ast night was Night of the living Utes*

And I gotta say, our young members really shined.

I was back in the office, running Western Subdivision to Luke’s Eastern Subdivision. And how refreshing it was. After my last session on the P&WV (with the operator’s inability to run dependable warrant-operations (no reflection on the host. This was really his crew’s inattentiveness)), it was great to run with a club that’s been doing warrants for years and know how to do it. Everyone was quick with the read-backs, almost everyone called in at yards and clearing off the division, and nobody ran without paper. The yardmasters knew how the phone worked. Really, after that Texas Chainsaw Massacre of a session last week, I was kicking out warrants and enjoying life. Everyone was good.

But particular notice goes to our younger members. Luke was really dead-on in his east-side dispatching. He listened me my advice and read my passed-notes. The Red Rock division point was smooth (we both, at one point, brought in two trains through – both of us asked permission before they came and cleared them out quickly). Also, the week before, Luke cleaned most of the layout himself and also carded the waybills with us. I suspect that perhaps I possibly and unknowingly cloned off a mini-me. I was really glad to see him hit his stride. It was a fantastic effort.

Also, Jude ran the new limestone train (441/442) and (I believe) he did it with a young trainee. He took the kid under his wing without getting dragooned into it, showing total professionalism (including the Gordian Knot at Red Rock (look it up) which he just quietly worked through). Also, Christian was a solid operator – after running the inter-modal (and blowing off the dust) he brought 415 home. In the latter, I had to give him a strange “proceed to” order, namely Martin Jct (how many know where that is? Jim might use this in his quiz). Anyway, he got through the water-level disaster that occurred late in session. You guys all really stepped up for ops.

Now, the aforementioned water-level disaster was an old mans’ problem. I had two trains that crapped out between Weirton and Carbon Hill. Okay, I can’t fault you guys for that – things happen (sometimes DCC stands for Disaster Crap Crisis). But you gotta be quicker on telling me what is going on. I just need to know where you are stopped – specifically – and what we can do to get you started again. I don’t have time for salty sea yarns – I have a railroad to run. And special thanks to Kyle (who is not young by definition, but from my elderly point-of-view is) for finishing up 927.

Everyone else did will – I didn’t see any mega-mistakes. I know we had one head-on but it was understandable and hence redacted in this blog. I’ll allow it (and it wasn’t me). All the stuff that had to run did. The mill is full up with resources- we can skip the limestone and run loaded minerals to “eastern markets” (i.e. to Bound Brook and then backdooring to Cincinnati and back to their starting points). Going forward, Zach and I agreed that the intra-yard train (231/243) will now run right at midnight, start-of-session and reverse at Martin Yard for an immediate return (since the same guy usually signs up to ride it back, why wait? Let’s just get him home). Hopefully that will stagger the Harris Glen jobs (231 and 441) and cut down the deadlocks on the high-side.

And it was a pleasure, as always, to run with you guys. The whole club ran this railroad by the book, a thing I don’t see on too many other layouts, club or otherwise.

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* If you are a true “Ute”, you won’t get the reference. Check out the flick My Cousin Vinnie (1992) (i.e. before you were born) for an explanation.

Bonus: Blogmaster admission – if you read my blog on dispatching the P&WV from last week, you’ll remember my clever realization of an issue with Tom Wilson’s warrants. Turns out I was incorrect. Steve Hooper (from wherever that steamy weasel is right now) noted that “Last Named Point” is NOT a reference to any given locations on the warrant (in this case, restricted speed locations). No, Last Named Point is the last point of your granted authority (generally the “Proceed to _____” bit). While it makes no difference on our warrants (the way they are arranged, this won’t happen) but to be correct, that reference is to the final location the train has clearance to. So yes, I was wro…. wong….(sigh) … WRONG!