I ran a train today!

I fired up the Railroad today for the first time in months. I have had a small JMRI generated train switchlist sitting on a clipboard since February. Today, I decided to run that train. Before starting, I vacuumed off the track with a small rechargeable vacuum. I flipped the power switch and the Railroad started right up. I have set the Digitrax command station to turn the track power on as soon as the CS is powered up. The prime movers of the 3 locos scattered around the Railroad came to life and I was ready to go. The switch job was for a few industries on the Illinois side of the Railroad. I used one of my Android phones as a throttle and I was off…for just a minute. The loco sputtered and jerked along on the long unused tracks. I cleaned the loco wheels on the cleaning track and then used the cleaner (kerosene) on a cloth and cleaned the rails in Illinois. The loco ran better but was still a little jerky. I dealt with the finicky loco and switched 11 cars in 1 hour 26 minutes.

The main takeaway of the ‘session’ is that I am really rusty at switching. There weren’t a lot of cars to move but I did have to do a lot of reshuffling of some the cars because they weren’t placed advantageously at runaround tracks and sidings. I had a good time anyway and will improve as I get back in the groove.

Before starting another session, I will be sure to thoroughly clean the track and locos. There is nothing more annoying than a crappy running loco. See ya!