ough day for me on the Florida East Coast. Evidently we simulated love-bug season. I could hardly see out of the cab and the wipers didn’t help. Squinting for half the session. But that comes in later.

So Ken wanted to dispatch and in a surprise move, put Zach into the trim job (I’ve done it several times – it’s good casual fun). This, of course, meant we could all talk about Zach in the ops shed, so it was an amusing day.

Delighted to find myself moving road units – been a long time. My first job was the Eau Gallie (better pronounced as “Oh Gallie”, as it was firmly beaten into me) limestone return trip, an easy run from Oh Golly Gee back to the yard, with green boards all the way. Hardly had I turned in my engine when my Yard Mistress commanded me to take out the Pinetta Turn, an out and back with a lot of interesting switching. After watching the muddled mess that was made of it last time, I was eager to count coup on this one. Got to Palm Bay and discovered why it is so hard – you have a short switchback to work off of, and three industries on limited sidings. Fortunately I’d just finished playing a lot of the Inglenook puzzle (which is an indexing puzzler). My major problem was that the boxcar I needed was all the way down to the end, making me have to dredge it up-train, then turn around and shove it down-train and into the siding. I was actually quite pleased.

And hey, here’s a trivia question. Where is Melbourne Sand & Gravel? In the town of Melbourne? No. It’s way out past Oh Godly, over in Pinetta. I’m glad someone pointed that out – I was looking all over the place for it.

Now that I knew that I had no Melbourne stops, I proceeded to Oh Go Low, to work Cecil tractor (easy) and ABCO (not so easy, since it was on the other side of the shunting 940, doing the Rinker plant job that I’d ridden home (see above). Al was doing the work here and he really helped me out. I had too ABCO cars to go in, two out.He worked with me to to run my loads in while I plucked the outbounds up. It was quick, cooperative and sweet. My work done, I got ready for the quick jump to Pinetta to work the newly discovered Sand & Gravel company. And then disaster struck.

I was balancing my throttle and waybills in my hands when the throttle popped out and tapped me between the eyes. I mean, no, really, it was just a light love tap. And suddenly my glasses’ nose piece broke, my two lenses and ear hooks falling down my shirt front. Like, shit, I went from my drifting 20/20 (or so) to 20/200 in a blink of… well, never mind. I placed the two monocles somewhere on Ken’s scenery (perfect for discarded optometry), squinted and continued. I like the fact that FEC puts big car numbers on the flanks of their rolling stock.But the tank cars are nice and discrete (thanks, UTLX or whoever it was). had to do the turn’s run-around and took so much dispatcher shit (well, now I know what it’s like) that I tried my best not to bug him anymore. He still called me out for a stunt – I left the caboose on the back of the train, and with my run-around it was now behind the engine for the return trip. Didn’t want to ask to local turnout control and possibly block the line so I ran back to Oh Golly Willikers that way: engine, caboose, cars. With Al rolling out, I could use the Rinker cut off to drop the caboose off the front and pick it up on the back. Of course, with more Cameras than the City of London, Ken saw it and bitched about that.

My last run was a tiny train running to the asphalt plant. Ken and I shared a moment of real engineer/dispatcher talk when I got to Pinetta and needed to run into Buenaventura, about four inches away. I reported holding at Pinetta, the DS said, “Okay”. I said “Okay”. Without the signal or any notification, I waited. Then, when Tropicana 101 was coming down from Cocoa, I noticed that my turnout was set for the siding. Mentioned this to the DS and he said he’d set it for me, expecting me to go. “Go? Like, why?” Then I heard the turnout clunk back to the main. “Too late”. Anyway, my last train was a dinky one and after my asphalt car swap, I wiggled my way up the line, around one train in Cocoa and two in City Point (a look at the map will show no passing sidings at either location – I was like a ninja). Anyway, brought the train into it’s final crew change point on the dot.

I’ll say (since I was part of it) that the switching was much smoother this time around. I didn’t see too many delays and the dispatching (even though it seemed to rely at clairvoyance at times) got the job done. There were no long waits like my last go at the panel (I still re-live that session in my nightmares). So we call came away smiling, including Zach with his new found love of trimming and engine hostling. Outside of losing my vision, my world becoming a blur, it was a good session.

Thanks to the Farnhams for having us out.

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P.S. Went to a Sunday-open glasses store and they were good enough to swap out my shades and clears so now I can see (and type) again. And that is why this blog is here.