G.F.B. on the cover...

... of the Rollling Stone? Well, not quite. But a week ago I received my copy of the excellent norwegian magazine called; MJ-Bladet and within it a 12-page story about my very own layout! Very exiting stuff, and a big dream-come-true for me. More stuff from this article soon, but first of all: The cover

Operation session #2

Finally! It's been almost a year since session #1, so it was about time I got to #2. Since the last session I have worked a lot with different technical things that makes the layout better to operate; I have mounted Tortoise-switch machines several places, made the switches short cut proof, mounted more Digitrax connections for the handheld throttles, made a control panel for Rise and made some car card holders for the fascia around the layout. I've also obtained some new cars so I don't have to rely on others to bring theirs to the sessions to have enough. Most of the new cars are standard inexpensive unmodified models, and some of them don't even have norwegian prototypes. These will be replaced in due course by correct, detailed and weathered cars as time and money allows. For this session, I wanted to try out something new; operating the layout with only two crew members. I therefore invited my nephew and good friend Kenneth Bende to have some train fun! It all turned out great and the two of us had a lot of fun, although I think the ideal number of crew members is three.

It's diffcult to find the time to photograph anything during sessions, but here are a few pictures.

Kenneth was the stationmaster at Rise this time, while I took care of both Rykene and Grimstad. We took turns at driving the trains between the stations. Here Kenneth is waiting for the freight train from Arendal  (hidden staging behind Kenneths back) to arrive. His train is the Gt5746/47 freight train for Grimstad and his engine today is GFB no.2

GFB no. 2 has picked up cars from the train from Arendal, made some pickups and setouts at Rykene, passed the spur at Lia and is now heading for Grimstad.

 

The train has now arrived in Grimstad. The loco needs to take coal and water and be turned before the return to Rise with a new string of cars. All the cars arriving in Grimstad will be sorted and set out by a small switcher stationed here.

More switching at Rykene in preparation for the arriving freight train from Grimstad.

Rykene at the end of the session. The whole session took about one hour and fifteen minutes. Next time around I will try to do two sessions in one night.