robert.admin – Page 5 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

August 11, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O – 8/9/2025

he only real problem of engaging in two operation sessions (one with the Orlando Society of Model Railroaders) and the second a Saturday Night Session, is the number of husband points it costs me (just wrote a check for 500,000 points). But it was worth it. I wasn’t sure how many we’d get for a standard session on a Saturday night. A lot of us were still dragging from the three-and-a-half hour session we’d just gotten through. So there we were at Culvers, sucking down food and rebuilding our energy. And to my amazement, more members came, and more, until […]

August 10, 2025

OpsLog – OSMR – 8/9/2025

sister club to ours, the Orlando Society of Model Railroaders, decided they are going to give ops another try (they’d done it once but life got in the way). So Tom, one of our former members, scouted out our ops, took careful notes and carried them back to incorporate into their setting. And then he was nice enough to invite us over to run on the inaugural. I’ll mention that this was going to make for a long day for a number of our crew – we already had a planned session at our own club at 7pm. If we […]

August 10, 2025

The Spear cuts through Water (Review)

ne day, I came into Framework Coffee and found all the baristas agitated. They’d discovered a new fantasy novel and were racing through it, eagerly chatting about the crazy and wonderful plot. Jacob and Maddy both were loving it and knowing my own passion for books (I go to that coffee shop more times with a book than my wife, and when I do go with the wife, I bring a book) they implored I read it too. So that day I picked up a copy. And now I have a strong contender for Best Books of 2025. As mentioned, it’s […]

August 8, 2025

On Sheet – Transition Era

was at a Volkswagen-sponsored driving event (this is before they cheated on their EPA numbers (incomprehensible if they were ISO9000-orientated) and before my Volkswagon neo-beetle (1) plastic-rotted and (b) caught fire). Anyway, it was all about helpful high performance driving hints. Yeah, I did learn how to corner much better, how to brake-first then turn, all that. But the most important moment for me was in an event where a row of us sat in front of a light. Simple deal – light goes red, slap the button in front of you. And I had this nailed. Even though I […]

August 7, 2025

True Closure (DOG EAR)

e was a good friend. We knew each other for decades. But in the final few years of our friendship, he got… difficult. He’d call and talk AT me for hours. In person, he was loud. At restaurants, he’d talk politics in a booming voice, gathering angry stares. It got to where I’d flinch when I saw his name pop up on my phone — there would go another hour. A friend and I tried to stage an intervention but he turned us down – he had other little things to do. And then at a mutual event where I was supposed […]

August 3, 2025

On Sheet – Chatterboxes

fter a hiatus, I’m back. I won’t be regular or kind (hey, that’s the mark of being old, right?). But I will use this for my soap box on model trains and their operations. So, a lot of you think running toy trains is fun (regardless of the fact that we call it “Operations” and say it with a clenched jaw). And fine, if you like snapping together unitrak into a double loop with the requisite double-crossover, go right ahead. No police force is going to break into your hobby room and carry you off (not quite yet). It’s your […]

August 3, 2025

Enemy Mine (Review)

friend ranted about this story-set so much he did the ultimate – he ordered a copy of The Enemy Papers, a collection of Barry B. Longyear’s scifi works. Inside is a loose trilogy of Earth (and really, the US) fighting the evil reptilian Dracs. Enemy Mine is the first of the set, and I’ll say this: my friend was right. Okay, a note on the title. “Enemy Mine” does not refer to (as I thought) either an explosive anti-ship bump-n-bang weapon nor a mineral shaft. No, it means “My enemy” in a sort of archaic wording. And well that it should. So […]

August 3, 2025

OpsLog – TBL – 8/2/2025

nlike the last ops session I was at (which was, to no fault of the host, like a fight with cavalry lances in a shit house at midnight), the more compact, less attended session on the diminutive Tuscarora Branch Line was quite a success. I’d been planning on doing a test-run session since May (when we shut down the line to work on the river, almost done yet inexplicably not included in the accompanying photographs). Now that the river is mostly finished and looking somewhat better than plywood, we finally got a chance to use the layout in the way […]

July 31, 2025

Hot Button (DOG EAR)

y dad was an only child with older parents, and I think that might have caused his anger issues. Limited social interactions, you know? So, to me, my dad was a gruff Navy captain. We got along well enough – we both loved trains. But no, you didn’t want to get him angry. He’d go volcanic. So that’s my excuse (which really isn’t an excuse) – learned behavior. My anger has cost me three jobs in the past. Someone in authority would order up a big plate of stupid. We’d argue. I’d lose my temper. And there’s the door. As […]

July 28, 2025

OpsLog – WAZU – 7/27/2025

ne of the rockier sessions on the WAZU, still mostly on time but with rage and thunder to get us there. I still had fun, as did most of the other operators. Andy always puts on a good show and great lunch – I eat better than at home. I had the dispatcher’s seat (third time in a week) and the session started out well. Trains were rolling on their times and making their stops. Andy’s new system of posted turnout IDs made it easy to get the remote trains across the line (still, I was only diverging them when […]