Sunday Night Operations in Liberty Village…after operating in rural England all weekend…

What do you want to do when you’ve travelled half way across the continent to run trains on a gorgeous British Layout at the Great British Train Show? Well, if you’re my friend and house guest for the weekend Trevor, who hasn’t been in Ontario since he went west in mid 2020, its run more trains, though his taste in wanting to run my layout after 2 days on Roweham are, questionable!

In all seriousness, Trevor last really saw my Layout in January 2020…when I parked him beneath the benchwork to help with wiring DCC feeders and drops from the track to power the layout. He saw it one more time briefly when he brought Matthieu Lachance and Chris Mears through in February 2020 en route to a get together in Hamilton, then well, the chaos came. Obviously, if you’re reading the blog, you are aware the layout has come a long way since then. As is Trevor, but others who helped with the construction have mostly had the chance to visit and run trains, he has not. So, after wrapping up at the GBTS, it was back to our townhouse to finish setting up for operations. We had a good crew of 3 guests, Trevor along with Mark and Chris. I as usual provided an introduction, offered support, dealt with any problems of my construction, and watched others experience the layout and find problems (Cause I’ve still got lots of those!).

First crew of Trevor and Mark worked through both a CNR Job and a CPR Job

After Trevor and Mark finished the first round of work, Chris had arrived and he joined in with Trevor to run the 2nd shift of work, while Mark and I relaxed and chatted. As has been the case every time the layout runs, little niggles with cars, or track appear. The more I run, the more the areas that need work or the cars that need some more fettling to run appear. The big issue is, and has been, my staging traversers and their alignment and willingness to hold alignment. Having Chris and Mark here though, may be starting us down the path to adjustments to fix that. Both are amazing mechanical minds, and immediately upon seeing the issues as they worked, both were bouncing ideas off each other and thinking of ways to create holds that would ensure proper alignment. Its nice to have friends with much different skillsets to me. Ask me to draw up a building and model it from photographs and a few loose measurements, no problem. Ask me to solve an engineering problem…and well…you choose poorly.

Chris and Trevor work the second shift, also of CNR and CPR jobs, and use the buildings as view-portals onto the layout.

I am pretty sure I’ve said it before, or something similar, but every time I have people over who see the layout for the first time (or the first time in a long time), the fact that their reactions have been so positive and kind, keeps me going. There are still a few people I really want to see it in its half finished state, to help using the collective mind for some issues, and to thank them for their support and friendship, since still like a broken record there are so many people I haven’t seen in far too long.