An Ops Moment

Following up on Thursday night, I went to another round of operations sessions on Saturday, in the area around Aiken, South Carolina, hosted by the District 9 of the NMRA's South East Region. First up that morning was Steve Prevette's Burnt Hills and Big Flats Railroad. Steve's railroad was featured in the 2015 Great Model Railroads issue from Model Railroader. However, he has rebuilt part of the layout since then. Steve's layout also has more moves on it than I could count, which speaks to its construction and design principles.

The Mount Pleasant Area on the BH&BF RR.

 I operated the X35, a local that ran most of the length of the railroad to the town of Sidney. In Sidney, I have a fair amount of work to do while staying out of the way of several other trains. This end of the railroad operates under Timetable and Train Order Operations. But once I got to Sidney things were pretty quiet. I even worked within yard limits to help a long train from the D&H turn at Sidney to make its run down the mainline. A quite entertaining N scale railroad. Steve was a great host and fed us a great lunch.

X-35 working towards Sidney.

Mayfield Yard.

Sandy Eustice, my ride for the trip working Scranton.

Steve (in Blue) watching us work the railroad.

Next up was Don Barnes HO Scale B&O Baltimore and Cumberland Division Railroad. This is a massive layout, which will eventually model the complete run from Baltimore to Cumberland Maryland, with if I recall correctly, only two sidings missing. Don models 1949, and every car and locomotive can be documented to have been on the line then. Even the schedule is a match for the run. The layout is mostly unsceniced and about 60% complete. 30 buildings are on the layout, all scratchbuilt by Don's "guy", with 104 to go. There is a massive roundhouse, the Ellicot City freight house and others to admire.

A 19 (Yes 19!!!) Stall Roundhouse...

WB Tower with 3 Brakemen to the Right.

Harpers Ferry Station.

 I ran one of the three yards in the layout, located in Martinsville, WV (I may have the name wrong), and had a great time. The locomotives were exquisite and the handlaid trackwork was beautiful. It was fun to operate even without the full layout in place, and scenery. I hope that we get to operate there again when things are complete. And Don is a wellspring of knowledge about the B&O.

Martinsville, WV Yard.

 Our last stop of the day was at Robin Riley's place for dinner and a layout tour. Robin is building a layout to model the CBQ Hannibal Division, in N Scale. Being later in the day, and it being a smaller layout, I did not take as many pictures, but it was good to see. The craftsmanship Robin put into his layout was amazing. He is busily developing a full signalling system that will soon be tested first with manual wood signals. Robin organized the weekend, and was a great host throughout.

The CBQ Hannibal Division.

The Oil Refinery on the Hannibal Division.

A big thank you to Steve, Don and Robin for their hospitality this weekend, and to Sandy for driving. The 16 hour day was well worth the fun of the adventure. Hopefully it will not be my last visit to the layouts of SER Division 9.

Cameron Turner