hen I was a small lad, I dreamed of dispatching. The idea of trains ordered to meet other trains at passing sidings, of rolling through stations, that was a really cool image. It was an unrealized dream.

And now? Today on the New Haven Highland Division, dispatching was like Donkey Kong. The entire day I was running up ramps and jumping over barrels, tormented by a host of huge monkeys beating their chests. Really, I was wedged in a corner behind a panel that didn’t make a lot of sense at times, yelling across the room or squinting up at a monitor, trying to make out the alignments of pixelated turnouts. Or coming out to see that Waterbury yard was crapping about (they seemed unable to work out getting trains around each other). Or climbing under the layout to pop up in places the crews can only imagine, rerailing or nudging trains (I even had to fetch cars off a staged train that had forgotten its set outs). I forgot about my wack shoulder, my missing prostrate, my clogged arteries, my bald spot and my fraying sanity. My entire world was writing train orders, bumping the clock up and keeping track of every little thing.

I remember watching my sweat patter off my train sheet. That was the take-away image.

Waterbury yard, packed and confused (Photo: Kyle S)

All this took place while the host fussed around the kitchen, sampling the lunch and muttering, “Et eez not good. Needz more zee salt”. When did I end up hosting someone else’s layout?

It was such a scuttle-around-on-the-floor-like-a-roach sort of day that when I got home, I crashed into bed and woke up two and a half hours later with a mouth that tasted like a sock full of French onion soup. Still groggy.

But it was fun.

The dispatcher climbs up to fetch out a fried engine. Behind him is our atomic clock (atomic because it’s made out of atoms) (Photo: Kyle S)

HDX-1 shunts its way past the Bank Street interlocking, the dispatcher and superintendent arguing in the background (Photo: Chris S)

We moved trains up and down the line, that much can be said. We also burned out some engines (and possibly a few friendships). But we did it on time (well, on the official We’re at Lunch clock). Oh, I think if I’d not been nagging and thrusting clearance cards into the reluctant hands of engineers, we’d have had some cornfields. But everyone ran, everyone kept their cool and we ground down the session. Having a staging track assignment sheet helped (a lot). Having a wall-mounted display that described the routing through a hidden double slip switch did not help until I crawled over to it and watched how it set while the host threw it – once I knew how to read the nutty display, I could get trains – more or less – into and out of staging.

Really, from my Phantom-of-the-Opera organ/control board, I didn’t see too many of the operators (just the passing movements, the occasional coast yard visitor and Greg quietly working Bristol). Well, there was JW who demanded to run down from the engine house to Waterbury to pick  up an outbound train; I lined his route up, then his train wasn’t ready. Then it was. So I’d line it. But no it wasn’t. I think, at one point, the manual layout clock was running slower than real time.

But it was a lot of fun. While I might have woken later that night with the taste of French onion, I did so with a smile. Great session. Thanks for hosting, Rob.

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P.S. Fair warning: Next time we WILL be running true TT&TO, meaning I’m not going to confirm the line is clear or that you can go. Next time, it’s by the book (or, rather, the timetable) so you’d better understand your jobs or meets. And for those who don’t? Well, you’ll be the one climbing under the layout to fix things.

To place cars on this spur, the engineer had to run the zipper, just like on the Tuscarora (Photo: Chris S)

Closing on a reminder of how beautiful this layout is – an afternoon freight pounds through Bristol (Photo: Kyle S)