The Southern Pacific Historical and Technical Society Annual Conference was in San Luis Obispo California this year and Free-mo SLO did a setup and got in the layout tour for the conference. Thursday evening (2009 October 29) two buses came by the setup and dropped off about 80 people to see it. We were also on the self guided tour this weekend and will be open both days from 10 to 3, we got another 20 to 40 people over the weekend.

Everything went very well and it seemed like we were well receive. I think one of the key was that we were able to take all 40 people off the bus at once. We are setup in a 35 X 50 foot barn with a concrete floor. We setup the weekend before and spent the week tweaking the setup so it would be "perfect" for the tour.

The setup included two modules sets that are under construction, Oceano and Grover. These were included on one branch so there would be a display of how we build modules and because they are both local SP areas. We did operate over the two under construction modules. We had some help we a couple modules from Norcal and Free-mo LA.

We did very simple ops this time. My goal was to have trains moving.

Layout overview, we had a wye in the middle with three "branches" coming off it. On the tree ends we had

1 - Double track out to Watsonville Yard, a large 9 track 30 foot yard.
2 - Single track, no sidings out to LA yard, a 5 track 20 foot yard.
3 - Double track, to a short piece of single track 4 feet, into Oceano siding (provided a run around) to 2 stub end tracks at Grover.

The planned operation was to run 5 total jobs.

Job 1, run from Watsonville to Oceano, run around the train and push your cut of cars into the open spur at Grover, pick up the cut there and return to Watsonville.

Job 2, Start in Grover with a cut of car. Take the cut to LA yard (leaving an open spur for the cut coming from Watsonville). Drop the cut in LA and return to Grover.

With 5 cuts of cars, these two jobs could run back and forth. When the Grover to LA train returned to Grover, it drops that cut and gets the cut left from the Watsonville run. and it all starts over. A cut of cars moves from Watsonville to Grover to LA, sits a cycle then goes back to Grover and then back to Watsonville. It will take 10 cycles for the cuts to return to the starting places.

Job 3, Watsonville yard, Make up the next train out of the yard for the cycle. When the train comes back into Watsonville, drop the train and power and take the new train the was made up for you. Yard master now pulls your power, and pushes you train down into the yard and makes up the next set for your return.

Job 4, LA Yard Master. Since we needed 3 of the 5 tracks for the op, there is not much extra yard space. The train coming in and gets dropped. The ready train leaves. Yard master pulls the power and runs it around the train or puts in in the yard and puts on new power. Next train is ready to leave.

Job 5, Run a local out to Arness and Arness junction and pickup and setup cars.


Bob Schrempp
Free-mo SLO