robert.admin – Page 48 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

April 30, 2023

Rogue Ship (Review)

his one was a used book from the 60s, a reworked combination of three short stories author A.E. Van Vogt compiled. And I hate to say it, but it was really a painful read. From the back cover, it looked interesting – a generation ship on it’s way to Centaurus with twenty years behind it and ten years in front of it starts to lose focus. Mutiny is brewing in the below decks, and some of the explorers want to turn for home (okay, that caused a little red flag – wouldn’t turning about a slow generation ship burn more […]

April 28, 2023

On Sheet – String Theory

e’ve talked all about simulating how trains run, how timetables are read and how TT&TO, Warrants, all those things work. But there you are in your layout room, looking at your yards and staging tracks, your passing sidings and goods yards, and you find yourself thinking, “So just how do I figure out a timetable in the first place?” The answer, my friend, are String Diagrams. From a posting or two blogs ago, an online friend noted that he uses a string diagram to run his railroad. I’ve even mentioned that I use something very much like a string diagram […]

April 27, 2023

Book Rescue (Dog Ear)

was in a used bookstore the other night (a Sunday night after the shop had closed and the owner wasn’t around – don’t ask). Nosed around the scifi section as I am wont to do. And there was RailSea, one of my favorite China Mieville novels. And here’s my review from when it first hit the stands in 2012. RailSea Revew So there I am in a darkened bookstore, where books that might be orphaned, unloved, old, gifted or simply given up on end up. And yes, I’ve floggedd RailSea to a lot of friends (even bought a copy for […]

April 27, 2023

OpsLog – LM&O – 4/26/2023

t was the end of a long month for me – nearly broke my neck and possibly ending up dead, paralyzed, or worse. Overall, it was as if I’d been bashed over the head with a slab of asphalt. While it’s getting better, it still hurts. And my dispatcher-in-training become an employee-in-awol, with the club placing second to Disney, of all things. I’d just wanted to maybe find a small local to curl up for the evening with, just bumping boxcars about. Instead, I had to run the main office, routing trains and keeping things right. To make matters worse, […]

April 23, 2023

Triton (Review)

riton is a moon orbiting Neptune. It is also the setting for a scifi story set hundreds of years in the future. So our main character is a young male ex-prostitute from a very repressive Mars, a fact which figures into who is is. With a name like Bron (specifically, Bron Helstrom), does anyone see the wordplay? Tall and Nordic, Bron has traveled to Triton, a utopia world where you can be who you want, dorm in mixed couple settings, homosexual settings, whatever you like. If your sexual tastes are not to your liking, you can easily change them. If […]

April 21, 2023

On Sheet – It don’t come easy

get a lot of complements (and bragging rights) from my dispatching. I’ve sat down cold in many, many sessions and made the railroad jump. I’m blessed at being good at something I really enjoy. But it didn’t come easy. Sure, years ago I was the hot-shot dispatcher in the Orlando Round Robin group (the big fish in the poop pond). Most of our dispatching was mother-may-I (which is a very simple way of dispatching where the dispatcher tells the trains (often by the engineer’s first name) where to go and what to do). If you are just starting out (or […]

April 20, 2023

Domination with Syllables (DOG EAR)

noticed that a lot of people, for whatever political, societal or self-aggrandizing agendas they are promoting, dominate a conversation with syllables. Syllables require a specific sound, slowing down conversation and stalling the dialog on their very important word. I first noticed this when people started bragging about their monstrous fuel-sucking leviathans, the sport-utility-vehicle. The SUV. Say this out loud: “I just purchased a new SUV.” Notice how much speaking the last word locks the conversation there, making you wait for them to relinquish speaking to you (if only that you can praise their consumptive consumerism). This isn’t just that. It […]

April 16, 2023

The Gods of Mars (Review)

o here we are at the second novel of John Carter on Mars, The Gods of Mars. And here, author Edgar Rice Burroughs has something to piss off everyone. Race, religion, it’s all there. Really, just read it as an adventure novel and don’t go too deep. So poor John Carter has been separated from his adapted Martian home in the Empire of Helium and his beloved Dejah Thoris for a decade. Finally he manages to teleport his sad little self back to Mars, only to appear in the worst prison on the planet, the Valley Dor, which is held […]

April 16, 2023

OpsLog – VSW – 4/15/2023

here are a thousand (well, maybe a hundred) stories that happen in the usual ops session. Since I’m sealed away in the dispatcher’s office, I only see a handful of them. I do know about the Post Switcher leaving Norton Yard and working for a half hour on my mainline (that from the superintendent). And there is that train out of Erlanger that came up the super collider helix at a high rate of speed, blowing out of the topside tunnel portal like a bullet from a rifle, overrunning his authority limits and nearly torpedoing an L&N train crossing the […]

April 14, 2023

On Sheet – The Cuesta Curse

ears back, my Cuesta Grade layout was part of the Orlando session rotation – we ran it from 2000 to 2018 or so. Then work and life got in the way. I decided, after a year of inactivity, to get the layout running again. This would require dusting (old house and a cat), track cleaning, and running/oiling the fleet of engines. So I started work on this, announcing my eminent return. At work, I was a lead for a software team AND a compliance guy for our organization. What I didn’t realize was that (in another organization) two managers didn’t […]