I have made quite a few new acquaintances in the past three weeks. My time talking to Mike Hamer has turned into invitations to several local layouts. My first operating session was on the Lyon Valley North at Chris Lyon's home in the east end of Ottawa ( Orleans ). This is a modern period layout. 100% diesel and a smooth runner using Digitrax DCC throttles. As Mike uses Digitrax as well this made my initiation into the world of operations quite painless. As engineer on a local freight and teamed up with Mike we had a great time.

The following week I received an invitation to operate on what could be the largest HO layout in the city. Once or twice a year, Mike and the guys and gals from the Friday Night Group, are invited to Tom Hood's Canadian Northern layout that takes up two rooms and is about 60' x 30' in area. I hope to post some video from that session soon. This layout runs on time schedule and an order sheet using Lenz DCC throttles. About 60 steam engines and a few diesel switchers in the yard along with about 400 pieces of rolling stock populate this extravaganza. I managed to run an extra as well as a scheduled train solo and other than requiring a helper up the final climb. There were 13 of us operating that night and the dispatcher was complaining we were short staffed and that it would probably take a couple of hours with several operators the next day to tidy things up by running the rest of the trains.

Last Friday I had the pleasure of operating on Dave Primeau's Boston & Maine themed layout. This layout is closer in size to my own train space and gave me a good idea of what can reasonably be accomplished in a limited space. This week we ran with MRC DCC throttles, most of which were wireless. This layout has narrow aisles but this was not much of a problem as each yard was assigned switching duties. The layout was run under a fast clock and modified car card system which worked quite well. Here are some photos from that session.