The 3rd Thursday of every month is “Trained Operator” night at K-10. Engineers are assigned a job, with a job sheet and the entire layout is under the control of a dispatcher. Radio headphones are used to communicate with the dispatcher. Nothing moves without his permission. On this evening in Feb 2012, Crispy is running the Ore train with a number of cars to set out and collect at the ore dock. Andrew’s CP units are a bit too much power for a short mixed freight, but with numerous set-outs and pick-ups to accomplish he was kept busy for a couple of hours.
There are both DCC and DC sections on the layout. A couple of dozen trains are running at any given time. Thanks to all those that get this set up and make it happen.
I live about 1.5 hours to the west of the layout and Ive visited twice, however never on a operating day. Maybe next month? There hobby shop is pretty good too.
4000 sq ft roughly. You’ll see more detailed layouts, but what is really great about this is how freely it is made available to the public. The track-work is all off the shelf stuff, Atlas code 100 and Peco turnouts, built to be bullet proof and very reliable. My boys have been running trains on this since they were just about able to see over the bench-work. It is really neat to see the young smiling faces as they get the chance to run on something of this magnitude. The DCC portion is Digitrax with both simplex and duplex wireless. The DC section has multiple blocks with walk around cable throttles.
K-10 is Ken! It was his Navy call sign. His last name is a long Polish name starting with a K and 10 letters, Utterly unpronounceable to normal mortals, hence the handle that stuck throughout his Navy career.
Maybe next month? There hobby shop is pretty good too.