o I’m sitting in the cab of trusty 4263, perhaps the cleanest engine of the SP fleet. I’ve got my cup of coffee. I’ve got my warrant out. From behind me, I can smell the rust and powdered limestone dust off the empty hoppers, bound for Hidden Spur. In the distant tower, the leverman works. The exit dwarf goes green. I reach for the throttle.

And then it’s lights out as someone hits me in the back of the head with a bag full of dried track erasers.

I come to on the ballast of… squinting… Martin Yard. My engines idle behind me, transported here as if by some giant’s hand. And standing over me, two sinister cloaked figures smelling of waybills. I nod. Yardlettes. That’s when they tell me that I work for them now, that I’m taking the Shelfton Turn out, limestone be damned. Shaking my throbbing head, I climb into my cab…

The Juice rolls out of Calypso through fresh new scenery – thanks, Bill W! (John DV)

Yeah, we started with some crew reassignments due to a bit of a light turnout. I was okay with it, but poor Eric T ended up with the Zanesville turn. In retrospect, giving a new local operator this massive multi-town train was probably a mistake – I should have swapped with him. Still, my own run wasn’t something a newbie needed – the back industrial track was dead, meaning I couldn’t reach Gallard, Federal Cold and Redwing without toy-train pushing. I plan to get to the bottom of that Monday night.

In retrospect, if anything should have been cancelled, it maybe should have been the helpers, making that more of an As-Needed job. Lots of retrospect in the morning after.

Otherwise, a lot of people stepping in and showed club spirit. I asked Jude S if he’d take 202 out and he did without any fuss. David C took on the Mill job with little instruction. Chris S fell into a furnace and was flash-fried to ashes, which adds to the mill output. And Bob K let me run Nazareth Turn by warmly telling me to do it myself.

I think some of our young guests were buzzed on cocaine. Thanks to all who helped them operate. One of them chased my eventual limestone run up the helix, riding my caboose.

Seriously, even short staffed, most people ran several jobs, for which the set-up crews are thankful.

Sometimes it’s easy to overlook the sheer scale of what we do (John DV)

At first, I thought we had rats. But it’s worse. We have… dispatchers! (Luke L)

Our new dispatchers made names for themselves (usually screamed by doomed crews in cursing rages right before the fiery collision). Yeah, I did hear of a couple of headlight issues, and one bit where engineers simply moved a meet point because of an occupied siding. I also heard of some westbound trains finding their way onto the Red Rock siding (which is simply not done) – not sure if that was on the crews or the dispatcher. These things happen. I guess I’ll be back at the desk next month (unless someone coshes me again). Anyone want to run with me, let me know next week. Bribes are accepted. Pay to play.

But thanks for all the folks who came out. All in all, it was a lot of fun.

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Bob K, after dumping 973 on me, gets burned by my unweighted cars. Sorry, Bob (Luke L)

Working it out on the ground. Good to see that AJ can still run coal very, very fast. And Eric, having done Zanesville, is doing well in the Sanitarium. (John DV)