Opslog – SP&K – 9/25/2011

Opslog – SP&K – 9/25/2011

The Stuyvesant Poolsburgh & Kinderhook railroad had its shakedown ops today. It’s a slick space-age layout with optional computer control of trains (in fact, during the session, the RDC line (small interurban transports) ran across their own line and met at the Stuyvesant Central Station). It’s pretty much a passenger effort, lots of station stops, mostly double-tracked main (other than one death-defying tunnel where the line is single track). Train handling is superior to anything I’ve seen in N-scale.

Of course, that’s not to say we didn’t have problems (it was a shakedown session, after all). At first, everyone was trying to MU consists together, and evidently we’d lost all our brains. Then there were problems with becoming comfortable with turnout controls (you control them from the throttles, meaning you’ve got to switch between modes). Overall we looked like the Polish Air Force scrambling. Owner Steve smiled through it all and kept us running.

I was dead last out of staging and across the division but I used the time to get very comfortable with the turnout controls, dropping into sidings along the way, experimenting with it. After a while, no problems. It’s very slick.

The SP&K will be a good addition to the local layout scene – can’t wait til we have a working passenger schedule to time our way into and out of stations. Also, this is going to be another hot layout for the dispatcher to run – always fun.

Welcome aboard, Steve! Good job!