ot an invite through a friend to come down to Sebastian, Florida for a session. The soup ticket was to Don Irace’s Providence & Worchester Railroad, which I knew nothing about. Bungled the entire trip over, overestimating travel times which put me sitting in the world’s nastiest donut shop for just over an hour, waiting for hot-time.

Anyway, once Chip showed up and showed me where the railroad was, I met Don (who is a very nice guy, and who is the host of the segment Talking Ops with Don Irace on the Around the Layout podcast). The layout is packed (thoughtfully) into a shed in the back, very orderly. As I listened to the guys chat, I realized that these were serious operators, probably some of the most intense I’ve run with. I haven’t felt this much of that in-over-my-head drowning sensation since that first La Mesa session (when I had to pay full museum admission since I didn’t know where the member’s back-door was). The controllers were new to me, the momentum is high and the pace slow. We started by drawing standard playing cards to pick jobs. I got the high-card and was given a list of random letters. “Which would you like to run?” You gotta be kidding. I picked PR2 since, well, it was on the top of the list. Turns out that was a good choice – I’d be working down the Pawtucket branch and out of everone’s way. Suits me.

It’s double-decker, switching orientated operations with switchlists and limited space. What’s not to like? Pawtucket is on the top deck.

As mentioned prior, I didn’t quite get the throttles. A lot of times, I didn’t know if I was in forward and reverse (meaning the brakemen would step well clear once they uncoupled me). A lot of recouples. And yes, about an hour in, someone told me about the brake button (I’d been gliding my stops until then). About thirty minutes before the end, I realized that if you punched brake, you needed to unpunch it. There was no indication of brake status and I tended to blip-brake, tap-tap-tap, meaning I didn’t know that brake status after. I had to learn to hit the brakes, slow down, then consciously let off when I reached the desired speed.

And, yes, about fifteen minutes before the end, I realized that a small light on the throttle told me if I was in reverse or forward. Well, that would have been helpful out on the line. This isn’t Don’s fault at all. I simply didn’t know his system and tried to muddle through.

Slightly run-down industrial blight has never looked so good, nor so realistic.

Something else unique at play here – his dispatcher. The dispatcher is a remote job. Last night, it was a kid out in Colorado (who did a great job). Don tells me that they get dispatcher requests from all over the world. Of course, me being new and him being remote, I called to ask to clear a signal and got a turnout thrown under me. Didn’t realize that until two cars were on the ground (made it three, glide-stopping as I was at the time). But still, interesting. I know the boys at the ONT club have been talking this for years. Maybe we’ll figure something out.

Anyway, back to Pawtucket – the industrial area is based on the real thing, frozen in the 1990s or so. Like Terry Harrison, Don created a believable industrial landscape that feels like a real job, not a contrived puzzle. In the map below, you enter from the lower left and work your one (short) runaround. You work off a switchlist, which I suspect is fairly true-to-form, given at the realism we operated under. Don was nice enough to note that I should work the Hasbro siding first. “Sure”, I told him, did it, moved forward and started to glide into what I thought was a drill track behind Key Container and BUMPF!  I hit the end of the track. After blushing and looking around to hope I’d not been noticed, I took it very carefully (even with all the recoupling I was doing).

The important thing was I really enjoyed myself on this job, even when the oversized boxcar I took out of Wurth Beer wouldn’t fit on the right-side drill track and allow me to use the crossover near Key. So, change of plans. I worked it out.

It’s a bit frightening to actually run on a railroad when you don’t quite know what level the operations are at, discovering all the call points, the expected communications, the jobs, all that. Makes me realize that, with guests coming to our clubhouse Saturday for a session, I need to bring up my level of pre-brief and even assign conductors. I’ve run on the LM&O for decades, under TT&TO as well as Warrants. I know all the tricks and operational aspects. Going to a high-realism session makes me remember what it’s like to be new and green. And last night I was Kermit-level green.

Valley Falls Yard. My engine is in the shed, to the right. I started my day by backing up rather than going forward.

I was feeling pretty proud of myself when I rolled back into Valley Falls Yard, having done my job with some level of competence. So I picked up the next run, the sugar job from Worchester Yard over to New England Sugars and back. How hard could it be? Worked it out with the DS to run up the line to the CSX Worchester yard for a run-around, then back to NES for what looked like simple index switching.

Okay, so I was a bit confused by the paperwork here, I’ll admit it. Chip came over and helped me fuddle it out. And silly me, I thought I was working another branch line and pulled a couple of outbound cars on the main, thinking it was my rail. The next thing I knew, I’ve got a gravel train coming towards me from Worchester, and a CSX transfer job out of their yard, coming the other way. Dropped everything and dashed out onto the main (using my new-found braking abilities) can cleared the cars, bowing and scraping to both engineers and the DS for my stupidity. As I said, if you think you are good at ops, leave your usual railroad and run somewhere new.

It turns out NES is a ball-breaker, at least to first-timer (and I’m a Shelfton-ace). Limited space, specific placement, and a very limited drill track make this a real puzzler. Nothing like trying to find a specific black tank car in a sea of black tank cars. I was maybe half-way through the job (and actually pretty proud of what I’d managed (if we don’t count that cars-on-the-mainline bit)) when the session was called. But yes, it was a good (if intense) time and it seems I’ve got an invite back (maybe as the railroad butt-monkey, but at least I didn’t get booted).

Anyway, thanks to Don and his crew for their hospitality and help as I tried to figure out a hundred new things and get the cars spotted somewhat correctly.

>>>AS ALWAYS, MY BOOKS FOR SALE HERE<<<

End of the CSX interchange yard, with a nice use of a mirror. Yeah, look close…