Monday, November 7, 2011 Lethbridge
6:00 am
The temperature is -3 C, with a high predicted of +3 C. From the Environment Canada website: Today Mainly sunny. Wind becoming west 30 km/h gusting to 50 late this morning. High plus 3. Tonight Clear. Wind west 30 km/h gusting to 50. Low minus 2. Normals Max: 5°C Min: -6°C.
6:15 am Morning Musings
My days seem to have evolved into ones that have major (i.e. 2 - 3 hour blocks) intervals devoted to:
- walking (which is usually done in the early afternoon when the temperature is warmest, but still below zero). At the moment this has a strong emphasis on losing some weight (about another 10 pounds) but I want to make this a regular component of my life-style. I have the time for this, so there is no excuse for letting it slide. Diet is primarily one of reducing portion size rather than calorie counting - but at the moment calories are a focus as I try to lose a few more pounds.
- model trains (the emphasis at the moment is on operational running with lots of switching)
- reading (fiction - "Infinite Jest", non-fiction - molecular biology)
Mathematics is failing to surface. It will likely alternate with molecular biology as my non-fiction reading activity.
Geocaching is restricted to local searches with the emphasis on trying to find just one per day, and only on those days that have yet to register a find (November 8, 9 and 11) are next.
Photography needs a higher profile. I need to rejoin the Lethbridge Photography Club which meets the third Thursday of each month. I also want to chat with some people about the merits and demerits of buying an extension teleconverter such as those produced by Bower or Tamron.
9:00 am Model Trains
I want to clarify the sequence of steps in the operation of my layout. Until now I have been running my trains in sequence. That is, I perform all of the moves and switching for one train, then I take the next train and do the same, and so on. Now i want to see if I can stagger the sequence so I do a few moves for one train and then a few moves for the next train, and so on. this means paying particular attention to my sidings and to where I hold trains while running others.
[8:00 PM Addendum]
I have prepared 3 pages of spreadsheets that detail all of the steps that an engineer would need to know to travel and carry out switching duties for the time period 1:00 am to 9:00 am. This provides information for Train 601 (Local Freight travelling west from Coaldale to Jasper), Train 200 (Black Zephyr unit coal train travelling east from Black Diamond to Coaldale) and Train 700 (Through Freight travelling east from Jasper to Coaldale).
I have also run all of these trains to verify that all of the sidings and mainline runs work properly with no head-on meets.
This is much better (i.e. more realistic and more operating variety) than my earlier approach where I would run one train through all of its paces before starting the next train. I continue to learn.