Switching (Shunting) Ashippun on the Gopher Canyon Line

[Steve Seidensticker]

A friend and I recently spent an afternoon videoing one of the jobs in a GCL operating session. It is a bit crude but only our first attempt. Any comments and suggestions for improvement will be appreciated. Enjoy!

Steve Seidensticker

 

[dunnyrail]

A friend and I recently spent an afternoon videoing one of the jobs in a GCL operating session. It is a bit crude but only our first attempt. Any comments and suggestions for improvement will be appreciated. B

Very interesting to see a turn be operated, much as I would do on my line. A very good effort at vid for your first attempt, most interesting and shows the complexity of what on the face of it a simple task. Perhaps next time a selection of inbound cars as well, though that would extend the run of the vid quite a bit! Some thoughts on the production:-
- Zoom can sometimes be overused and often best nit used at all.
- A tripod can make things nicer though this will likely extend the time taken to create the movie.
- Not too much high speed running, but that bit could have been edited.

- A bit more info on the loco sound card etc would have been of interest.
- Loved the info on shoving putting back cars needed to extricate one behind another.
- Perhaps some info on how your wagon movements are generated, waybills or switch lists may have added to the production but probably only needs reference to the first showing in other vids.

Looking forwards to future productions.

 

[viaEstrecha]

Mmm, we likes gentle shunting.

 

[Gizzy]

Nicely done video. I like the use of a battery powered loco, rather than track powered can be better for shunting.

I assume the Buckeyes are Kadee and large magnets are placed accordingly in the four foot where the half buried 45 gallon drums are....

 

[Steve Seidensticker]

- Zoom can sometimes be overused and often best nit used at all.
- A tripod can make things nicer though this will likely extend the time taken to create the movie.
- Not too much high speed running, but that bit could have been edited.

- A bit more info on the loco sound card etc would have been of interest.
- Loved the info on shoving putting back cars needed to extricate one behind another.
- Perhaps some info on how your wagon movements are generated, waybills or switch lists may have added to the production but probably only needs reference to the first showing in other vids.

Thanks for the feedback. I fully agree with the comments regarding the use of zoom and a tripod. Will take that into account on the next effort.

The several clips that showed the high speed running were the result of editing the video to shorten it. Next time I will speed up such clips even more to make it obvious that the speed is a result of editing. Even so I had to slow the engineer several times and make his couplings a bit more gentle.

I put some of technical info in the video description in YouTube, but should also have posted it here as well. Anyway, the loco is powered by a 14v lithium battery, control is via the BlueRail/Blunami app on an iPhone driving a BlueRailDCC 5A receiver from Tam Valley Depot running in Basic mode, and sound is from a MyLocoSound (electric) card.

Car forwarding is implemented via the OperationsPro section JMRI. The Gopher Canyon Line hosts a monthly operating session that is mostly switching. The town of Ashippun track layout was inspired by John Alan's Timesaver. The Ashippun turn is often more complicated than the five-car pick up shown in the video. It is the most challenging job of an op session. Some of my operators look forward to it, others avoid it.

Steve

 

[Steve Seidensticker]

I assume the Buckeyes are Kadee and large magnets are placed accordingly in the four foot where the half buried 45 gallon drums are....

Yes, many years ago I settled on body mounting #1 Kadees on all rolling stock, which is a mix of 1:32 and 1:29 scale. You are right, the red barrels mark the uncoupling magnets. I like to use them but many of my operators prefer flattened dowels to uncouple. It takes some maintenance to keep the magnets working correctly. See <

> for more info. It is an old video but the info is current.