I was pretty beat – I’ve been going full bore all weekend. And now it was ops in a warn garage and I was waiting for my train to be built in Orlando Yard. The two kids running the yard (ordinarily competent on their own) were bickering and scuffling, both working counterpoint to each other. Three adults were waiting for trains to be built.

I was out of patience.

I walked in, tried to reason, got nowhere, and went edge-on – told them these trains and throttles weren’t their’s, that they needed to treat the layout with care and respect and that we were tired of all the grab-assing going on. The moment they started again, I tuffed one of them out of yard limits and worked with the other one to sort out his outbounds. In a few minutes, I had my train built and the others were being assembled. The session continued.

I’m not sure what the take-away is here. I’d much rather write about the success of younger generations to build their problem-solving skills through operations, or what a great session I had, but sometimes just getting through a difficult session is success enough.

I did have a good time. Got to run two locals, got to do some fun switching, got to do railroading. And maybe the kids will learn something for next time.

They’d better. Otherwise I’ll go edge-on again.

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