t was an interesting session at the club tonight. Since my goatee glue isn’t dry yet and excessive talking might make it fall into my lap (dire consistences abound), I turned the dispatcher job over to young Jason (I still worked the computer display and reviewed all outbound warrants for correctness and homicidal omissions).  But he did pretty good – once I get him checked out on the panel, I’ll cup him like a little bird and let him fly, fly, fly…

…and I can imagine the other members loading birdshot.

But overall, Jason did fine. We did have a member telling other member that they didn’t need warrants since we were running TT&TO (we weren’t, and further, you still need a dispatcher-issued clearance card to take the main). Yes, bad advice might kill you. Anyway, I’d occasionally pop out of the office to find out just where people were (and to slip a bootleg warrant to a crew desperate to move their train). But overall, yes, we got through it okay. Actually, it wasn’t a bad session at all.

Things gear up in Calypso Yard as the pipe extra gets ready to challenge the hill! (Photo John DV)

The president made a flashy job out of switching Mingo with a heavy steam engine (points for that). Also, the pipe train made its debut – it kinda looked like the Salt Lake Tabernacle organ had been cut up for scrap and shipped off. Myself, I’d like to find out where all those “blue” cars went to – we used to have 30+ in both yards but we’re down to pocket change in each. We do I think there might be some spur with 50 cars jammed into it. Curious. But hey, we got through the night.

And in two weeks, we’re going to do it all over again.

As I typed this, I paused and thought, “Really?”

Yeah, really…

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