I have apparently not made the op session hard enough. The crew has enough time for mirth & frivolity.

Don’t worry. I’m not trying to be a cruel and vindictive dungeon master as I set up the op sessions. I want the crews to have fun. Since one crew member pictured above was back for a repeat visit, I may have captured photographic evidence that fun has been had and that the layout is worth a second visit.
At the last flea market I went to, I picked up a number of cars that will help populate the car fleet more appropriately for the Bay Area. WP, ATSF and NWP cars have been added to the fleet, as well as one of the Chateau Martin house tank cars. The basic survey of wheel gauge checks, coupler heights measurements, and truck swivel was performed, and they’re all in service now.
A number of additional Tortoise switch machines were procured as well, so I believe that I now have plenty for the State Belt, and a number of machines from the previous batch that work just fine but where the internal DPDT switch contacts do not function. There are a few people in the area who can use these motor-only machines without much trouble at all, so they won’t just sit on my shelves gathering dust.