Saturday, May 2, 2015

Pennsy Running Again

The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR or Pennsy) Irwin District is running again. Bruce came over today and the trains were running pretty well, except west bound on the inside mainline. A kink at the liftout bridge will require serious rip and replace of the track crossing the cut at the liftout. Bruce's eyes, not to mention his experience and perspective, were instrumental at finding solutions for the problems I have been encountering.
With the trains running much more reliably, we were able to go through a couple of switching maneuvers. This was a new experience for Bruce and a lot of fun for me. He more or less replicated the test run I had done, picking up (p/u) and setting out (s/o) cars at Dailey Fuel & Coal Oil in Uniontown as well and working (both p.u and s/o) the siding for LAS Fabrics in Greensburg. By watching how Bruce worked the train and noting the ideas in my head that he did not realize, I was able to come up with a plan for operating the entire layout and note the things I will have to point out to my non-train buddies when I have them over to operate.
We have already decided that the next time Bruce comes over, we are going to tackle the mountains (OK, hills) and finish the scenery on those. He also had an interesting idea to finish the scene between Uniontown and Irwin Yard that should blend the view-block a little better into the scenery.
I have ideas on how to finish the industries (PPG, Heinz and another yet to be named) behind the Irwin yard. And after Bruce left, I had a brilliant idea for masking the other corner of layout to with a building based on the old May Stern Furniture Co. building but it will have to be a different name since that company is already on the layout in a different location.
So many ideas....so much to do...I love it!