Blog – Page 233 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

May 29, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O – 5/28/2025

wo years ago, I was writing weekly pieces on train ops to a Facebook N-scale page. Reverend Jim and John DV know this guy who hosts it (“knew”, rather). Anyway, I’d also add our OpsLogs to his page so his readers could enjoy our massive sessions. And you know me – I try to punch up the sessions with drama and humor. Well, after one submission, the guy responds (I don’t remember verbatim – I left the page following this). Anyway, he told us me that we needed to get better. This chaos and confusion was amateur-level stuff and clearly […]

June 1, 2025

The Unfeeling Sky (Review)

was something like ten years old, visiting the Wright Patterson AFB museum. In the gift shop were a number of aviation novels (remember those quaint old days when people actually read?). Plucked this one off the shelf and loved it. So Frank Thompson is an infantry officer in World War One. While in the shitty, muddy trenches, he watches his childhood friend get shot down into no mans’ land, and the hun that does it comes back around and kills him. Thompson watches the German buzz away, noting his distinctive aircraft paint scheme. And then he joins the Royal Flying […]

June 1, 2025

OpsLog – VSW – 5/31/2025

oke up on the day of operations to find the rain thundering down like the weeping of gods. And since gods are omnipotent and can presumably see the future and what would happen, no wonder they were weeping. Maybe I should have invited the gods to run with me on the Virginia SouthWestern. They’d probably to better than Orlando N-Trak did. So I hydroplaned my way to the clubhouse meet point/swamp to group up and ride out. Got to John’s in time, the whole squad, where we got a nice breakfast of donuts and coffee, a real lifesaver. I took […]

June 5, 2025

Charms and tokens (DOG EAR)

never understood tattoos for years. I finally got a bit of insight following a Becky Chamber’s book (I don’t remember the title) where one of the characters is a tattoo artist. It was noted (and I’m going from memory here) that tattoos shouldn’t just be a cute picture or a Japanese letter you know nothing about; a tattoo should be something of meaning from your past, or something that guides you into the future. And that’s the thing I’d missed; meaning. While I don’t have a tattoo, I do have my own things like that. I keep items that have […]

June 8, 2025

To The Last Man (Review)

n interesting premise here. Jeff Shaara, a historian, writes a fictional account with real people, trying his best to tell the events of a war (this time, World War One) from the surmised point of view from some of the people who lived (and died) in it. For this novel, the author chose four people to represent various viewpoints – Rosco Temple (an American doughboy), John J. Pershing (his general), Manfred Von Richthofen (the “Red Baron”) and Raoul Lufbery (one of the early fliers in the Lafayette Escadrille, a French squadron of Americans). Other historic figures are also encountered, and […]

June 8, 2025

OpsLog – WBRR – 6/7/2025

knew this would happen. Turns out that the station agents for Dulce, Placerville and Dolores decided to celebrate a birthday. They went to the bath house in Placerville and steamed in their tubs, drinking stump hole. Coming out, they encountered three loose women and retired to the Lemmon Hotel next door where they engaged in activities outlawed in the Western Bay employee handbook. Needless to say, they are all now suffering Cupid’s Measles. This left the railroad shorthanded during a change in operational methods, with the superintendent agenting all the stations and the dispatcher keeping an eye on Navajo and […]

June 12, 2025

Bugs (DOG EAR)

ound out that our 1949 bungalow has termites. Not bad, but worrying. We’re not going to just tent and gas (that only is good for a few years). Rather, we’re going to treat, which means injecting shit into the baseboards to keep them at bay. Also, they’ll climb under the house and put poison barriers around all the supports. Fine and good, right? However, to get AT the baseboards, they need to get TO the baseboards. The problem there is that we read a lot of books and have bought a lot of DVDs (yes, I know, old school, right?). […]

June 15, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O (TT&TO) – 6/14/2025

pecial Leigh, Monongahela & Ohio session for the evening of Father’s Day (or, for me, Dead-twig-on-the-tree-of-life day). On occasional Saturday nights, we turn up the difficulty level and run the LM&O in the early fifties, with train orders and the Bethlehem tower in service with its block signals (actually, little joke, they are interlocking signals. If you were there, you’d know what the deal was). Suddenly the crews are forced to think on their literal feet, determining their own movements, ducking into sidings and meeting opposing trains while running on their schedules. And I’m happy to say that we had […]

June 23, 2025

OpsLog – WAZU – 6/22/2025

o I’m sitting at my favorite table in my favorite coffee spot, watching the vehicular frustration at 17-92 and Lake Highland. Odd start for a blog. As most of you know from my long conversations around the clubhouse, my home has some termite infestations. With the bug men coming on Tuesday, I needed to clear the last of the heavy furniture from the baseboards. For that, I’d need my brother. But of course, he couldn’t come out any other time than Sunday noonish sometime sorta. Which is, as you all know, WAZU-time. When I contacted Doc and told him my […]

June 26, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O – 6/25/2025

was in a pretty mellow mood when I got to the club Wednesday. It might have been because all morning I’d been moving boxes of books (just like cubes of wood, but with writing, not rings, inside their slices) until noon or so, in the hot Florida sun. I’d had a beer at dinner and settled in the back desk to set up the clocks and computer and run the railroad. I don’t know if that explains my easy-going nature that night, and I have no explanation why the rest of you were all so… tetchy. We have that phrase, […]