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KVRY Ops
Every year, the Kaskaskia Valley Railway holds an Annual Fall Operating Session over Saturday and Sunday (they also host one in the spring), in Carlyle, Illinois.
Ric and Jan Golding host a very fun event.
They use RailOps software for the control of car movement and radios for dispatching.
It is a weekend ops session with both days starting around noon and going until nobody is running trains anymore.
The setup starts on Friday and sometimes Thursday, but the actual event is Saturday and Sunday.
The goal is to run 18 trains to a schedule; sometimes more, sometimes left. Either way, there is lots of food and its a lot of fun.
2008
On Halloween, we flew out to St. Louis in October and then drove to Carlyle, Illinois where we visited Ric and Jan Golding’s Kaskaskia Valley Railway.
The KVRY starts in the basement and extends from the back of the house all the way to the front yard.
It takes quite a bit of time to traverse from one end to the other, and just getting out of the basement can be an adventure in itself.
2009
Last year we flew out to St. Louis, then rented a car to drive for an hour or so to Carlyle. But a 12 hour delay on the flight out convinced to drive from now on.
Jean and I always walk around Carlyle Lake before heading over to the operations session.
2010
This year, we stopped by Andy Clarke’s Bluestone Southern on Friday before the annual event at the KVRY.
We arrived at Andy and Jane's a bit before noon on Friday. It was very windy and not all that warm - except for the hospitality!
Saturday found us over on the KVRY for operations.
2011
This is bittersweet as this is the last session to be held at Ric and Jan's.
It looks like Andy and Jane will be hosting further sessions on their Bluestone Southern.