Blog – Page 141 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

September 17, 2019

LessonLog – LM&O – 9/17/2019

‘m trying to get my Cuesta Grade back up after two years of inertness. The yard switchers I got running at the club a week ago – took some coaxing but eventually they were moving smooth. The steam engines I had real concerns over. Their motors were a bit more buried – no popping the shells and thumbing the armatures of these brutes over. I got the Salinas switcher running after pushing, coaxing and cursing at the club Monday night. I was using the main at Martin. At first it was sputtering progress. And then, suddenly, she was running like […]

September 19, 2019

The Big Book of Effort (DOG EAR)

‘ve mentioned that I’m reading a true monster of a book. The story itself is 981 pages. This is dense, small type. The notes in the back are another 100 pages (even more dense and small). But that’s not the long of it. The writer in this case (I don’t want to spoil it a few weeks from now when I review it) loves to describe everything. Every thought that every character has, every description that can be made, he writes it. Sometimes the writing doesn’t even seem to serve a purpose – like when two brothers chat on the […]

September 22, 2019

OpsLog – WBRR – 09/21/2019

‘ve got to admit I don’t know how they would cuss in 1935 (or so). Specifically, way up in Rocky Mountain towns, muddy little burgs with careers in mines, laundry and dry goods. Oh, and railroads. I’ve got the only railroad job in the town of Dolores. Well, no, there is a guy working East Delores. So there are two of us, plus any engineers and conductors passing through on their rickety tea-kettle D&RGW trains. So I’m out on the boardwalk watching the chaos. We’ve got a westbound general freight shying back from the platform, a long fifty yard walk […]

September 22, 2019

Goshawk Squadron (Review)

nother review from way back, this from one of my favorite fictional World War One flying novels, Goshawk Squadron. This book is from Derek Robinson, who would go on to English infamy for a later book, Piece of Cake. And this is pretty much a proving ground for what he’d do in Piece, that being create a squadron of misfits and unassuming youth and then fling them into war. The book starts with Major Woolley sitting in a deck chair, watching his squadron float towards the frosted landing field. Uncouth, foul, always angry, as his adjutant announces each pilot’s name […]

October 1, 2019

OpsLog – LM&O – 9/25/2019

hen I think of railroads in operation, I think of trains holding at the station, the crews watching the conductor who is watching his watch (all that watching) for their on-the-dot departures. Of course, if ops teach us anything, it often illustrates how railroads don’t work. Take last night’s ops (which I would have written last night had I had a computer that could reach my blogsite (I’m using the dispatching computer with no internet capability to write this)). The original idea I had was to push out of Calypso with the Harris Glen Local numberboards (we really need to […]

October 1, 2019

OpsLog – FEC – 9/28/2019

he usual opener here. Ken asks if I’d like to dispatch his CTC paneled Florida East Coast. “Sure”, I say. Yes yes yes yes yes, I think. Love running the FEC – it’s a great layout and for the four hours we run, you are very busy – I’ve run CTC boards where you aren’t and it’s a yawn-fest but this one keeps you hopping. Truthfully, at the end of the session, we had four southbounds coming through Palm Bay and I was starting to get them mixed up (not helped by the crews who seemed rather “greedy” (by which […]

October 3, 2019

The Speed of Read (DOG EAR)

o I’m doing that speed as best I can. Kinda. I’m still in the midst of Infinite Jest, a tale of tennis and substance abuse recovery. It’s a fine book, clever and insightful, but goddamn slow. When you are in the midst of ten pages of description of the most minute moves of a tennis game between two teenagers, and all the reactions of the people in the stands, and then you get pulled into a ten-page footnote, well, it makes for every distracting reading. Truthfully, this damn thing sometimes puts me to sleep. But I’m going to push through […]

October 6, 2019

ShowLog – Deland – 10/5/2019

Saturday! Saturday! Saturday! It’s SteamDays at the beautiful Volusia County Fairgrounds DogBone Raceway! Throbbing Mikados! Bigger-than-big Boys! GS4s in ArtDeco SP Ride-me-please Colors! All there, furious Back-in-black microkettles with spinning piston / minimum-pull action! Come see the Stars of the Train Show circuit. Featured will be- One-Lap-Amtrak-Attack Wells! Mini-Me Case and the Pensy Coal Rocket! Tyke and Spike, the Lovable Mikes! And Bobby Martin’s GHOOOOOOOOST TRAIN! Ample feeding at the FeedBag/MoneyBag Trunk Diner! Comfortable seating (standing room only) in the Folkston Reviewing Stand! And kids can play find-the-hidden-jack-port in the White Memorial Scenery Park! Pet the plastic deer! Laugh at […]

October 6, 2019

Fighter Pilot (Review)

s mentioned in my Dog Ear piece, I needed a break from modern arty storytelling. I’ve had Fighter Pilot on my shelf for a decade and never read it (I don’t even know where it came from). Anyway, it’s the story of the first American ace in World War Two, William Dunn. All in all, it’s a roiling tale of a guy who joined the army to try to be a pilot in the thirties, and got put in the infantry. Then he joined the Canadians and still got put into the infantry. About all the air action he got […]

October 17, 2019

Filosophy of Phantasy (DOG EAR)

ou don’t have the right-of-way!” shouted an FUV driver who’d skipped a stop sign, come around a corner and nearly took me and my bike out while in the crosswalk. This is Orlando, a town made for cars, ruled by cars (in the grips of their chromed fists) and centered on cars. Motorists see the out-of-doors as a place only used for driving – it’s that void between their garage and their work parking lot and the mall. Pedestrians and cyclists are the ants that get in the way and must be horn-blared clear. A nuisance. Statistics back me on […]