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Final day of the two-day event. Long, long wait to get out of Mojave – 4 hours (real hours) to clear the yard (protecting me against for freights yet excluding any movement against the overdue passenger train doesn’t do me any good). Missed lunch but ran it down to Bakersfield. The last run was fun – worked with a guy named Jerry who’s a solid operator. We were talking while waiting for orders in Bakersfield – how we both like to blow the horn properly at crossings, do brake tests, stop to throw turnouts, all that authentic railroad stuff. When […]

Out of Bakersfield on the third helper engine, a 2-10-2 ATSF steamer sixty cars back from the front end. We’re running as the fifth section of train 804 (meaning there’s four trains in front of us, and another one somewhere behind). And we’re rattling along the flatlands above Bakersfield, 50 mph, highball… …until we saw the ABS signals, yellow, then red. Pull back the throttle. Time to stop. And there is the caboose for the 804 section ahead of us. See, he’s got to wait for passenger train 51. That’s timetable stuff. But we know, according our train orders issued […]

I‘ve known Terry Harrison for ten years and three layouts. He’s a sawed-off hot-head, an ill-tempered tosser who harangues his operators. He also designs some of the most realistic switching I’ve ever worked. I’ve worked setouts and pickups on layouts that were about as exciting as putting socks into a drawer. And then there are the layouts with owners who are so sadistically clever, they force their crews to work through complicated logic puzzles, as if the railroad is more a mensa club than a working transportation company. But Terry’s worked on actual railroads and knows what they do and […]