robert.admin – Page 78 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

August 23, 2021

OpsLog – L&M – 8/14/2021

hat’s the worst thing you can hear when you are a dispatcher on John Wilkes’ L&M? Headlights? Ha. No. No, it’s when you are hanging around at 10am waiting for your ride-guy to show up and you get a call from another person attending today’s session. “Hey, Robert, where are you? We’re ready to start?” Ready to start? Start time was 10am? I thought it was noon! And it’s in Polk City, something like forty miles away. We’re in Orlando and haven’t even hit the road yet! What a way to not run a railroad. So I called my ride-share […]

August 12, 2021

A real find (DOG EAR)

was on vacation recently, visiting family up north while knocking out a whole lot of novels (I’ve got materials for weeks of reviews now). While rooming at my sister’s, I mentioned I’d like to stop in at any good used book stores. She had one, a little strip mall outlet that had room to grow and lots of books. I dove into it like a shark into a chum-filled ocean. While nosing through the scifi area, I found a collection of novels by one Christopher Nuttall, the Ark Royal series. It had a very interesting concept – it was a […]

August 8, 2021

The Arrest (Review)

his is one of these books where I wish I was in some college class reading it, so I could understand the meaning better. There is a hint of what I think this is really about. But I’m not sure. So, in The Arrest, main character Sandy Duplessis (see, what’s with that name? It’s almost “duplicitous”, right?) has limped home to his sister’s organic farm in Maine after the world fell apart. The Arrest, from the title, is not an act of civil custody as it is the complete break down of every machine in the world. Now, with the […]

July 30, 2021

OpsLog – LM&O – 07/28/2021

kay, let’s start with this. As the dispatcher, I goofed up last night. Extra 2007 was coming west through Weirton on Track 2. But I’d already cleared 247 West on Track 1. And unfortunately, west of Weirton, it’s all single line. When the crews started giggling like fiends, I knew I’d made a mistake. Got called to the site where both westbounds were in emergency and reviewed orders but I already suspected I screwed the pooch. My board didn’t show my updated 247 move so I’d failed to take him into account. I admit it. And here’s a picture of […]

July 25, 2021

Guide to Signals & Interlockings (Review)

‘ll admit that I was desperate for this book to come out. Locked down in the pandemic, without groups of model railroaders to converse with (possibly in the casual debrief after a session) I was building my own Tuscarora Branch Line and desperate to find out how Interlocking Towers worked (these are the towers you used to see all along railroad lines that would allow the operator to set signals and turnouts, often via very crazy series of push-pull rods along trackside). But how the logic of the system worked, how it would lock out and why, none of this […]

July 25, 2021

OpsLog – FEC – 07/24/2021

ust another day on the Florida East Coast Railroad, running low capacity, pandemic-conscious operations. A smaller crew that normal due to some last-minute dropouts (made a bit better by Bruce Metcalf, who saved the day by showing up and rounding out the roster). And so the clocks (some of them) went hot and the trains rolled. I’ve been at sessions where you waited outside for thirty minutes, even an hour, for your next train. Not this time, no. With a lighter crew, we were running solid with crews rotating back in as quickly as they stepped off the footplate. Me, […]

July 22, 2021

Introdus (DOG EAR)

kay, I’m unsure and uneasy about Facebook’s new group method. I know that this blog is really a labor of love (just as my novels were). I know both have received little notice by the mediasphere. I’m a realist. This blog is more an exercise at journaling than anything else. So when Facebook changed it’s group defaults to allow anyone to join, I just shrugged. After years of managing this place, very few people had joined. It was more a close collection of friends who wanted to see my comments about media and books. Fine. It’s like my own little […]

July 18, 2021

OpsLog – TBL – 07/17/2021

nother busy day on the Tuscarora. I thought we were going to have four people but because of sweeping Covid fears, the father/son team I invited had to cancel. And that left me with 50% crew. In a normal ops session, a disaster. But the modular functionality Tuscarora Branch Line can run as easily with one as it can with four. So with Greg (my long-time engineer who has been with this project from the start) we set all signals to green, coupled in the mini-tower (which lets an operator easily run the layout) and began. He ran the local […]

July 18, 2021

Berlin Alexanderplatz (Review)

ecently I rode a bike the length and back of the Van Fleet Trail in Florida, sixty total miles of arrow-straight trail through thick Florida swamps. In the end, I barely made it, coasting over the finish line to collapse in a crumpled heap on a bench. Berlin Alexanderplatz was kinda like that. The novel is told in the whimsical, wandering form of Ulysses, a tale of an ex-con (Franz Biberkopf), released back onto the streets of Berlin in 1928. He makes a go at being honest, really tries by selling newspapers, shoelaces, and joining the Merchant’s Union. However, like […]

July 15, 2021

CYON (DOG EAR)

enjoy creating CYOAs – to explain what this is, it means “Choose your own adventure”. Originally they were books you’d buy that let you decide the direction of the adventure in the fashion of “If you want to drink from the magic well, go to page 5, otherwise go to page 6”. You would make your choice, flip to that page, and live (or die) from it. Since then, it’s been computerized. While most of them (like the books that proceeded them) are one-time throughs (of course, you could play through additional times and see how other paths run). But […]