ad a bit of problems operating at the Orlando Society of Model Railroading session the other day. Poor signage. See, they are just off Aloma Avenue, a 50 mph road, and you gotta hook a ninety degree turn into a narrow line – fortunately there is a sign at roadside with the address, my turn maker. Well, I found myself well past that, wondering what I’d done wrong, Hung a bat turn and came back – saw some crumpled, splintered mess at the likely roadside. Another bat turn without traffic flying up my behind and yeah, there it was, their sign smushed into the loam by some driver. And this is why life was easier when we had trains and trolleys to get about it. No Mr. Magoos driving about in three ton FUVs, phone in one hand, crossing curbs and driving up trees. Good old days.

As far as their fine layout, our host Tom marks the control points with annotated index cards. Let’s hope nobody crashes a car into those as well.

Me running with my blue meanie unit, just enjoying the simple pleasure of ignoring dispatcher instructions. Strecker watches the master at work. (John DV)

The session went well enough. I got a train 100 this time, a general freight, so I passed down my hoppers to a deserving Chris S and took out a nice string of boxes, tanks, and other associated workaday rolling stock. Got my warrant and some sort of verbal yack from Dispatcher Tom, which I nodded to and replied “And good afternoon to you, too”. Then, when I called out, the DS told me that he’d told me to wait until he said go. Huh? I looked at my warrant, then him, then my train, and then the opposing, onrushing train. That’s why we have warrants, Tom. Verbal is reserved for obscene name-calling, just like on the real railroad.

Fortunately the opposing train raptured out of my way and I could continue. Had a really nice run, a couple of meets, though I wasn’t getting any “Not in effect until” orders – Tom tends to wait until everyone is at a control point before releasing them. I gotta work with him on that. I also showed him the “marker trick”, shown below.

The marker trick- if you give a train permission to go to Placename Jct and set the train marker as on the left, you can’t tell if he’s there or enroute without looking around. But if you give a train permission and set the marker as per the example on the right, you know that he’s not there yet. Once he reports in, set the marker fully on the final location. You can’t understand how much this little trick helps. It’s an LM&O standard.

Anyway, I got to the end of the line and dumped 100 into John DV’s waiting hands and eager coupler – he took the entire cut away on his local, happily shunting about for the rest of the afternoon. Good for him. I ended up on 105 (a return freight, because the railroad is too cheap to put me up in a shabby trackside hotel) and I ran back to the yard. Shemp and Chris and Suzan were there as well, so it was good to see so many ONT faces and different ONT shirts.

John works the shed, doing local switching. I can’t wait until he kicks Shannon off 921 (John DV)

Strecker running coal jennys through wolf country (Chris S)

The dispatcher had his hands full today. Lots of traffic on the move (Chris S)

One thing I’ll mention (since I seem to be in a bitchy mood today) – the thing about young guys with HO engines is that they all run steam with smoke curling out. Man, I’ve been to Tunis and didn’t see as much hookah haze as some of the guys were putting out. I guess I should be happy that nobody was dripping cherry-flavored vape juice down the stacks. At one point, I was sitting and saw Strecker’s diesel engine with a trace of smoke curling up. I started to climb to my feet, shouting, “Chris, your chip is on fire…” Then I saw the steam engine behind his, on a lower track. “Oh, never mind…”. Still, I guess it didn’t bother Shemp at all.

Seriously, I really had a fun time even though the knee was bothering me – getting old. Soon enough, I’ll be sitting in the old engineer’s home, telling you young hoggers all my tales. Or just blogging about it.

Anyway, thanks to OSMR for hosting a session and inviting us in.

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Bygone railroading – dumping coal at a small dumper for local industrial and household use. Nice. (John DV)

Engines at the dock terminal, ready for use. (Chris S)