robert.admin – Page 33 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

September 4, 2022

If the Allies had Fallen (Review)

ound this on the bargain aisle-cap at Barnes-n-Noble while holding an armful already. Very catchy cover with a picture of Big Ben draped with a huge Nazi flag. And the title. For ten bucks, why not? There has been a lot of speculative literature on this. In The Man in the High Castle, it’s just a given that the Axis had won. Same thing in a lot of alt-hist. The problem comes down to the actuals, which this collection of pieces studies. If the Allies had Fallen is not written by scifi writers looking for a nifty new background for their […]

September 2, 2022

On Sheet – Away Game

aybe this whole idea of operations seems too confusing and complex to you. You’ve got to figure a train timetable, jobs to be filled, a freight forwarding system, a crew-call system, so many things (I’m not talking you into this, am I?). So, if you are facing this daunting challenge, why not see if you can horn your way in on an existing operation session? Maybe you can wallflower and watch, sure, but any good host should push you in (presumably with an easy newbie job). But how to find a session where you live? There are many places where […]

September 1, 2022

The Freaks (DOG EAR)

his is a little secret I’m mentioned a couple of times on this site; I’ve been funning around writing erotica elsewhere for years. While you are all looking at me funny and squirming, I’ll also mentioned that I was quite good. On the base I post on, I’ve got over a thousand watchers and a half-million views. People think I’m pretty good at it. Beside the free stuff there, I also was contacted a few years back by a publisher and created three collections for them (for which I was paid (but not a lot – it’s a tough racket)). […]

August 28, 2022

The Alchemist (Review)

n a way, Paulo Coelho’s book, The Alchemist, reminds me a lot of reading Richard Bach’s books back in the 80s. He was a pilot who discovered new age ways and wrote about it, coupling flying and out-of-body experiences. The Alchemist is more a work of fiction (with thoughts and ideas you can bring to your normal life). It is the story of a Spanish shepherd in a time where there are guns yet no cars (so, maybe the late 1800s) who dreams of traveling to the pyramids, for there (his dreams tell him) is his undiscovered treasure. As the […]

August 28, 2022

OpsLog – FEC – 8/27/2022

‘ve been waiting to run on the Florida East Coast since forever. Well, since two weeks ago. Yes, that is when our club ran this line, as reported HERE. But yes, I wanted to run again. So we drove all the way to Palm Bay, met with people, I trained a new dispatcher, then my wife took me aside and told me her sister (who she was with on Wednesday) phoned her with the news she is positive with Covid. Da fug? We had this conference on the host’s front porch. Going back inside (with masks now on) we confessed […]

August 26, 2022

On Sheet – The Straight and Narrow

p front, I’ll admit that railroads made most towns. The rails would come through, the depot would be built, and then “Railroad Avenue” would parallel the line. The town grid would firm up off this, buildings in line with track, everything lain down as if on graph paper. Historically accurate? Sure. Interesting? Um…. Too often, small railroaders with limited space instinctively snap their sectional track on a bead two to three inches from the forward edge. And their town naturally follows, with ninety degree corners in the streets, everything placed to parallel the sides of the layout’s edge with geometric […]

August 25, 2022

Recommendation (DOG EAR)

have a peach of a physical therapist. In the weeks following my surgery, she’d been the one outlining my exercise program, making me stretch and flex and hurt and get better. A lot of my recovery, I owe to her. She’s from Brazil and we’ve chatted about life there, life here, all that. One cool down following a rough session, we got to talking about books (I always bring a new one every week for the waiting room). Anyway, she told me she loved a Brazilian author named Paulo Coelho, who I’ve never heard of. She told me she’s read […]

August 25, 2022

OpsLog – LM&O – 08/24/2022

n the bad side, there were a number of near collisions, several (that I knew of/experienced) LAP orders, some running without paper, a lot of phones clutched to numb ears, a big boo-boo in the yard, and a passenger train that ran a half-day late. Okay. But on the good side, we did run all the freights, all the locals, all the coal and ore, and got to experiment with delivering cars to the Nazareth turn (well, now we know what doesn’t work). We started a little earlier and had a lot more people working throttles at the end. Everyone […]

August 21, 2022

The Art of War (Review)

his book is actually two books in one. First off, there is the codification of rules and strategies of war, from the basic (don’t attack uphill) to the abstract (don’t be guided by anger). In this first half, we get the transcribed words of Su-Tzu (or someone else, or even a collections of someone elses) from the sixth century BC, listing his principles of warfare. I decided to have a read of it when a scifi story I read made open mention of the Art, but not by name (I guessed it correctly, through). So the first half are the […]

August 19, 2022

On Sheet – Cork it

was at a local session a friend was hosting a while ago. And yes, I agree that model railroading can be, at times, frustrating. One of our members was having problems backing a cut into a siding – had a couple of derailments (and guess what – if you are in N-scale, get used to it). But he wouldn’t suffer in silence, no. He crabbed and carped in his frustration. I looked around and the host was catching every word. Told my buddy (as politely as I could) to cool it a bit. I guess nobody takes my advance. A […]