Nashville said
Hey Jim, it's winding down, you only have about 1/2 an hour left.  We are anxious to know how it went and how you survived!!

When you are up to it and have recovered, please give us a review of the day and the railroad.  Hope you signed up some new crewmembers for the C&NE.

Best, Andy ( and Bob 😉

Andy, (and Bob),

Signatures on 97 lines in the guest book, with one to three names on each line.  The first guest arrived at 9:41am (because that is the time on the ProTrak file ;)) ) and the last couple, from Vinland in Niagara wine-country left about 8:30pm.  Visitors from all over southern Ontario and one guest from NY.  That's up from 85-lines last year.   Some people visited twice yesterday.   Some stayed for hours.   Lot of people all day long, to the point that unfortunately I did not have proper time to speak with everyone.  All in spite of the snow and rain.

You may see a write-up, coming out of a Toronto-based blog.

Had great conversations with a number of people.  ...with Blair and Craig - from "up the valley" (Deep River... that's 6 hours away and go find that on a map!) who clearly read this chatlist!!!!

With Ric Soulis, a longtime hydrology professor and researcher, and his wife Carol, we found that we had crossed paths working in the Mackenzie valley and at Norman Wells in the 70s... and they had been at St. Andrews crossing paths with Natalie also in the 70s.  Highly unexpected connections... or should it be "expected"? .... at a model railroad!! 

Seeing the bright computer screens, some asked about operations software I was using.  I gave a totally unbiased evaluation!! Noting the difference between "pre-set - print it all out first" and "real-time - being able to make corrections as you go" (which leaves two programs), and between "random numbers generators" and "every car has a purpose - with a commodity, which directs the cars' movements" ... (which leaves one program).  

Paul's son 7-year-old Ben came over, and ran units and a few trains, through the morning and the early afternoon.   Then Ben got dragged away.. I think next year he will bring a sleeping bag.  Later another 11-year-old ran a unit (and when his father found out dashed over)... but he knew what he was doing....really well.   Other guests ran while I chatted.

~~~

I now know that there is a dip just east of Crawford, that tripped up a C-636 running on its own but oddly not when the same unit was in a lashup.  I will pry up the homasote over that 4-inches ever so slightly to remove that dip.   At least one visitor's head brushed the smoothing capacitors on the Hankscraft/Tortoise supply (which was at 77-inches off the floor!!) causing a brief short.... I taped them up and they are mounted higher on the beam!!!  Other than that, the railroad was on for 13 hours, just fine.

The layout-owners tour is Tuesday evening.

            Jim

Last night was a "Layout Owners' Tour" evening, where people who hosted on Saturday were able to visit railroads in Waterloo and metro-downtown Baden.  

People arrived from 7pm to 10:30pm.  Twenty people signed "the book" but I know more visited the C&NE.

On the two tour-days, maybe 1/2-dozen expressed a desire to operate here.  So I am looking at regular operations-sessions once I get the Harrowsmith yard - HRW-Yd - class bowl tracks in service.

I have been running through the line-up myself here, and I can say that I ~feel~ for Andy and Jim B. having to classify cars at HRW as they did at two of the Weekends here.  Right now the four A/D tracks at HRW are packed and PMSJ is about to arrive with 18 cars; there are 27 waiting to go east on PMSJ.   Need the bowl!

              Jim

Andy,

I had a "flyer" as a handout for visitors.  On the flyer I listed some items I want to get done this year - all the fascia and all the backdrop was #2 on that list.

Now that! all depends on being able to cut wood in the garage which all depends on the weather.  I suspect you also are looking at 6-inches of snow on the ground and temperatures in the 20s.   Sheeesh.   It's April already!!!

              Jim

Just as follow-up, the total attendance on the DoubleHeaders Tour this year was 371.   So about 1/2 of the guests/tourees visited the C&NE 10 days ago.

That total number is up from last year, and was inspite of the snow/rain/slush/ice we had all day that Saturday.

                  Jim