Guys;

We've discussed among ourselves in the operations group the missed opportunity of tank car (and other) traffic to and from the ADM facility located at the west end of the yard due to the lack of rail siding(s) for access. Last night we had a discussion with Larry Breedlove and after extensive discussion decided to try relocating the ADM facility to the Russellville industrial area (outlined in red & identified as "A" on the attached map) adjacent to the brewery where Kropp Paper has been located.

Several things came out of this exercise; the building known as Kropp Paper will work well as a warehouse extension of the brewery complex and afford more loading doors/bays for up to three 62' insulated beer cars (outlined in blue and identified as "B" in attachment). The real estate formerly occupied by the Kropp Paper building is now occupied by the ADM plant facility and this industry makes much better use of the oddly shaped footprint. We'll need to discuss among the operations group when Mike Rehling returns what changes are needed to accommodate the anticipated new traffic patterns (additional tank cars, new waybills, etc.) and how to best implement these changes.

The former footprint with no rail service formerly occupied by ADM (outlined in black and identified as "C" on attachment) will become (or is proposed to become) a new UPS service hub/sorting facility and equipment yard which doesn't prototypically require rail access/service. This was because Walthers just introduced (today, August 4) a wide range of UPS licensed building kits, vehicles, and details that we already have reservations placed with Walthers and should be among the first to receive the items as soon as they're available (see http://1-87vehicles.org/New%20Products/current.php for announcement).

If you have ideas for implementation of these changes you want to discuss, please present your proposals here for thorough discussion.

The meeting was called to order by President Larry Breedlove at 7:34PM. 23 members were present.

The minutes from the June 1, 2017 meeting were presented and approved

Presidents Report by Larry Breedlove:
Larry will discuss the upcoming elections under new business.

VP Report by John Hewitt:
No report

Council Report by Steele Craver:
The Fall train show will be September 30 – October 1, 2017. The dates of winter show is January 20-21, 2018. We will have 3 tables at the show to sell estate items and the layout will be on the tour. Signup sheets for show duties is not yet available.

Treasurer report by James Kropp:
Beginning balance on 4/1/17 $23,116.38
Expenses $
Receipts $
Ending balance $23,303.78
We have 35 members that have currently paid their membership with 5 unpaid members

Superintendent by Thomas Stephens
Repairs to the refinery area is underway. A leak from the drain upstairs resulted in several soaked ceiling tiles falling onto the layout. Chuck Grimes was prompt in limiting the damage.

Past President by Mike Cook:
Mike is working on getting the Lee Thomas estate items priced, catalogued, and ready for sale at the Fall train show along with items from the previous estates. A few pieces of old Lionel cars were received.

Mike Rehling Operations SIG:
The administrative work is nearing completion Car cards and waybills are done. A few problems with track and electrical have been found and fixed. They have placed about 170 cars around the layout and in the yard. About a quarter of these cars are club owned.

Old Business

New member Zack Neely was introduced.

Some material will be purchased to test skirting options for the layout.

Lockers need to match the standard size and color. There is room for about 8 more lockers. A motion was made by Thomas Stephens for authorizing Larry to purchase up to 8 lockers at $100 each for club use or resale to members. Mike Cook seconded the motion and was passed by voice vote.

Larry is working to complete the name change back to Texas Northern Model Railroad Club.

Bob Johnson reported that the website www.texasnorthern.org is running. A members only area requires password access. See Bob if you are having difficulties or have other questions.

Ceiling Lights: Rex and Ross will do some checking to determine if the lights need to be replaced or if the ballast is the problem.

New Business

Election of officers will be during the September 7th meeting. A slate of candidates will be ready by August 15th. Positions are: President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Superintendent, and Council Representative. Nominations will be accepted from the floor at the September meeting.
Larry received an email from the mall manager requesting a contact number for people that would like to see the layout. A discussion about committing to set hours for guests followed. Since most of the requests come during the daytime hours, there was little support for having posted hours other than Tuesday and Thursday evening.

Mall Update: A recent newspaper article was passed around regarding Collin Creek and Vista Ridge malls. Although a couple of investors have looked at CCM, there was no hot prospect mentioned.

The Great Texas Train Show will be held in Lewisville December 9-10. A club promotion table may be free and the cost of dealer tables was not known.

James Kropp announced that the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority was looking for motorman trainees.

