fter a hiatus, I’m back. I won’t be regular or kind (hey, that’s the mark of being old, right?). But I will use this for my soap box on model trains and their operations.

So, a lot of you think running toy trains is fun (regardless of the fact that we call it “Operations” and say it with a clenched jaw). And fine, if you like snapping together unitrak into a double loop with the requisite double-crossover, go right ahead. No police force is going to break into your hobby room and carry you off (not quite yet). It’s your railroad, as everyone says.

However, for those who live, breathe and OPERATE our railroads, please note. To set up for operations, most railroads require some degree of re-staging (moving cars to their start points, turning trains around in stub-end yards), cleaning (my fingers are alcoholic from all the 91% rubbing alcohol they absorb), printing up paperwork (line-ups, switchlists, train schedules), organizing a crew (who to call, and who to remain very quiet around), and laying in snacks. Hosting a session is a lot of work. And all the owner asks is that you come to run trains. Little stories, quick greetings, all that is fine. Talking endlessly is not.

Babbling ruins the mood of operations. Most operators are working out the most efficient way to sort and index outgoing trains, filling out their paperwork, mentally working out their switching moves, considering their train orders, and even dispatching a dynamic transportation system involving many, many moving trains. Standing in the overly tight aisle talking about your Alaska cruise or that new Netflix series is really not cool. Nobody really wants to hear it. We all came to enter the world of, say, 1962 in the fictional Pennsylvanian town of Tuscarora, moving coal and shunting cars. I came to hear those Also sound chips come to life, and listen as the operators blow for the level crossing, not to hear all about your gout.

Look, it’s like church. You go, you greet those you know in adjacent pews, you chat amongst your family, all that. The service starts and you quiet down. Oh, you might still make noise. But it’s in-keeping-with-the-point-of-the-gathering noise: hymns and repeating various chants and all that. When everything is said and done, with that final amen, then you can gather your coats and call out to friends, talking as you line up to exit, de-briefing with the padre before heading out to your car. You are a member of the congregation. And that means, basically, shut up.

Think about the owner. He’s invested tens of thousands of hours into making his operation session into a moment in place and time. He wants nothing more than a crew who has read and understood their orders to ease into a siding, clearing an on-coming hot-shot. He doesn’t want to be running his railroad while listening you corner someone who just came to run trains to tell them about your latest medical procedure. And it comes down to a simple fact – the host might not be able to figure out where the crackle in his communications lines are coming from, or why he’s got an intermittent short at the west Brownsville siding turnout. And that one caboose – why does it derail on straight and level track? Sure, all of these are going to be difficult things to fix. But there’s one thing he can fix easily. He can cut the chatterbox out of his session. He can make his railroad more about his railroad and less about you.

And it’s not just the owner. There are people whose absence is a happy thing to all the people they ran with. At our club, two people were bounced because of their actions during sessions  (one for showing porn to other members in mid-sessions, the other for temper-tantrums). Since then, it’s been a common comment – the session is so much more enjoyable, more focused on railroading, without stupid distractions. They are not missed, and that fault is theirs.

You might be thinking that I’m a mean-old perfectionist on this, but I go to enough sessions where people I’ve gotten invited in eventually talk their way out – with the owner quietly telling me not to bring them back. Nothing chafes a superintendent more than someone who makes a mistake that bottles the railroad, and not an innocent mistake but an inattentive one. If you were talking about that Caribbean cruise and miss-spot all the boxcars at the wrong doors at their freight house (“oh look, there were door numbers above the doors – didn’t notice that”) then you might not be invited back.

Really, as a blogger for every session I attend, there is nothing sadder than someone who reads one of my blogs and wonders, “Why didn’t I get an invite to that session?” What can I tell you? The railroad fell three hours behind because you were showing pictures of your grandkids? I hate getting put in that position.

Really, do us all a favor – when you come and operate, don’t do it half-ass. We need all your ass, both cheeks, to give the superintendent the session he spent all that effort setting up for.

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Even small railroads (like my Tuscarora) require the crews to be attentive. (Photo: Zeus H)