For this long-overdue session, I invited Paul Dutot (foreground) and Doug Elder (background). Paul is planning a shelf layout similar to the Patch, so hopefully the session provided him with some good ideas.
This was Doug’s second time to operate the Patch and he volunteered to do the foreman’s job again. He remembered his “mistakes” from the last time and made an effort not to repeat them. Here they are in Seventh Street Alley on Job 222, the afternoon Patch Job.
Fourteenth Session 04/06/2012
After an eighteen-month hiatus, while I finished the buildings and scenery on the Patch, it was time for another operating session. I had no intention of taking this much time off, but it just happened that way. The Patch is finished, save for a 12 square inch space where I’m putting in the Sixth Street viaduct, complete with streetcar tracks.
Finishing the scenery and buildings allowed me to photograph and write a feature article for Kalmbach’s Great Model Railroads 2012. It turned out well and for that I have to thank editor and friend Andy Sperandeo, who took my material and shaped it into something worthwhile.
While the Patch doesn’t have a “fast clock” to keep pace, crews have found that it takes them about 2½ to 3 hours to complete the work. That’s about an 8 hour trick if one were using a 3:1 clock. Switching takes about as much time on the model as it does on prototype.
Paul calls off car numbers while Doug prepares a switch list at the “conductor’s desk.” Plans for the new railroad in the basement call for a similar arrangement so crews can do their paper work.
Doug seems oblivious to the siren call of the donuts at his right elbow. Not all railroaders have that kind of discipline! Doug is getting a list together to make their last moves of the day.
