YSP Operating Sessions
Friday nights bring in a crew of 5 to run the railroad. 1 crewman works the yard and takes out passenger trains from San Fransico into Merced on up to El Portal and then makes a return trip later in the night.
(Pic's below)
2 crews run mixed trains either out of Merced or from El Portal. Sometimes it's Point to Point, other times it's an out and back to the same place of origin. One man is the conductor and one the engineer per crew.
Depending on how intense the switch lists are, anywhere from 2 trains a night, with an extra maybe, up to 5 trains per night might be run usually taking about 3 hours or so. Coffee and goodies are supplied by the Superintendent to keep the crew wake! ;o)
I use a program called Rail Ops to generate freight bills or switch list. I use to do it with cards and it would take some time to figure out what goes where ect. Now with the point and click of the mouse, Rail Ops generates and keeps track of every engine and every car for me. It knows what industries need what cars, are there cars parked there already, should they be picked up and moved elsewhere or left longer to be filled or emptied. Tons of variables to mess with, but the program does it for you. Very cool.
A print out of the switch list is posted on the Board. The board consists of the Number of the Train, Engine, where it's leaving from and what time it leaves. Next to this I will assign a crew using their names. All they have to do is look at the board, see where they are, grab their Way Bill, see what train they are and where it is leaving from. The yard crew will have it already made up for them.
I tinkered with a fast clock that ran off my laptop with huge digital LED type numbers ticking away. The first night I did this was a little intimidating. It just so happened that one crew had gotten a particularly full run and when I looked at the clock I joked and said you guys are 8 hours over due and I don't pay overtime. The response was, "Heck, we left in the spring and with this load we won't be done unitl Fall!" hahaha So I'm thinking about whether or not to use the clock. We'll see ...
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