Train Blog

unning with a junior member, a young kid who’s been at our club for some time. He’s never done TT&TO (time table ops – the most amazing way of controlling trains, one used across a hundred years (until the invention of radios)). He’s a little nerved about it and since we’re running two-man teams, I’m running with him. Last train of the day. We’ve run a local transfer job, a high-speed passenger move (with rights over everyone!) and a local mixed cakewalk-run down from the hallers. and now we’re running up the line to pick up some northern coal for […]

econd run of the day of DixieRails, the PM tick on the Diamond River Valley, a neat HO mountain run. It’s my third run of the day, and – this is a first – I’m still on the same train! See, it’s a transfer run, used by Jimtown Yard and Diamond River Yard to shoot cars at each other (and to sweep the spurs between). So I’ve run one way, then back, and then back again. Maybe I’m tired. How much fuel do these units hold? Am I going to be making yet another run? I’m thinking these things at […]

sually I want to relate something that happened to me, usually if I’m brilliant, but pratfalls are posted as well. I’ve mentioned my mail train surprise (my fault) and my caboose-in-the-face (not my fault). But here’s one for someone else. Paul Lator hosts the great Southern Pacific Coast Line, a fun railroad with CTC but really tight aisles. I’ve run over there for years and always had a great time. I can mention that I’ve watched people crash and burn here. Relevant to this story is the San Luis Obispo yard, where someone (I’m talking about you, Greg Wells) delayed […]

y dad, a late-in-life Rio Grande Railroad fan, used to tell me about the railroad’s problems with the AT&SF. Back in the day, apparently both railroads wanted access to a strategic pass (not having the pass meant miles of tunnels and impossible grades). I think D&RG got into the pass first, and actually built a fort staffed with men of ill-repute to defend their right of way. Shots were fired and all that. Capitalism at its best. This was sorta what we faced when we showed up for set up at the Deland Train Show this morning at 7:00am. Turns […]

‘ve always known this was going to happen. A model railroad operations host’s worst nightmare. Came into the club parking lot today and there were only a small number of cars. Yeah, not enough operators. The club has been going through changes, namely painting the floors which took things down for over a month. Now interest has cooled. And for whatever reasons, a lot of our solid operators skipped the session. So, I managed to fill out the locals (myself, a member who’d never done it before, and a visitor with balls). The through freights I gave to new members, […]

itting in the lounge before the session, taking jobs handed out by Ken Farnham, host for today’s run of the Florida East Coast. 940, an out and back turn. Nothing hard, I figure. “Remember,” Ken tells me. “You need to be back in twenty-nine minutes. I did the switching part in forty moves.” Forty? Another guy chimes in. “Did it in twenty-seven, myself.” What have I gotten myself into? Turns out I’m heading out of the yard the moment the clock goes hot, a single FEC bluebox with four hoppers of limestone and a boxcar. Destination – The Rinker plant […]

e rolled into Dulce (on those tiny little narrow-gauge tracks), dropping our top-heavy caboose just short of the grade crossing (so as not to block any of those flatbed trucks with their boilable radiators). Then to work. With Conductor Richard working the paperwork and me the throttle, we’d just tugged a boxcar off a warehouse spur and slid another one home. The high Rockies seemed to scrape the sky, the pines were rustling in the cool breeze, and across the room, the dispatcher and superintendent were yelling at each other. “122, get off the main,” the dispatcher shouted at us. […]

ou know it’s going to be one of those operations nights. There were only a couple of cars in the lot when I arrived. Before we started, a freakish mishap disabled our water supply (and I had to grope my hand in icy water for that shutoff valve). Then the confusion of getting everyone assigned to trains and getting everything set up. Finally, the clock was hot and I was out of the yard with Mingo Local, running sharp for my industrial area. All sorts of problems there. Turnout issues. My engines were whining (sounds like a bearing is going […]

ne of the ways to tell the difference between casual operators and intense operations is how they handle getting stuck in a hole (or a siding) for a long period of time. At La Mesa (in San Diego), it’s not unheard of to get locked in the box for five (real) hours. It’s happened to me, and guess what – that’s railroading. Wasn’t thinking that when I rolled out of Cocoa Beach at the controls of Train 930, a short (really – no cars) train that does sweep up work to Titusville and ducks into the small industrial yard there […]

t’s a long haul over to Rockledge on a work night – 53.3 miles to be exact. And this is to run a layout so small, only four mainline trains get to cross it. (That’s like 25 miles of driving per train run – whew). But Kevin Loiselle’s Boston and Maine gets around these small room limitations. While some modelers talk about details in terms of handrails and bells, Kevin thinks in terms of ops. When the Bellows Falls switcher comes out onto the main, he has to physically unlock (with a key) the turnout controls, then call the dispatcher […]