Last Sunday I conducted operating session #105 on my layout. It was in most ways a typical session, though with some restrictions on track usage on account of the recent track rebuilding between Ballard and Santa Rosalia (see my post. at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/09/trackwork-wars-part-15.html ). Because I knew the crews were pretty experienced operators, I did schedule a few more car moves than usual.They did just fine, finishing pretty much in line with average crew times or better.
Because this is September, and on my layout, we operate as on the day in 1953 that corresponds to the calendar day of our operation, thus it was September 21, 1953. A very visible feature of my operations in this season is the variety of foreign reefers that are in use, compared to most of the year when reefers to be loaded are almost exclusively PFE (for background, you can consult this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/08/operations-for-peak-harvest-season.html ).
That meant that we had scenes like this one, with the Santa Rosalia Local picking up loaded FGEX and BAR reefers. (You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.)
My crew this time comprised Mark Schutzer, Mike Steward, Steve Van Meter and John Wiley. All handled their jobs well. The two teams were Mark and John , and Steve and Mike. Mark and John began at Shumala. Meanwhile, Steve and Mike were busy at Ballard, and here Mike was conducting (that’s him at left),
As usual, once each crew had completed work where they were, the branch train returned to Shumala, and the former Shumala crew took a new train to Ballard for a second set of switching, while the new crew at Shumala handled the returned cars, along with cars set out by the passing Guadalupe Local.
That second crew taking the Local to Ballard was Mark (at left) and John, and in this view, it’s Mark who was conducting.
Meanwhile at Shumala, Steve took over conducting while Mike took over engineer duties. Steve is matching waybills to cars in this view.
All in all, the session went well despite the inability to switch at Santa Rosalia this time (that trackwork issue), and in spite of a broken feeder wire discovered too late to fix. Experienced operators, particularly those with layouts of their own, know well that “things happen,” and they can deal with the need to work around difficulties. That’s what this session did too.
Tony Thompson