OpsLog – LM&O – 11/18/2015

OpsLog – LM&O – 11/18/2015

pectacular!

Oh, you might not think that from ground level (the ground being that of a 25 year old N-scale layout, with all the wear and club-cross-wiring such a thing naturally gathers). Yeah, it’s old. But still there are things that get better with every session.

For example, we’ve got a new generation of support staff coming up. Bill ran the yard sharp and hot (the car-roistering will determine just how accurate it was, but from what I saw it looked good). And Matthew ran the long trick, dispatching an entire session keeping six freights, four locals, two passenger trains and a coal drag apart). He did this pretty clean, too, what with only one near miss and one solid crash (and bad luck, since one of the injured in the wreck was your own noble blogger). But the skill level is advancing and the warrants are quicker and everyone seems to be learning just what checkbox-eight means.

And it’s funny, since while everyone else’s abilities are increasing, the old sweats, namely myself and Bob (just back from two far-away exclusive invite-events, one of which involves running trains under 1950’s rule sets) ran like there was a gas leak at the club. I ran Zanesville Turn, Bob the Mingo Turn, and I watched myself make first-timer mistakes. I worked a dock where there were three cars. My switchlist said to get the first and third, so I had to sort around the middle one and get it back. But before I left town, I realized I was a car short. Of course, the car I’d worked so carefully around? That was going, too. And let me tell you, there is a lot of difference between pulling a string of three for the outbounds and playing Tower of Hanoi to get some and leave some. Ugh.

Bob wasn’t much better, setting aside a cut of outbounds and then forgetting to fetch them before his run back to the yard. He only discovered it while putting things away, and I’ll give him credit – he went back over to Martin and picked up his orphans. So, I guess we can say we actually ran five turns, not four. 

But it was a good session. An old former member was back and actually rejoined (so we didn’t suck too bad, I suppose). And it was nice of my pal Bruce to pick up a book on dispatching for me as a present (watch my reviews for this page-turner). However, he should have waited until the next session where I was in the DS office and could make a significant impact on generating business for his helpers before giving me presents. Still, thanks for the gift. 

And thanks, guys, for the session!

>>>CHRISTMAS IS COMING. WHAT BETTER GIFT BOOK, FROM SOMEONE YOU KNOW! HEY, IF YOU BUY THEM ONE OF MY BOOKS, MAYBE THEY WILL EMPLOY YOUR HELPER ENGINES ON MORE FREIGHTS OVER THE HILL. THAT’S HOW CAPITALISM WORKS, RIGHT?<<<