Short haul out of Points North down to Cocoa, where I’ll dump my four cars and shut down my unit. The main’s clogging – past the restrictions at Jay Jay’s, I find three freights holding at Titusville, watching their signals, eager to head home. Slip past that parade on the siding, then beg the dispatcher to give me a green, please!

Finally get to Frontenac, where I’d pushed coal about a power plant early this night-session. There is a detector there. In reality, it would sniff up a passing train’s skirts, checking speed and hotboxes and such, then broadcast its findings over the air. Here, Ken does it with a pocket of cards. Low odds for something bad but I pull it, something dragging on the second car back. I gotta drop it for inspection. I try to talk the dispatcher into letting me run around at Frontenac and push it into the coal spur but he’s not having it – I get to limp down the coast at 15mph and look for a siding. Citco’s got one, with just enough room. Carefully, I edge the foreign UP box in with the FEC limestone haulers (looks so strange there), tuck the defect into the waybill and stick it in the off-spot slot. Link up, pump the air, hiss-hiss, we’re good. Call the dispatcher and beg a green out of him. It’s a long run down hidden trackage after this, ending at Cocoa where I’ll bail. Two toots of the horn and we’re rolling.