funny thing happened on the way to the slag pit. I found a long string of cars at the coke byproducts cutoff, fouling the spur. By the time I pulled that cut out of the way and hustled my pots to the pit and dumped them, they rolled down the hill like a couple of half-wrecking balls, bouncing through the midnight darkness. Cooled hard. So I’ll probably hear about that.

That’s the sort of night it was.

It started with me trying to run 927 (the Zanesville turn) trying to run against heavy eastbound traffic under a newbie dispatcher. I ended up getting to Zanesville as the sun rose, finding freight 202 on the siding, and a loaded coal run sitting on my code 55 industrial siding (you could hear the spikes shifting under the weight). Me, I was directed into the main, where I didn’t want to be – I can work from either siding but the main, no. So there you go.

The west-side dispatcher was new – this isn’t a reflection on him. The kid had run east-side and that’s impressive and all but west-side is sweat-side. It’s a whole different ball of warrants. Looked around a couple of times (while waiting on the phone for a warrant) to see everyone else waiting on phones. Bad sign. But the kid stuck it out so good for him. He had Matthew on the other panel as a steadying influence so that’s good.

My funny moment was working down in Carbon Hill, trying to work around Reverend Jim (who is thinking about a new hobby after I messed up his coal cars by dropping them on the floor a couple of nights back – gotta take my time and get the fleet back together properly. Anyway, I had him on site, and I had to get my train turned and sort out a bunch of mine support cars to bring back to Martin. Worse, all night I’d been really screwing up on turnouts – I tossed them under my own train a couple of times and one or two other trains (they say you shouldn’t throw another man’s turnouts and I can only agree. When John DV asked me to reset the switch behind him, I immediately threw the siding turnout and cut his coal train in half. Maybe I have it in for the mineral shipment business).

So I’d been having my own rough night, as was Limestone DuBiel, who’d been beaten like a rug by passing trains up in Harris Glen. I was quietly working, trying to figure out which cars I needed to deal with, feeling sweat trickle down my back and armpits, hoping my heart stents would hold, and Mark commented (from on High (way up in Harris)), “Man, you are so composed while you work. It must be your experience.”  My answer was to throw another turnout under myself.

Things are only funny when they don’t happen to you.

Anyway, I eventually got back to Martin (there was a four train meet I had to push through in Zanesville (Luke, there are other sidings on your subdivision you can use). Checked the clock when I finally got in, to get growled at by the yardmasters playing roof-walk solitaire with their waybills. 8pm. A twenty hour shift. I should have run under Train Authority like Shannon’s 921/2 (where its his train and he grants his own authority).

Once I was done, I looked at the sheet. Everything was run and done. With only a little time left, I picked up the only furnace job available (given they were scraping up the last of the limestone out of the bins with snow shovels). And that was fun, even though I bagged the slag. But it was cool to run the mill with John C pushing the ore Patrick had so carefully brought down the hill, and Kyle showing me mercy by cleaning up all those delayed outbound cars with the MILL job. So all the bins are full and we can start burning steel again!

Steve did a good job as towerman (even though I heard some wags complaining about sitting at a red target with open track ahead (“You want to try it?”). It was funny that one of our old members showed up and was amazed by how far we’ve come (a reference either to our nearly sceniced layout OR the amount of junk under it). Also, simply the number of club members running trains. You know, we used to run a the original south-wall layout with, I dunno, eight guys? Now we have twenty-five guys (counted off the crew sheet), all running trains and literally in the dark. So it’s quite an effort, and a good deal of progress. I’m glad to see the newbies running with less help and the layout running with greater reliability (except, of course, for those terrible drum motors). The thing is – I can’t call everyone out for high praise or low comedy – most of our operators are quiet, competent, and hardly worthy of notice (the way top ninjas are).

Sure, in ways, it was a rough night. But it was, as usual, a lot of fun!

>>>IF WAITING AT A RED SIGNAL, READ ONE OF MY BOOKS. YOU CAN ORDER THEM DOWN THIS LINK<<<

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pete shoots some front-end fotos, high-pixel shots.  I can’t believe I ruined my SP glamor shot with a bent handrail! (Peter F)