Train Blog

Conflict is part of the drama of being human. It runs through our lives and our literature. Even in model railroad ops, where we all work in a make-believe world, all working towards the same successful economic conclusion (efficient transportation), there is conflict. Crews have to vie for the dispatcher’s limited time. The dispatcher juggles scarce resources (sidings and time) to get trains over the road. Even in the operations arena, the players are trying to do the best job, if only for the cred it brings, the ego boost, the possibility of further invites. It’s all about efficiency, which […]

I’m running up the long hill towards Harris Glen, “66” glowing on my E-8’s number boards, the cool air flowing down my passenger train’s orange and red livery. It’s a busy night on the line – lots of activity around Pittsburgh when I pulled out. People standing around the phones, waiting for warrants. The railroad is pretty jammed with numerous extras out on the iron. But that’s Bob’s problem. Tonight, the usual dispatcher gets to run! Ahead of me, I can just make out the tight siding at Harris where the caboose of overdue 202 is just, only just getting […]

Woke up on my free Friday with a sense of dread. I could only lay there hating today, wishing I’d gone to work. It’s like I’m facing the gallows. I guess it goes without saying that I hate hosting ops. I’m like an actor who has performed King Lear hundreds of times but still gets hysterical before the curtain goes up. I read of model railroader hosts who do a little set up, a little tinkering, and eagerly await their operators. Me? I just sit and slowly freak out. And it’s such a tempest in a teacup. After my shower, I started working […]

I’m at the throttle of GP-9 5417, a brute of an engine in the early fifties, big and black and boxy, nothing like those bullet-like F units still working about the railroad. This is the shape of things to come, utility over form, but I’m glad for that. These monsters are blowing heat and smoke like a river boat, their dynamic brakes howling as I come down out of the Lucita Range with tons of beets bulging over to tops of their open hoppers. The pressure is on – I departed San Luis Obispo with train 923 assembling in my […]

Observations from running ahead of a young fella with a short attention span. In Knoxville, I climb aboard Train 172, which will hang down the W line to Spartanburg after car swapping in Asheville. A couple of tracks over, this young man is fumbling radio, cards and whatnot, trying to get train 162 onto the line. He’s crestfallen when the dispatcher tells him to hold. “Train 172, clear to enter the main,” the dispatcher responds to my initial call. “Cross over to track 2 and call clear into Asheville Yard.” “Don’t take it personally,” I tell him. “I’m running an […]

On the panel again on the FEC (as mentioned HERE). Always easier the second time around – I know what to expect. And now we’re in the zone. In the early days of programming (back before SOX and process and other such rubbish) I’d go into the zone a lot. Also, writing sometimes puts me there. This is when you are furiously working on multiple levels, with your brain seemingly running at capacity, fully engaged. In the zone, time doesn’t pass, it doesn’t even exist. You are fully focused, dealing with each issue as they come up. I’ve got the sheet […]

With warrants (where a dispatcher reads checkbox orders to a crew, who reads them back) there is a handy little order for “Not in effect until arrival of train ____ “. With this, you can latch orders. If Train 101 is going from A to C, and train 102 is at B, wanting to go to A, you can cut an order to 102 that clears him but it isn’t “in effect until arrival of 101”. If a dispatcher is clever, he can latch orders ahead of time, letting the trains roll as events trigger them. It’s really cool… when […]