just want you to know that I’m not to blame for this,” the new dispatcher told me in the midst of the hectic shitshorm that was tonight’s ops session. And yes, it really wasn’t all his fault, not when trains are departing yards in the wrong direction, ignoring their written, copied, and confirmed warrants, and running past frantic flagmen (why do you think they’re waving that red flag at you – because they’re communists?).

Toss into this mix the special rules I added – that Irma was breaking up against our eastern slopes, that every train would need helpers going up, and that trains down would require fifteen minutes to set retainers at the summit and fifteen minutes to clear them at the bottom. Ideas like this is all part of my don’t-reelect-robert plan. So we’ll see.

But the important thing was that while we ran all the trains with a newbie dispatcher, the layout was having an off-night. Too many derailments, too many problems. We keep fixing them but more pop up. I think, for Red Rock, that no downhill trains (Westbounds out of Harris) should ever use that siding. The thing is, with all the weight piling up on that steep slope, that divergent route is hard to get into.

But Dispatcher Cody (how that sounds like a character out of an old radio serial) did okay. Sure he was new and played catchup all night, but until you sit at that panel and run the trains we get through this pike (probably one of the most active DS panels in the state), you don’t know what busy is. So maybe I can talk him into it again. That lets me get out on the railroad and run things like Mingo.

And yes, for the record, lugging that gondola cut around was a royal pain. Which is what railroading is some times.

Anyway, while it was a bitch of a session tonight, guys, we did get through it. And that’s commendable. Nobody punched anyone, nobody stormed out (and if they do, believe me, I’ll blog it, so don’t)

>>>TOO TIRED TO SAY ANYTHING EXCEPT MY BOOKS ARE FOR SALE DOWN THIS LINK<<<

P.S. Crap. I was just writing this thing and I realized the best way to get those gons out of Patterson Quarry and back into the yard. So obvious!