robert.admin – Page 14 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

September 1, 2023

On Sheet- Crowd Fumbling

o I used to play Sid Meier’s Railroad Typcoon . Loved it and stayed up too many nights playing it. It was great to have my own rail empire with little computer trains running through their assignments, flawlessly. So much order and control. And I’ve found that real world model train operations are anything but. To push the positive, model railroading operation on a club layout is one of the grandest games there is. In this crafted miniature world, we run our little trains along agreed-upon rules. It’s a massive cooperative effort, and unlike that lonely solo computer game, everyone […]

August 30, 2023

A rock and a hardback place (DOG EAR)

like paper books. Kindles are nice and all but give me a nice solid book to put on the coffee house table and I’m set. Even today, the woman collecting the dishes asked me if I was enjoying my book. I don’t think she’d ask if I faced the glow of a kindle screen. However, today was a bit of a quandary. I was in the death throes of The Hero of Ages, a nearly 600 page phone book that rounds out the MistBorn trilogy. I was close to having that mother done. And next up, another hardback (more modest at 300 pages […]

August 27, 2023

Cloud Cuckoo Land (Review)

‘m a pretty good writer. I can lighten the mood of terrible things. And I can chastise people yet leave them smiling. But I don’t think I can write an adequate review for Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr. All I can say is, well, I know what one of my best-of-year selections will be. This wonderful book reminds me, in a lot of ways, of Cloud Atlas. Again, you have different characters in different times, all just getting through their lives yet all interrelated in some ways. It was there in Atlas, but it’s the driving force behind this novel. […]

August 27, 2023

OpsLog – Tusk Hill – 8/26/2023

kay, it’s easy to cosplay some of our operators from yesterday’s session. Me, I’m the oily guy with glasses, the railroad gopher, usually called “The Professor” in such pieces. I scurry around and do a little of everything. I did just about every job (save dispatching). And usually I was on my rickety bicycle, cranking down country lanes with a satchel of tokens to deliver to Branch, Easton, Westly and Tusk Hill. And then there was Mathis, with a face (with apologies and a smile) that would look perfect under a slouch cap, powdered with coal dust, shouting things like […]

August 25, 2023

On Sheet – Foul Play

omething I’ve noticed on our sectional railroad we take to shows – we let the kids run trains. They have a blast since the signalling system is standard easy-to-understand ABS (which means a train in a block protects itself with a red signal behind it, and a red signal is protected by a yellow signal behind it). But the funny thing is that kids drive their trains like mommy and daddy do their minivans, pulling right up to the base of a signal as if it was a traffic light. “Kids,” I scoffed, laughing to myself. That is, until the […]

August 24, 2023

OpsLog – LM&O – 8/23/2023

eople say that when they run model trains, they go into their own little world. So true. Last night at the club, the LM&O was swamped by membership wanting to run trains. We filled the call sheet. And as we got ready, Frank (who usually acts as a porter on Greg’s passenger train, and who was unemployed under Greg’s absence) came and asked who he could run with. “I’ll make a man out of you,” I told him as I shoved him into the cab of the Shelfton Turn, tossed his bag in after, and settled down on the brakeman […]

August 23, 2023

Game Story (DOG EAR)

here is a term in gaming, “One more turn”. It’s pretty much for turn based games where you are managing or building something with the revenues and technologies you are gaining. Every turn, you almost have the next thing you need. Reminds me of the night I started a game of Railroad Typcoon. After a while in my game, my wife passed by and told me she was going to bed. “Sure, hon. Just another turn or two”. But then those new heavy steam engines came out – perfect for those heavy coal hauls. And then another tycoon employed a […]

August 21, 2023

OpsLog – WAZU – 8/20/2023

kay, so I’m told if you can’t say anything good about someone’s dispatching, don’t say anything. … … <crickets> … … … … Is that long enough? What’s the statute of limitations on this? I will mention that my first train into Umatila (ordered to the siding, and precious to me, given the long wait to get that warrant) had me on approach to find a bank of headlights from two facing trains (it looked like an alien mothership, so bright) shining at me in the early morning hours. Only that checkbox 4 (watch for trains (plural) ahead) kept me […]

August 20, 2023

RIPLog – TBL – 8/19/2023

t’s getting so the “Old Sweats” in the club are outnumbered. At one point, we were the club and when one of us passed on, there would be a full mob at the service. Now we are increasingly irrelevant. With Don Ziesig’s passage, only four of his oldest friends were there. Anyway, so Don did pass and the club received an invite to the service. We were also asked if we could bring a model train thing since it was such a part of Don’s life. We could have brought a sectional layout piece but (a) we couldn’t fit it […]

August 16, 2023

OpsLog – WVN – 8/12/2023

t was a great day on the WVN – a group of three N-Trakers (myself, Kyle and Zack) rode over to Tampa and the wife tagged along (she usually won’t run trains except at the FEC but she has run once before at the West Virginia Northern and the scenery and realistic engine control just makes that railroad the cat’s pajamas so she’ll play). And that we had two other engineers filling out the roster whom I’ve run with before (and know they are good), we had all the makings of a great session. And so that’s what we did. […]