e picked up an invite from our sister (half-sister, given it’s “half-O”) clubs, the Orlando Society of Model Railroaders, for an ops session. They still want to learn  from us (which is odd, given the hash we made of our last session). But no, an open invite, and I was pleased at our turnout – we were (just looking) half the crews. We had myself, Kyle, Phil, Terry (in club grays, looking so team-spirited), Mike (in club-heritage black) and Pete (in some sort of black shirt I think he got off a dead ninja (I’m assuming that Friday night at a Wawa can be a bit crazy)).

Our guys ran the through traffic while the ORMR guys took a lot of the switching jobs – that’s okay with us; nice to just run without pressure. Since it was Shemp’s first time, I rode conductor for him (a damn-sight more casual than last week’s ride). Anyway, we had a pretty good time of it. Two runs, same consist, and a Kodachrome unit (a standing joke).

This might be Terry on the high line passing over Kyle. Not sure. I wasn’t there. But cool!

Since Tom (our host) was giving us shit about out last blog (for our flop session) I’m returning the favor. We had paper out once and found another train on the approach to our position – Mike dropped the air and we let him clear. And, I see from Kyle’s photos, he also had a near miss. Funny moment – while getting paper for our return trip, we were told to not foul 90. Mike and I looked over our shoulders but it was a stub yard. Weird. But there was a track that ran down a long switching area. Could 90 be coming from that? We weren’t sure. Now, I’ll admit that I still learn various particulars about railroading, even now. I’ve assumed (from asking around) that a “do not foul” is used to keep you out of the way of a train going your direction. We used to use “not in effect until arrival of” but that meant that some guys would wait for a passenger train to overtake them and as soon as it was in sight, they’d roll and be on his time. Asking around on the sniffy operations boards, I kinda got the impression that “Do not fouls” were for keeping you out of a similar directioned train, and to keep you from running around him at station stops, while “Not in effects” were for head-to-head meets.

Given all this preamble, we were quite surprised when, still looking over our caboose for 90, a passenger train came into the yard from the direction we were facing. Being the conductor and all, I asked, “Um, who are you?” Yep, 90. So I set the turnouts out after he cleared and had a word with Tom about the specific uses of those two orders.

But outside of the near-death experiences, we did have a fun time. Thanks to Tom and his guys for inviting us over. We’re hoping for another one in maybe a month or two – I’ll shout out to the club when we do. If you are new to ops, maybe you’d like to join us. I’m always willing to be a conductor for newbies.

>>>AND YEAH, I STILL FLOG BOOKS. BUY ONE!<<<

All Photos credited to Kyle.Thanks!

A delicate moment captured in the Union Station railcam before the explosion ripped it off the wall. Services for Pete will be held this Saturday. Wear your gray shirts.