Op Session 17 - Half John

An interesting situation at Brooke

John Drye at Aquia Landing

Ops Sessions 17 on the Aquia Line and 22 on PoLA are in the books. The half of the crew today were Johns -  John Drye, John Salmons, John Barry. Of the crew not with the first name John were Tom Pierpoint, Brad Trencamp, and first timer Ambrose Nangeroni.

The sessions went well. I never heard a peep from the PoLA crew of conductor John Barry and engineer Brad Trencamp. John was celebrating his birthday too, which was Friday.

John Salmons and Amby Nangeroni at Falmouth

Meanwhile, Train 7 and 10 ran under conductor John Salmon's leadership with Amby on the engine. Trains 8 and 9 were conducted by Tom Pierpoint with John Drye on the engine.  Things were running well until engine Haupt started stuttering near the end of the session. I swapped it out and the crew finished with Whiton. Of course I wasn't able to replicate the problem once I had Haupt on a test track. Arrg DCC!

The crews did a pretty good job in filling out their paperwork too, though Train 9 forgot to do a conductor's report at the end of the session, but Tom can be excused since he was distracted as we finished the session with a discussion of the work on the new telegraph system.

John Barry and Brad Trencamp working PoLA

One of the great things about the Washington DC area is talented people we have in this area.  For example today we had 5 engineers, an architect, and economist in the crew. Two of the engineers are electrical engineers and they are interested in helping build the telegraph system.  Tom gave me some good ideas on how to build the panels, while Amby volunteered to do extra work sessions to help.

 The January session will be a work session vice an op session. Hopefully by then I will have one of the telegraph stations built so we can mass produce the rest.

Group shot of the crew looking resplendent in their Aquia Line shirts