on the switch yard transition
modules really helped though.  Good work Scott!

I ran on track one the whole time.   Smooooth sailing.  I had absolutely no
switch problems.  :-)

Also, I saw several switching operations that seemed to go well!  I think we
all owe Ira a big THANKS for the control panel.  It was much easier than the
IC Controls block deal.  It was nice to have a visual confirmation of what
you were doing when applying power to the various sidings...

I'm glad we went with shorter runs though.  I seem to run out of steam after
about 1-1.5 hours of operating...  In a single day, I think 3-4 hours of
operating is enough for me.

See ya'll!


Stevo.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ira Schneider" <ira_schneider@Iname.com>
To: "TTAT Members" <ttat-members@aoot.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2002 6:58 AM
Subject: SAMRA Show Retrospective


> I think the SAMRA show went very well.  The time we spent last weekend
working on modules really
> paid off.  There were no major power drops and our trains ran very
smoothly.  Also, track
> alignment was good, thanks in part to Randall and Ryan who leveled the
layout after we had set it up.
>
> My exercise in trying to build a master schedule for the event taught me
that we don't need one.
> First of all, it was impossible to build such a schedule.  Secondly, some
people didn't show up,
> leaving holes in the schedule, and other people showed up at times other
than I had expected them.
> Just using the schedule board to list who is running and who is up next
worked just fine.  I was
> actually surprised that many times during the day people (including
myself) were begging for
> someone to take over their tracks so they could rest.  I thought we would
be more likely to have
> people begging for tracks to run on, but that didn't happen.  I think the
"first come, first served"
> scheduling worked well.
>
> We had a couple of operating accidents, but that always happens.  A couple
of times an operator
> was distracted when running two trains on the same track and one train
rear-ended the other.  Once
> I was bringing a train onto a siding and dialed the wrong track number on
the CAB-1 so the train
> overshot the end of the siding and collided with the train waiting to exit
a siding.  Once we somehow
> got two trains switching places to get out of synch so one went into
reverse when one went into
> forward, both on the mainline at opposite ends of the siding.  Eventually,
we got one train on the siding,
> where I was able to control it independently.
>
> I can only recall one incidence during this run where an operator left his
train on a siding for a couple
> of hours when he left the area.
>
> Overall, there were very few operating problems and I think everyone had
fun.  Thanks to all of you.
> I am looking forward to the next club run.
>
>
> Ira
>
>
> ------
> TTAT members reflector.
>