robert.admin – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

October 11, 2025

Starter Villain (Review)

veryone has that dream that a rich uncle you barely knew you had dies and leaves you with something. Well, Charlie is a sad little guy, a booted business reporter turned substitute teacher, living in his late father’s house until his siblings from an earlier marriage can get him turfed. All he wants to do is buy and run the pub his dad enjoyed so much but without any credit, he’s sunk. But then his uncle dies. And it turns out his uncle is … a villain. Not just a bad guy but a Bond-class villain. The whole thing – […]

October 8, 2025

The Reason (DOG EAR)

o I’m sitting on the porch of the one-time Union Park Community Center / current Orlando N-Trak Train Club. Two acres of probably-needs-to-be-mowed grass stretches out before me, the sun turning it into waving emerald. And I’m thinking, Why do I do this? This week I’ve been out to this club, thirty minutes and $2.35 in tolls each way, too many times. Monday for Maintenance. Tuesday for a board meeting. Wednesday for the club night. And now it’s Friday, and I’m here to load the trailer when it arrives so we can take our portable layout to a weekend show. […]

October 5, 2025

ShowLog – Deland – 10/4/2025

retty good show for a Saturday. Leonard impresses me with his truck handling – he can get the trailer up to the club dock while ignoring us arm-wavers (to the inch) and can spot the loaded trailer right into the Deland Bay. So we had a good crew for setup and Show Boss Matthew kept us on the narrow beam (we lined up everything nice and even – hardly any adjustment needed). We were up in an hour and a quarter, ready to go. No issues there. So I know what is going to happen in the November meeting – […]

October 5, 2025

Son of the Morning (Review)

don’t know where this one came from – might have been from the bookstore up in Norfolk I go to every so often, Anyway, the picture on the cover sold me – two cats flying a spaceship. Okay, so I’m a sucker for that. The author is one Phyllis Gotlieb, who wrote this collection of shorts back in 1981 or so. And two things I immediately picked up on. The first is that she’s riding that 2001 mystical space scifi wave, where nothing is clear and some of the meanings and resolutions are baffling. There is even poetry in there […]

September 29, 2025

OpsLog – WAZU – 9/28/2025

ne thing I’ve finally learned: There are places you shouldn’t jam coal into. I suppose a qualifier is in order here. Last LM&O session, I passed two hopper trains (loads and empties) on the smallest siding we have (way up in Harris Glen, the mountaintop where eagles soar and swamis meditate). I think we’ve done it before – if both coal movements head out at session-start, it’s natural they will meet there. But coal hoppers are tippy, the grade is steep, and the reach long. If anything goes wrong there, if a saw-by is needed, it goes sideways fast. But […]

September 28, 2025

My Friends (Review)

o this is for you Ove fans (for you “Otto” fans, shush, the grownups are talking). My Friends is (as hinted at) is written by Fredrik Bachman, author of A Man Called Ove (a personal favorite). And in it, the author hits another one out of the park. My Friends begins with a troubled young girl moving through an art show, moving slowly towards a certain painting, a massively expensive one. With cans of spray paint in her backpack and determination in her eye, she slips past the rich people, ducks under the rope and …. See how this one […]

September 25, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O – 9/24/2025

ig John strode towards his idling units, his boots crunching on the mix of cinders and coal, the tinny towers of Champion Mine thrusting into the narrow sliver of post-midnight stars. He clambered aboard his lead NS unit, checking brake pressure to the long cut of loaded hoppers strung behind his four road engines. As he pumped off the brakes, he could hear the cars behind him groan as they eased down the minor slope, bunching against his lashup. He ignored this as he worked his radio, getting a warrant from the dispatcher. Upslope, he could see the lights of […]

September 22, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O – 9/20/2025

o even though we ran as guests on the Orlando Society of Model Railroad’s layout earlier that day, and even though we have Club ops next Wednesday, sure, let’s run a Saturday Night Special! We lucked out – Matthew was there to take West Side DS (and Zack backed him on East), Bob Xmas ran the full yard on his own, and Steve V-ball came out of nowhere to “coach” Calypso. We even tossed HO Tom into the furnace job (he ran stack 1) and pushed newbie Horacio onto SB2 (a great passenger run since (A) it’s early and (B) […]

September 21, 2025

OpsLog – OSMR – 9/20/2025

o we got a second session out of the local HO club, who are currently trying to build up their own operations. Tom (their rep and Superintendent) asked us to come over and give it another go. I was very gratified that the boys were excited to get a second session at this very huge HO effort. (Seriously, those modern generation engines feel like bricks to my delicate N-Scale hands. I might have gotten a hernia lifting the power into place). So, not to beat a dead Superintendent but the first session was… well… a first session. Tom was doing […]

September 21, 2025

OpsLog – WVN – 9/13/2025

o after a nice drive to Tampa with Jeff C, and a cup of Burger King’s signature lukewarm coffee (ugh! Literally a stone-cold overnight pot-sitting blend) we arrived at Greg and Gail’s abode, had a great cup of piping-hot coffee and got down to the business of running trains up and down the wooded hills and tight hollers on the West Virginia Northern. So I spent all of my morning up at Harris, the high-point yard at the top of the Elkview grade. First I came in from Clifton Forge and swapped cars out. Then I picked up the Harris […]