robert.admin – Page 8 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

October 31, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O – 10/29/2025

or me to actually run a train (and not dispatch and write out dozens of warrants (sigh. Checkbox one, previous warrant is void…)) I need a miracle, a Wonka golden ticket, a 2008 election, something like that. And I got one on the 29th – pity from Zach. See, I’d already dispatched the entire day away and Zach thought maybe a model railroader would like to run trains. You think? So I decided – what job would I do? Would I defy slope-gravity with the Shelfton turn? Or run the long-haul, journey-to-building’s-end Zanesville turn? Or just cage-fight President Shannon to […]

October 30, 2025

OpsLog – VSW – 10/29/2025

ohn Wilkes, host of the impressive Virginia Southwestern line, invited a couple of us ONT runners (myself, Kyle and Zach) to come out and operate with the Tampa gang and some out-of-towners. Of course, I was out on the L&N panel with Royal as the Southern dispatcher – it was his first time in the seat and man, he was a bit jittery. And of course, we’ll start off our usual joke at the expense of the owner – how many years did you work for the phone company, John? Because, as usual, the phones were a bit wonky to […]

October 26, 2025

Mickey 7 (Review)

o let me start by saying I bought this book twice – saw it on the shelf as Mickey 17, which refereed on the back cover the book Mickey 7 (as in “based on”). So hurried out to get the first one (is it the first part of a series? A lead-in? What?). But no, Mickey 7 was the original novel and Mickey 17 was a movie they made (and of course, the idea guys had to change the name yet re-release the book with the movie name). But opening the books, one on each knee, showed me that both books (and […]

October 24, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O – 10/22/2025

ast night was Night of the living Utes* And I gotta say, our young members really shined. I was back in the office, running Western Subdivision to Luke’s Eastern Subdivision. And how refreshing it was. After my last session on the P&WV (with the operator’s inability to run dependable warrant-operations (no reflection on the host. This was really his crew’s inattentiveness)), it was great to run with a club that’s been doing warrants for years and know how to do it. Everyone was quick with the read-backs, almost everyone called in at yards and clearing off the division, and nobody […]

October 19, 2025

High Rise (Review)

ead this one, half on a train, half at my mom’s mountain lair. It’s written by J.G. Ballard (famous for Empire of the Sun) and is the story of a mixed-class forty story (or is that “storey”) high rise residential building in London, specifically out on the Isle of Dogs. And how, when the social order breaks down, how bad it can get. The story centers on three people, each representing one of the social classes. Richard Wilder, a documentary-maker down on the lower ten (the lower class). Then in the middle-reaches is Dr. Robert Laing. And up on the […]

October 19, 2025

OpsLog – P&WV – 10/17/2025

kay, so a couple of things about Tom Wilson’s ops session on the Pittsburgh & West Virginia. First one’s on me. I’ve operated a couple of times in 2020 (and before) as a dispatcher here under TT&TO. I was proud of our efforts – Bruce Notman hit it out of the park as my Station Operator. But here’s the weird part. I’ve run six more times (including last Friday) and only now, after possible 100+ warrants, that I noticed there is a glaring error on them. So, for those who understand warrants, let me show you the key element’s on […]

October 11, 2025

Starter Villain (Review)

veryone has that dream that a rich uncle you barely knew you had dies and leaves you with something. Well, Charlie is a sad little guy, a booted business reporter turned substitute teacher, living in his late father’s house until his siblings from an earlier marriage can get him turfed. All he wants to do is buy and run the pub his dad enjoyed so much but without any credit, he’s sunk. But then his uncle dies. And it turns out his uncle is … a villain. Not just a bad guy but a Bond-class villain. The whole thing – […]

October 8, 2025

The Reason (DOG EAR)

o I’m sitting on the porch of the one-time Union Park Community Center / current Orlando N-Trak Train Club. Two acres of probably-needs-to-be-mowed grass stretches out before me, the sun turning it into waving emerald. And I’m thinking, Why do I do this? This week I’ve been out to this club, thirty minutes and $2.35 in tolls each way, too many times. Monday for Maintenance. Tuesday for a board meeting. Wednesday for the club night. And now it’s Friday, and I’m here to load the trailer when it arrives so we can take our portable layout to a weekend show. […]

October 5, 2025

ShowLog – Deland – 10/4/2025

retty good show for a Saturday. Leonard impresses me with his truck handling – he can get the trailer up to the club dock while ignoring us arm-wavers (to the inch) and can spot the loaded trailer right into the Deland Bay. So we had a good crew for setup and Show Boss Matthew kept us on the narrow beam (we lined up everything nice and even – hardly any adjustment needed). We were up in an hour and a quarter, ready to go. No issues there. So I know what is going to happen in the November meeting – […]

October 5, 2025

Son of the Morning (Review)

don’t know where this one came from – might have been from the bookstore up in Norfolk I go to every so often, Anyway, the picture on the cover sold me – two cats flying a spaceship. Okay, so I’m a sucker for that. The author is one Phyllis Gotlieb, who wrote this collection of shorts back in 1981 or so. And two things I immediately picked up on. The first is that she’s riding that 2001 mystical space scifi wave, where nothing is clear and some of the meanings and resolutions are baffling. There is even poetry in there […]