irst thing – Did I get the date right this time?

That established, okay, so usually after a session like that, I do an OpsLog like this, meaning massive praise at how wonderful we all were. Well, true enough. But reflecting on this, I’ve run on layouts tiny, on bedroom layouts so casual that (in one case) the owner offered us beer and pornography in his crew lounge), to layouts so realistic that you pucker, worried that you are going to goof and have all the pros sneering at you.

But if I had to pigeon-hole us, one word, I’d say we’re Inclusive.

Last night we had a club just forming up in Jacksonville (around a former-member/defector) down for ops. Given that I had just walked into a very intense session a few days before,  I changed out the pre-brief to make it as forgiving and welcoming as I could. First up and up-front, I said they’d all run with member conductors to handle paperwork and keep them out of trouble. Quick rundown of our layout’s orientation. Then all the jobs got assigned out (swapped out with Luke, giving him Shelfton and ran Zanesville instead). Ran out, side be side, with Shannon’s Mingo Turn down the parallel yard leads, and got over to the standard holding siding to wait for Ohio Flyer 2 and 202. And knew it might turn into “one of those” nights when I encountered 202 first. Yeah, they didn’t quite get the critical nature of checkbox 9 (“do not foul ahead”) but hey, it worked out.

Was working Zanesville with my F’s when I saw, not one, but two near head-ons up in Harris Glen. Seems that the high altitudes were making it difficult for operators to cognify their orders. Lots of “Whoas” and some laughs. But the guests were out running and enjoying themselves, nobody damaged anything, and everyone was having fun.

Kudos out to the three wise men who spread themselves thin to allow the rest of us to move metal. Matthew dispatched the entire division himself, 121 warrants which is at par with what Zach and I have managed in the past (no interlocking, either). Bob K did all of Martin Yard on his own and is probably so shaken he’ll never play (or even tune) a piano again. And Zach handled Calypso and did Nazareth too. And since I’m button-holing people, the funniest warrant order that night was the Checkbox 12 Luke picked up for the MT ore train out of Calypso, which told him to “Watch for X6910”. Luke showed it to Zach and me, and we brought Kyle (the extra engineer) in, and we all scratched our heads over it. Matthew explained that it was kinda a courtesy and an advisory. Well, still, he still got the other 120 orders out right (as right as I know – others may have crashed but I’m oblivious to that).

Okay, so we did a historical reenactment – Jim M running the coal trains. Luke picked up the ores (as mentioned) and Kyle and Zeus ran (this is a first, I think) all three furnaces! We pretty much burned our material reserves at Bethlehem Steel – I was up fetching Limestone from Harris at 2am “the next day” to keep us supplied.

Oh, and it was fun – overall, I ran Zanesville Turn, the Martin Local, the Limestone run, and also both Ore out and Ore in, swapping with Luke’s line-haul trains when he hit Calypso Yard (no, Zach didn’t mind us filling up his two A/D tracks with jenny-swapping at all). I don’t get to run trains often, but when I do, I run midnight to midnight, as many as I can.

Overall, we ran nearly everything that there was (outside of 95, the racks and one stack). And this was with crews helping the guests, answering questions and being presentable. Overall, it was another high-point for the club.

So, yes, even though I wasn’t going to say it, I will – we done good!

>>>BOOKS DOWN THIS LINK, FOR THOSE WHO STILL READ ‘EM<<<