Ops preparation. John shows us the bird. (Photo: Birdman)

o we had a crazy session last night – all sorts of delays. John C had to pry a dead bird out of Greg W’s grill (no wonder he was thinking about chicken for dinner the long drive out). And then Shannon and I had to deal with club business – once the air was cleared, we could get on with Zach B’s threats (pre-brief) and get down to the business of running trains.

And for that, let me set the scene for the opening hour. Imagine Pete dressed in a dapper suit, smoking a high-brand cigarette. He’s in the rear observation car of Silver Bullet 2, conducting an interview.

“Yes,” Peter responds to a question. “The Silver Bullet trains are foreign road trains that cross the LM&O bridge route. As for your question on capacities? Well, yes, our trains are increasing in length to meet demand. That the dispatchers complain that they don’t fit in most sidings, that’s just lack of imagination. No, there is no danger in running long trains.

Mike works the mill job, little suspecting the heartburn he’ll suffer later at the summit (Photo: John DV)

“You’ll notice that they are still giving us priority over other trains – we just passed 202 in Zanesville and will be in Pittsburgh Station ahead of schedule.

“Why are we stopped in this tunnel east of Mingo Jct? I don’t know, but if there isn’t a good reason, I’ll be hiring a new engineer tomorrow morning…”

What else the passenger tycoon was going to say was lost as, with a roar, headlights swung through the curved tunnel behind the stopped passenger train. And the last thing to go through Peter’s head was the coupler of 202. See, I told Pete that smoking was bad for him. As it was, the train toppled over in the tunnel and burned, causing a delay of session for ninety scale minutes as crews struggled to rerail it. As a dispatcher of this sub-division, I really didn’t care. If you are going to stop in a tunnel and know you have a train following you, you need to (a) call the dispatcher and report it and (b) trot a flagman back to stop a train you know is running hot on your ass. So, yes, that was an interesting start-of-session.

Passing/passing trains all night at Harris. A point for style, minus ten for efficiency (Photo: Alex B)

So I was dispatching West End and Zeus H ran East, his first dispatching gig. He did good for a first timer, and got to “see the elephant” (i.e. learning through hardship). I had to laugh as he learned just how ornery engineers can be and how rarely they OS. But we worked the Red Rock interchange pretty well (the resurrected Silver Bullet 2 spent hours on the up track, backing up four of my trains in Pittsburgh). I think his fatal flaw was trying to pass trains at the short Harris Glen siding – I only pass there for two reasons, “never” and “ever”. Still, he got the rack trains to pass there (where they are supposed to go by) which made owner Zach happy.

Poor Mike on the Harris Glen turn. With all that passing / sawbying / rear-ending going on at the summit, he nearly hung himself. He didn’t need flag protection – he needed to tear up the tracks to get his work done. But he got himself and the situation under control and got everything spotted correctly (I say that, but I haven’t reviewed the paper yet). I’ll watch out for you next session, Shemp.

Zach finally, finally see his racks pass where they were supposed to. I should say something snarky about this.Woops, just did (Photo: Chris S)

I have to admit that I really felt happy with the participation. We started with all twenty-three scheduled trains crewed (two others were annulled because of loading issues noted below), and we ran full steel mill operations (all limestone, ore and coal in and out, all slag dumped). I think everyone learned the importance of mill jobs since coal could not be run – nobody bothered to take the coal to the dumper so it wasn’t ready for the return run. I think we’ll start awarding points for those little mill runs to make sure they get done.

Shelfton has a new guy in town. SP works the maze. (Photo: Pete F)

Opening bell, clock is hot, and three locals scurry out (Mingo, Zanesville and Pittsburgh). In minutes, the tunnel west of here will be smokey with burning Franks (Photo: Zach B)

And if Zeus wasn’t having enough heartburn on his dispatcher job, I was annoyed to find that 97 (that’s you, Greg) hung around Bethlehem station because he had a listed meet there with 66. 66 had orders to not advance until 97 arrived at Lehigh, but of course, you were playing time table and train order games. Do you think I’ll hoop you an order? I’ll say it again (with growing exasperation) – meets under warrants and CTC are nothing more that scheduling notifications. Yes, you should see 66 at Bethlehem but if you have a warrant to go, you go (the same as you would under TT&TO with a train order giving you rights over him). Given the fact that we were killing passenger trains right and left (we wiped out three last night) it stood to reason that 66 might be burning in a field somewhere and you should proceed under a warrant. As it stood, we could have left the two of you there waiting for each other, shut out the lights and locked up. You’d still be there. In future years, we’d have to explain the piles of yellowing bones (still clutching throttles) to potential new members.

So again; railroads went to Warrants and CTC to get around the inflexibility of TT&TO. We already have one sea lawyer in the club. I don’t need two.

My big goof of the night – filling all Pittsburgh tracks with trains going east up the hill, only to find out that the eastern DS needed one to come down. Had to back the stacks to make room for this (Photo: John C)

And the kid that saved my bacon. Newbie Jude took a complex backing order and executed it to a “T”. The reward is that now he is up and Red Rock for the handoff to the next subdivision (Photo: John C)

Aside from work-stoppage actions on the parts of crews, we did run everything available. Coal trains will be back in action next month, along with everything else. And I’m really looking forward to it.

Tune in next month when Zeus attempts to run West End. It won’t be an elephant he sees this time – it will be a brontosaurus. Yah, meet the Flintstones.

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This is just cool. Literally clearing the throat of Martin. (Photo: Zach B)

Silver Bullet One clears Harris Glen, wiggling out of delays and chaos on the eastern side. I got him across the Western Division to Cincinnati with two warrants. There he would die in a horrible crash in staging with 66. Yes, a track marked “through” is probably not a good one to park on (Photo: The late Kyle S)

The MT ore hoppers get pulled out of the steel mill unloaders. The crews are quickly learning that they must finish a mineral job (loads and MTs) before a new one is available. (Photo: John DV, who does not like this policy at all)