Thomas Stephen mentioned that the NMRA October meeting might be held at our club location. That would be Saturday October 21 from 9 to 3. This is still tentative.

The meet was adjourned at 8:41

Next meetings will be on August 3, 2017 at 7:30 and September 7, 2017

Hello Everyone,

Just wanted to give an update on the third beta operating session that was held on July 11, 2017.

We got off to a bit of a rough start with the curved turnout on the "West" yard lead that leads to the inside passing or outside passing. Thanks to Mike Cook and Thomas Stephens quick action it was repaired immediately and did not delay the kickoff of the operating session.

We we had enough participation to run all of the locals and were able to have two yard operators keeping everything moving as the locals returned with their trains for classification. Oliver Bowe joined me in the yard and handled the classification of trains on the "East" end of the yard while I was able to "trim" or block the locals for the next session on the "West" end of the yard. Thank you Oliver for taking the leap into the yard.

All of the locals operated with no significant issues. Everyone seems to be getting familiar with how car card operations works and using the train orders to navigate each local to and from their destination(s).

We have discovered that the most challenging local to operate is the Palestine Turn. This local typically has the most cars (due to the refinery and coke plant) and has many facing and trailing point switches making it a real operators challenge. We may have to break this into two separate locals, or add a separate "yard job" to service the refinery. There are many options available and we are soliciting input from the beta team.

Our goal at the end of each session is to have all of the locals made up for the next session or for people to run in between sessions. These trains will be placed at the west end of the yard and their car cards will be placed in the appropriate slot in the car card box on that end by the control panel. They will also have a green slip in the car cards that says "These cars are ready for departure". That way it is very evident that the train is ready to go.

I will be posting another thread on the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that we are developing so that everyone can identify the status of the trains/cars in the yard. Look for that in the near future. Remember, our goal is to be able to run a train when someone wants to run one, even in between operating sessions. That is why we chose to use the car card system. It can be done at anytime and the system keeps on chugging (pun intended).

If you have any questions, please feel free to post them and I will monitor this board and respond the best I can.

Cheers,

Mike

Hello Everyone,

I just wanted to give an update and overview of where we are with the operations.

Our approach to introducing operations was to do it in two phases. Phase 1 is to establish the basic requirements for operating. Phase 1 will introduce approximately 2/3 of the required waybills/rolling stock required for full operations. Phase 2 will add the remaining waybills/rolling stock to the layout bringing us to the full operating potential.

Phase 1 Activities

Waybill Requirements:

First order of business was determining the number and location of each industry as well as how many "spots" each industry has that need to be served. We have identified 23 industries with a total of 123 "spots".

Once we made these determinations, we used this information to develop waybills for these industries. The number of waybills for each industry was dependent on how many "spots" each industry has and they types of cars required for each spot.

There are many considerations on how many waybills are generated for each industry/spot. The NMRA Opsig Group has a lot of information out there on how this works best. We used these recommendations as we developed our waybills. Each waybill has 4 positions, the recommendation is for one of these positions represent and industry/spot on the layout, the other 3 positions are for connecting the car to the layout from "off" the layout via "staging" or "interchange/transfer" from other railroads.

One waybill equates to one car on the layout. To keep car count down, we opted to use two positions on the waybills for spots on the layout for about 30% of the waybills we created. The remaining 60% only have one position on the waybill for the spot on the layout. This is how overhead traffic is introduced to operations via connections to off layout locations and interchange/transfer with other railroads as mentioned above.

Rolling Stock and Car Cards:

Once the particulars were known about each industry and what type of commodities they handled we could start populating the layout with the required rolling stock. Each car requires a car card which identifies the reporting marks, road number, type of car (AAR code), length, color and who physically owns the car.

We used the waybills to determine the exact number of cars and the type of car that we would need. We opted to generate our own car cards utilizing the computer instead of using the Micro Mark kit available. This was done simply because we wanted to customize the information on the car cards and we wanted to utilize a printer to print the information on them in lieu of hand writing this information. This produces a very professional looking car card. We did use temporary car cards with hand written information to help speed up the process and we are in the process of replacing these with the computer generated car cards.

