Another model railroad weekend has started. Last night, worked the operators job on the Great Northern, acting as station operator at locations such as Saunders WI, Gunn, MN, Cass Lake MN, Kelly Lake etc. This railroad runs under Timetable and Train Order. Wrote about 14 train orders, and clearances for about 17 trains. On the fast clock, we ran 8 hours in about three hours. The operator copies train orders from the dispatcher, prepares the clearances for the train, sets the train order signals at stations where required (or gets the orders and clearance to the crews leaving from the staging yard), and prepares the switch lists for the locals from the waybills. I never thought that preparing paperwork for a model railroad could be this much fun, but I enjoy it immensely. The operators station sits in the main layout area, so it is quite entertaining seeing movements around the railroad that would not happen unless they had their clearance (even for a scheduled train), and train orders for the extra trains (or for unscheduled meets etc.). Looking forward to trying the dispatching job on this railroad.
Last weekend, worked on my timetable, which is one thing that I need to complete ahead of my next (2nd) operating session with Rail Group Chicago. I had a very rudimentary timetable completed for my first session, with the only scheduled train in the 1st session being the morning locals between Worley ID and Spokane WA. The next session runs the name trains.
One of the name trains will be the "North Coast Hiawatha". Since the Milwaukee does not exist west of Terry MT on my railroad, this was a joint train operated over the Milwaukee Road between Minneapolis and Chicago. For this train, I am using my Challenger Models 1948 North Coast Limited, pulled by two Intermountain Models F7s and an F3, in the pine tree passenger scheme. Here is a poor photo showing the train east of Conrad, WA, in 1952. My layout is a bear to photograph well, and will require special lighting for high quality photos. I shot this with my i-Phone. No time for fancy shots right now.
I also worked out an asset transfer with the CEO of the Chicago and Western. He modifies all of the underframes for his MDC ore cars for close coupling and with scale couplers. So, he gave me 59 modified underframes, and I gave him back 59 of my unmodified underframes. Here are some shots showing the differences,
For every eight cars, there is about one less car length with prototypical close coupling. MUCH better looking.
Coutinuing the model railroad weekend with the addition of Intermountain metal wheels to 22 Kadee log cars that we secured from the Chicago and Western (surplus to their operation), and installing a step from my main basement to the sub basement. The height difference is 10.5", which is more than a standard step. I'll have that fixed before the weekend is over.
Last week, wasted about 4 hours running trains on 3D TrainStuff Cajon pass route. Thanks Andre. 
Your route is developing quite nicely.
Regards,
Jerry
