ne of the rockier sessions on the WAZU, still mostly on time but with rage and thunder to get us there. I still had fun, as did most of the other operators. Andy always puts on a good show and great lunch – I eat better than at home.

I had the dispatcher’s seat (third time in a week) and the session started out well. Trains were rolling on their times and making their stops. Andy’s new system of posted turnout IDs made it easy to get the remote trains across the line (still, I was only diverging them when needed). Everyone knew their jobs and did them. Had a pretty easy time of it.

Then some stooge brought a wrong train out of Portland, hours before its time. There was already a bundle-o-fun developing around Hinkle Yard when suddenly the superintendent came in (I really need to start locking that door) and in the gentlest, most deferential servant-like tones (including a bow) took one of my markers off the board and placed another one (a long-train marker!) right on the mainline at Biggs Junction (on the siege-lines of Hinkle Yard), bowed once or twice more, and told me it had to sit there for the next six hours. I couldn’t believe it. Dispatching is a performance of finely choreographed luck and this wasn’t a tossed wrench – it was a huge pipe wrench, industrial grade. Add to this we had two remote Amtraks sniffing around each other at Troutdale and the shit was now really hitting the fan.

Kyle loiters in the yard, pondering what led him to this point.

Suddenly, the radio, which had been so docile and sharp, now sounded like ATC on Airshow Day. Everyone was stepping on each other and some unhelpful critiquing was burning up the last of the bandwidth. And that’s when Hinkle Yardmaster came into my office (I gotta really lock that door) to tell  me some totally preposterous story that a train I’d been moving west across my division with cunning and vigor was, no, actually in his yard facing east. Which (unless Doc’s magic fingers were moving trains around again) was impossible. I suggest to Father Christmas that he should visit his doctor and schedule a stroke scan.

Looking back at that maelstrom of chaos, what I should have done was to break in overhead on the general broadcast line and order the air cleared on the general com line. Then I should have contacted each train, one at a time, to verify their locations (and, possibly their directions, Bob!) and gotten the railroad back under control. I’ve been dispatching club-sized layouts for twenty-five years and had never encountered that sort of situation. Survive and learn, I guess. A new trick to put into the ol’ dispatching bag.

Special thanks to Zach, who put the lumberjack run on hold to be the dispatcher’s man-on-the-scene and bring order to the bullshit. We’d have been there all night if he hadn’t stepped in. At least we would have all still been fed.

Eventually Hinkle Yard’s yardmaster (having returned to his business) got things out. I had to move something like eight trains around Biggs, giving special orders to each to take the siding. Finally the time came for that train to roll and we moved it out, draining the scene where so much blood was spilled. Kinda makes you think of present day Normandy Beach, with nothing left but memories and rusted ruin. That’s Hinkle Yard now.

Late in the session, Pasco makes it look easy as he clears his last train out.

Anyway, after that, it was pretty easy. The trains cleared out, the last few got “fire and forget” orders, and the session wound down, finishing under the wire.

And you kiddies, so good, waiting for your storyteller to mentioned the debrief and that. Well, if I’m going to say anything about that, it’s to say that it was earned and overdue. So there. Go to bed.

Thanks, doc, for not just throwing us out at midpoint.

>>>BUY A BOOK BEFORE I GET MAD<<<

All photos courtesy of Dan L

Hinkle Yard, where Hinkle Yardmaster should be.

The broad shoulders of the owner/superintendent, now stooped. (Late photo: Bob K)