went back and checked – my last operations entry was back in March 1st of this year, three and a half months ago. Yes, it’s been that long since I ran in an organized session.

With the possible premature opening of the state under the danger of CORVID-19, and at our club (observing strict mask and sanitizer rules) the club as started to meet again. I was thinking towards a session but I didn’t want to pack a bunch of operators in for one (we’ve run up to thirty people before). Also, I didn’t want to have our just-reopened club hosting a session with people who want to come but don’t like ops forced away. So we went for a Saturday session. Also, we only ran one third of the session – two freights, a passenger run and one of the locals. With me as a dispatcher, that made five. Our yard guy didn’t make it but the freights knew their jobs and sorted accordingly.

So it was a lot of fun – I didn’t know how much I missed it. We social distanced the set-up, one guy back in staging at a time. Jim worked out Zanesville pretty well, and Mr. T ran his classic 202 (with Terry running 223 opposite). Greg ran 66 east. And it was a really fun session. We had some meets without much in the way of delays – without all the rush of a full mass of trains, I could carefully figure things out. Also, to keep people from sharing the phones, I sat in the main room and wrote warrants from a table, delivering them to the crews, pure clerking but fun all the same.

It was a lot of fun. I didn’t remember how much I missed this aspect of my life until now. And if I can get a couple more guys lined up, maybe we’ll do it again in a week or so. I’ll start emailing the squad for crews later.

Great session, guys. You gave me a smile. Under my mask.

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