Train Designations:

Once we had the waybills and the car cards generated, we needed to determine the number and types of trains we would need to operate to serve the industries. We determined that we would need 5 locals to serve all of the industries on the layout. Each local is designed to handle approximately 10-15 cars maximum. Any more than that becomes unmanageable. These locals are:

L-TEX421 - Tulsa Turn: This train serves Tulsa industries in the Route 66 section of the layout.
L-TEX437 - Russellville Turn: This train serves the Russellville industries section of the layout (but not the US Steel Mill).
L-TEX446 - Palestine Turn: This train serves the Palestine, Hartdale, and Mountain industries sections of the layout.
L-TEX479 - Hobson Turn: This train serves the Hobson industries in the Route 66 section of the layout and includes interchange with another railroad (name TBD).
L-TEX454 - Gary Turn: This train serves the US Steel Millcomplex.
L-TEX101 - East Interchange: This train serves interchange with another railroad (name TBD).
L-TEX102- West Interchange: This train serves interchange with another railroad (name TBD).

Then we have the road trains that bring us cars from "off the layout" representing distant connections to our layout. These are run as extra's when enough cars accumulate in the yard. The yardmaster will call for one of these trains for either Eastward movment or Westward movement. I took a little liberty in determining where these trains go, but they can be wherever we decide. Keeping with the East/West Theme I came up with the following road trains.

M-LRDSTL: Manifest train from Larado, TX to St Louis, MO
M-AMASHV: Manifest train from Amarillo, TX to Shreveport, LA
M-ELPSHV: Manifest train from El Paso, TX to Shreveport, LA
M-LRDKCK: Manifest train from Larado, TX to Kansas City, KS
M-STLLRD: Manifest train from St Louis, MO to Larado, TX
M-SHVAMA: Manifest train from Shreveport, LA to Amarillo, TX
M-SHVELP: Manifest train from Shreveport, LA to El Paso, TX
M-KCKLRD: Manifest train from Kansas City, KS to Larado, TX

Beta Operation Sessions:

We began beta operating sessions to see determine how well we did with all of our planning and if the waybill ratio was correct based on our planning numbers. We have made some adjustments during the first two beta sessions and will hold a couple more to monitor how these adjustments affect traffic flow. We also used these sessions to identify (and correct) any trackwork or electrical issues.

Normal Operation Sessions:

We are very close to ending the beta operation sessions and begin normal operations sessions. We still have some work to do on the rolling stock to verify each car conforms to the specified standards to ensure operating reliability.

Phase 2

We will eventually add the phase 2 waybills/rolling stock to operate at the full potential of the layout, but for now we will continue to operate using the phase 1 waybills/rolling stock.

I hope this was helpful to understand how big of a project this has been. I want to thank Thomas, Bob, Brian and all those who have provided input and feedback on getting this going.

We are on the verge of moving the layout to the "next level" and we are hopeful that each member will participate. As you can see there are a number of trains that will need operators!

We will provide updates as we continue to get this going.

Regards,

Mike Rehling

The July business meeting is this Thursday, July 6th, at 7:30, at the club. Last July we met at Golden Corral because of 85 degree temps in the old place. But sweat no more in the new club!

Topics will include upcoming elections in September, Operations update and next steps, Estate sales update. If you have a specific topic you would like to discuss or be addressed, please let me know.

I hope to see you on Thursday and have a Happy 4th of July!

Larry B

A few members are meeting at the club on Tuesday, July 4th around 11am with fixin's to celebrate the 4th and probably run a few trains. If you would like to stop by, bring some snacks and enjoy the fun.

Here's a link to a prototype "operating session" explaining types of cars, commodities, and logic of car movements during interchange, blocking, and pick up and set out of freight cars. Very helpful in understanding what we're trying to accomplish during our operating sessions on our model railroad. Link: http://tinyurl.com/ycst6xz2

The first 'Beta' ops session went well.
As expected we found some things to improve, and some switches to repair.
For a 35 year old layout that moved last year, the layout is in good shape.

We had 6 folks present and running.
As per prototype, we started an hour late.
While not absolutely necessary, running with an engineer and conductor on each train makes things go much smoother, as one person will need to use the duck-unders when running a train.

Lots of fun.

Tuesday evenings, start time 6:00 PM.

Thomas

Cars used for Ops sessions will have car cards made before they may be used.
On the back of the car card should be the last certificationdate. Think Repack or re-weight dates on actual cars.
All cars should have the following:
1. meet NMRA weight standard
2. Have Kadee couplers. Either #5 or #14. If needed, the equivalent full size coupler compatible with #5.
3. Have metal wheels in gauge.
4. must be test run successfully.