Blog – Page 240 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

November 19, 2025

OpsLog – WVN – 11/8/2025

n fantasy novels (and some religions), great events are triggered following prophetic signs in the sky. And so there I was, waiting at the clubhouse’s grassy parking lot for Kyle for a ride out to the Komar’s in Tampa for their hosting of the West Virginia Northern, looking up to see a Chinese rocket booster slowly burning up as it crossed the sky, glowing white and emerald, dropping away to the east. So that’s a differing sort of start at least. So we three wise men (myself, Kyle and Bruce) journeyed across the desolation of Interstate 4, making out way […]

November 24, 2025

OpsLog – FEC – 11/22/2025

ne must be careful of what one writes… and who one gives it to. –Cardinal Richelieu, The Three Musketeers (1973) So I learned about that on my last OpsLog, where a friend fed my blog through ChatGPT, told it to regurgitate it in its own words and spin it to the negative. Cute. All I can say was that I got an invite to the wonderful Florida East Coast and you, my warmest associate, did not. So consider that and reflect with new-found wisdom. So yes, we did get a nice run over at this fine Palm Bay layout (which, […]

November 25, 2025

OpsLog – Highland Division – 11/23/2025

o I’m sitting in my office in the back of Bank Tower, writing out train orders. It was just after 7am and the Bristol Local was calling for paper out. I wrote him a simple “Run Extra” order. Then I got the call from the station operator at Waterbury that he’d departed (i.e. I peeked over there). Okay, so sure. Grinchy grin on my face, darkness in my heart, all that. He got about a mile down the tracks and met (cowcatcher to cowcatcher) the first westbound passenger train of the day. So, emergency stopping or smoldering bodies scattered down […]

November 27, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O – 11/26/2025

ecently we ran out pre-Thanksgiving operation session, a chance to escape the ravages of relatives, and to have fun running trains before having to listen to your drunk uncle explain why the Earth is flat over the ruins of the feast. We had a pretty good crowd for it – not the usual pre-turkey-packer because of last-minute cancellations, but it was still enough to run all that needs-to be-ran and have fun with all that can be fun. But in flying over the confusion in my dispatchocopter, I realized how much I have to be thankful for. To wit- Thankful […]