can’t explain it. We’d agreed to coming out for another session at ORSS (Orlando Society of Model Railroads). My ONT guys had casually chatted about it a week or so before. But when it came time for trains, everyone forgot.

I’d told my wife that I, strangely, had the day off and we could do something maybe. Then I looked at the cullender at 11am and realized, oh shit! Had a session to attend. And of course that really pissed her off. “Be back at 4pm, honey! See ya! Bye!”

Got to their clubhouse and realize I was the only ONTer there. Texted everyone, got a couple “Izzat todays?” and one Kyle, who got there in time to run a train (and, additionally, clean up a mess I made in the coal mine).

Yeah, it was like one of those spooky mysteries where the entire town collectively forgets something only the hero knows. Because of Halloween, maybe? Old age? Probably.

Anyway, this is a railroad blog, not MeaCulpa.com. I’m really pleased at how far Tom is advancing operations in the club. Tom added colored tape to the tops of some of his trains, markers for the yardmaster to classify with. And, while we chatted, I did one of those “know what would be cool?” things, suggesting that Tom scatter reefer cars though his freights, so that the yardmaster could cherrypick them out and build an actual reefer train for them. This loosely follows prototype – reefer blocks are sent across the country in a string. En route, they are broken into smaller units until you are down to short cuts and individual cars servicing smaller supply companies, food factories and grocers. Then the cars drift back on returning freights, to be gathered into long trains again. And what was cool – I merely suggested it and Tom immediately did it and it was a lot of fun. Tom’s yardmaster was enjoying his work with their yard actually doing things, not just storing trains. OSRR now has it’s own Bobby Klauck. Just don’t feed him after midnight, don’t shine bright light on him and don’t get him wet.

Their pace is a lot quicker than their early sessions now. Tom is getting trains across their division without delay. The crews know how their warrants work. They are now running a clock just to see how it works. Before long, they’ll actually structure a timetable into this, possibly schedules for passenger trains and start times for freights (that’s what works for us).

Only a couple of downsides to the session (other than the absent ONT). Since they run on a Saturday and ops are not the formalized religion like it is at ONT, they have a lot of casual members who show up, chat, do projects, all that. They really need a Zach to chase the “casuals” off. And maybe the club needs to rename themselves as OSCFA (Orlando Society of Chick-fil-a). Most of them eat earlier at that beanery, but the latecomers tend to haul in their own bags of the stuff. The thing is, Chick-fil-a smells peppery in general and it seems like our hosts are adding it to their takeout. My nose was starting to run by the time my first freight was rolling down towards Marshal Yard. It was very professional, the way I dumped my train onto their Yard Gremlin and ran to the bathroom to blow my nose. It was like Nasal Ebola or something. Why don’t I wear a big bandana like real  engineers? I could have used it enroute.

Anyway, they are having a final session on December 13, which is also our club Christmas Party. I might try to do both but we’ll see. At least it will be in my calendar. So I can overlook it again.

Anyway, thanks to Tom and his OSRR for hosting us.

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