promised I’d write this. As mentioned in our last thrilling adventure, the layout had gone down hard with electrical shorts knocking out the line from Calypso to Hellertown. Over the weekend (and right after this session – was I tired) we met at the club and figured out what the problem was (a broken turnout motor was the culprit). And so now we had a working layout and a half dozen trains blocking the main here and there. Kinda like if the rapture came and only locomotives went to heaven.

So after a long day at work, after dinner and a club meeting, after the superior clinic on (har har) turnout motors, we did a pickup ops session. No dispatcher. No yard master. Just get to a passing area and peek around the corner to see if it was clear. I picked up 298 (which I’d died in the yard throat with). And off I went.

It was actually a lot of fun. Restaging a grocery store sucks – did it every night when I was a clerk. Lumber yards, ditto. But restaging a layout by working it through its paces is kinda fun. No warrants. Not fuss. Getting helpers was easy – just yell, “Hey Bruce!” And as for Martin Yard – rolled in right behind anther train. A visitor was watching me work the switch list. I handed it to him. “Can you call out the tracks as I back each car in?” So he helped me with my pickups and setouts. When I left, the next train coming in handed his paper over. “Hey, help me too”. Poor guy got put to work. When I looked over later, someone had loaned him an engine and he was shuffling cars with his own switcher. Who knows – maybe we got a new member.

So it was a lot of fun. We finished a local, ran four freights and a coal train, all in an hour. Its sure easier than backworking all those shipping orders.

>>>AND HEY, IF YOU DIDN’T BUY A BOOK LAST WEEK, NOW’S YOUR CHANCE!<<<