Wednesday, November 9, 2011 Lethbridge

5:50 am

The temperature is -9 C, with a high predicted of +7 C. From the Environment Canada website: Today Mainly sunny. Wind becoming west 30 km/h gusting to 50 this afternoon. High 7. Tonight Clear. Wind southwest 30 km/h gusting to 50. Low plus 1 with temperature rising to plus 5 by morning. Normals Max: 5°C Min: -7°C.

5:00 PM Geocaching

I took a few minutes from other activities to rush out to look for one cache on the outskirts of the city. It turned out to be a quick park & grab which was what I wanted.

• GC35ND7 - Back Road to Coalhurst

10:00 PM Model Trains

I am playing around with some possible improvements to my operating procedures. The basic idea is to approach each switch tentatively and ensure that it is set properly. In cases where need to be changed the procedure is to stop the train, throw the switch, pass through the switch, and then line the switch to the mainline.

In order to make a set of commands for the engineer, I have had to renumber many of the switches. I have also color coded them so a novice can tell at a glance whether the switch is controlled by the hand-held control, the push-button panels mounted in front of the major yards, or whether it must be operated manually.

I have now created an extensive list of steps for all train movement for the first two hours (out of 24) of the timetable. It seems to be working but I may play with a few statements to make it more efficient. All mainline switches should be set for through trains. This should be handled by some form of central control (or by operating procedures which require any crew that opens a mainline switch also closes it when the train has passed through it) so the train should not have to stop at these switches unless it plans to open them to enter a siding. However a train should always stop when approaching any non-mainline switch to ensure it is set properly for what the train orders require.