ince nobody in the club watches old black&white moves from the 1940s, let me describe the trope. Generally it involves a collection of optimistic young men and women who need to raise money for their university, town or charity. “Hey, I know! Let’s put on a show!”

In this age before montages, most of the movie is them getting ready, making the sets, practicing their lines, funny little bits. And then, opening night. Their big chance! All the players line up and peek through the curtains into the theater’s seating. Nothing but empty seats. “Oh no! But what about our university/town/charity?”

“We said we’d put on a show! So raise the curtain and let’s give it our best, gang!”

But then, of course, people start filing in. More and more until every seat is full and there are people standing against the back wall! Total success! The university/town/charity is saved! Yay!

Which is, in the manner of our club, what happened last night. At the start, few people signed up for trains. I was dragooning them at the door. Horatio got drafted onto 202 and Jeff Chisholm onto 223 (I offered two points per run). But suddenly our door opened and people flooded in. We had guests from our recent show (a success in itself since I wasn’t there for it) and a number of crews from OSMR who wanted to see how we did our ops.

What made me proud was how much everyone worked to give everyone a good run. In particular, I listened to Kyle working Shelfton with a guest, giving the guy a real taste of heavy industrial switching. Several other members rode as conductors, giving our newbies a chance to run under two subdivisions and an interlocking plant, a full monty of operational methods. Luke did a little of everything: Calypso Yardmaster, assistance when needed and helper duty in a pinch. Steve H got a run at the interlocking and really made my east-side dispatching a breeze (not to be confused with the west-end dispatcher, Terry). It’s great to see how far many of our members have come. Frank ran his 95/97 across

the line un-conducted, and Horacio has come up from being a show-fanboy to a accomplished train operator. Terry worked the west end with competence (and, no, moving the racks down early from the plant was a good move, though I had to fly the dispatchocopter out to oversee it). I don’t think anyone in the club didn’t help someone at something, which is great to see.

As far as my dispatching, it went pretty easy. Hooper had it down and, outside of real-train-engineering-hearing-loss, really carried off a lot of my workload. Running 97 down past the fast freight was really a slick move. I think I ended up making only one three-way meet at Harris (which went off without a hitch and allowed me to get overdue 66 past 298 as part of it). Outside of one logjam (which I solved my screaming at my leverman to solve it), we had a great time east of Red Rock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Really, the club came together for this, moving everything but Ohio Flyer 1 and one of the intermodals). And given that, as of 6:50 when we thought we were dead in the water, we got more participation than we could have hoped for.

So another great session, staffed by one of the most experienced teams in Florida. Thanks to all for making this happen.

We saved the university/town/charity! Yay!

>>>NOW SAVE ME! BUY A BOOK!<<<

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and thanks to Terry B for the cookies! That makes me feel guilty for the racks.