Blog – Page 244 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

March 15, 2026

We’ll Prescribe You a Cat (Review)

he Japanese love cat stories, specially ones that deal with cats interacting and improving their owners. And this book is nothing short of that. Kyoto (as I remember from my trip there) is a town arranged in a neat grid, everything lined up nicely. Further, there is the old geisha quarter just across the river, still active. So, interesting place. What I didn’t know is that is an alley that can only be located if you really need to locate it, one that leads to a run-down building. At the top of five flights of stairs, a large door. Go […]

March 15, 2026

OpsLog – WVN – 3/14/2026

tanding on the ballast in Huntington Yard, night falling heavily over the property, a massive steam engine hissing behind me. Trainmaster Gail Komar (or “Tuffnut”, as the crews call her) is telling me that this reefer block needs to go up the hill quick since it’s thawing out in the here and now. True, I can hear the brine drip-drip-dripping on the ties as the block ice shrinks. She gives me that bombardier stare of hers. “Your the man for the job. The only man. Everyone else is off shift.” “It’s covered, Ma’am.” So it had been a long day […]

March 17, 2026

MeetLog – Vero Beach – 3/16/2026

he Eastern Model Railroad Meet (ironic since, recently, the eastern division of the sunshine region of the NMRA was recently abolished) was held today, way way down in Vero Beach today. Since two N-Trakers were asked to come down and speak (me, on TT&TO, and Reverend Jim, because I badgered him into speaking last minute on T-Trak because “Weren’t you a public speaker?” works really well. We also had Joel Morse (“Layout planning for operations”) and Host Chip Pecere (“Designing your layout before construction”). Interesting, two other people cancelled out of the one Jim covered (“Introduction to T-Trak Modelling”) (Including no-show […]

March 22, 2026

OpsLog – LM&O (Saturday Night Special) – 3/21/2026

kay, we have all the pre-warrants out. Clocks are set. Have a conductor assigned to the newbie. The guest who was wandering around has left (does anyone read the door sign – private event, Jack). Radio established with BETH Tower and confrimed with the room. Every train that needs to move has been signed up for. Prebrief was nice and quick. Ready to go. And the clock strikes… 00:A6? What? Fuddled with it while confirming 223 entering the interlocking district and 231 was out the door. Tried to change it but couldn’t get a “real” time on it. Turned it […]

March 27, 2026

OpsLog – LM&O – 3/25/2026

o I thought it would be a breeze session. Zack and I were going to joint-dispatch (him west subdivision, me east). Seriously, I kinda felt that it was like two master pianists sharing the same bench, skillfully weaving a beautiful melody on a single piano. In reality, it was like we were at the same piano, sharing the same bench, and it was rolled it out of the music hall and tipped down the long fight of steps and into the street. Crash, sprang, bong, bewang! Didn’t go so well. Well, no, it went as well as it could. We […]

March 28, 2026

OpsLog – YVRR – 3/26/2026

fter the complete railroad spin-cycle from last night, I rode out to Cocoa to run on Jack Ferguson’s Yosemite Valley Railroad. And this was just what I needed – easy going sequential ops with some interesting switching and no screaming operators or scribbled warrants. Just what the railroad surgeon ordered. Anyway, I got to run the yard first thing while new-comer Mark D ran our first massive train in. Broke it up nicely in the yard – good thing it was semi-blocked and went apart easily. Once I got the first train done, I sent the John out with it. And […]

March 29, 2026

Cascade Failure (Review)

oddamn, but I loved this book. We start with a down-on-his luck hero who is wandering a spaceport, scruffy, worlds-worn, looking for any sort of ship work if only to get passage to move along. A ship opens up for him. He goes in, calling “Hello…. Hello?” and suddenly the door slams shut and an AI bot starts talking to him. Frightened, scared, he tries to get the lock open and suddenly it does, to reveal the crew of the Ambit, a merc-looking guy and a tufnut female engineer. But the merc the drifter knows and freaks, trying to make a […]

March 30, 2026

Opslog – Sarntalbahn – 3/29/2026

un little hang-out with Kyle S today at the club – he invited me in for a test-running/conceptional-thinking of his new Sarntalbahn line, a layout constructed largely of T-Trak (and kinda T-Trak) modules. So the way it is organized – the larger station, Sarntalbahn, is on one side, and on the other, Wilnau. Sarntalbahn is a larger rail yard, all turnouts manual (presumably they have the personnel for that) whereas Wilnau is a line-station, a small passenger building with a couple of light industries. And Wilnau is going to be CTC controlled (Kyle had a working interlocking/CTC board for it […]