n the ride over to Palm Bay and the Farnham’s Florida East Coast, Kyle and I discussed ways we could help Ken make the railroad a little easier to prepare. We do drive over to Doc’s WAZU to help stage and clean. Maybe something like that would keep the FEC enjoyable for the Farnhams (and operational for us) in the coming years.

I guess what we did give him was a wonderful session.

Kyle and I seem to have the Midas Touch for sessions these days. We’ve had a string of good ones.

The best thing was that we were trying to nudge Ken into running rather than supervising. I offered to let him dispatch but he turned me down (whew – I still love dispatching!). The Kyle offered to run Trim (Ken’s usual position since it allows him to superintend, too). That got Ken out running and I think he had fun.

Kyle’s new domain; the Hialeah engine house. Ran his first trick there to perfection!

I’ll mention that Jeff C was there, too, and running solid. I think that a great operator influences those around him. People who are sloppy “tighten up” a bit when a non-nonsense operator comes to play. That, or because Ken was in the room and keeping an eye on things. But the session ran great. The first train out of the yard did have multiple derailment on departure – Kyle and I nosed over the panel and spotted some ballast (or something – rat shit? a singularity? Dunno) in the frog. We picked it out and didn’t bother Ken at all, letting him play.

My own change to methods this day was to make sure trains carried cars out of Cocoa (and didn’t lock the yard and block all my sidings like last time). So before I gave a signal out, I’d ask for car counts. Since I’d threatened it and Ken had reiterated the way cards worked, it wasn’t a problem. I even had Downtown Brown’s train stop (even though it wasn’t supposed to) and grab a couple out of Cocoa. After all, there was a delayed meet down the helix so he had time.

This is a working yard, with three people breaking trains and building new ones. “Bustling” doesn’t cover it.

Our only problem was near the end of the session. A couple of the signals would not clear. I dutifully took notes of which ones and reported it in the debrief. Hope it’s nothing major. So we’ll have to wait and see in June (the earliest) for the next go-round to see if it works.

Oh, and one thing to relate. My yardmaster wife was calling a crew for a train and nobody responded. Since everything on the board was set, I asked who she had listed. Steve Hooper? I got this.

Went to the train room – he wasn’t there. Went up to the house and yelled in. He was dead asleep on the sofa. But then again, that guy runs real steam engines, all day, every day, so I’ll cut him some slack. He should have told me he was beat and I’d cell-call him next time. Maybe we can turn the Farnham’s house into a bunk room? Possibly.

Anyway, outside of the signal hiccups, a smooth and casual session. We really enjoyed it.

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All Photo Credits:  Kyle S

Trust me to give myself a full-column photo. But this panel is just SOOO COOL!