ell, this just shows the dangers of over-scheduling. In my defense, we’d agreed to have “night ops” at the club layout this Saturday, and then a few days later the FEC crew call came out. The club is a commitment I have to honor (and it’s fun) but the FEC hasn’t run in six months and I wanted to jump back aboard (it’s also fun). So that’s it  – run to Palm Bay in the morning, operate until late afternoon, then burn across half the state to the LM&O for the evening session. And I had a sandwich with me so that would be dinner.

Sadly, the FEC was a bit understaffed. Various events had cropped up for others, and one guy was sick day-of so we were light. Given this, we went without a dispatcher at all, just running off the timetable (unprecedented). Of course, Ken did have to duck away from the trim job to route trains in and out of the yard shed – in this, I think he got nearly every one of them down the wrong outbound track. In the shed, the light crew worked the line with comfortable confidence. It was a couple of easy yet interesting runs for me – a couple of light freight runs. The first did drops at Titusville and Cocoa, the second was through but for a swap at only Cocoa. I’ll have to ask Ken if he can adjust the clock and pick up the pace when it’s like this – there was a moment where other than Al, all of us were waiting in sidings. Wife JB served as the Radio Czar, keeping the traffic moving in and out well enough. I think one time, when making my second run work effort in Cocoa did I come close to falling off timetable.

But yes, since it turned out that my evening session would be a hectic craze-fest, it’s good we had a nice casual session to lead into it. Thanks to hosts Ken and Bev for the train running and all those Oreos (the club made quick work of those – I think they even ate the bag).

Hope to see you next month!

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