It’s interesting to deal with the diffenence in dispatching speeds I find on different layouts. At the club, I’ve found myself writing something like 80-90 train warrents in two hours and change. Today, on Tom Wilson’s Pittsburgh & West Virgina (a beautiful coal and blast furnace route), I slipped out 31 in four hours.

Not that it’s a bad thing.

At the club, I’m like an air traffic controller, constantly kicking out order after order. With each one, I hold my breath, wondering if I’m going to kill anyone (like this time  ). But sometimes slower is better. I actully had time to write down train information and times on an actual train sheet. Actually, I’m kicking myself in the butt now becuase I fell back on the crutch of a magnetic board – I know how to read a train sheet and how to use it to steer trains around each other (it’s like reading that matrix trickle – you just need to know how to look at it). But it was managable – just moving the trains through, spelling out the orders, writing down the times. Even got a couple of hands of computer solitare in while waiting (I’m sure real dispatchers passed the time this way).

And, no, I didn’t kill anyone.

Just a walk in the park. 

>>>I SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT A BOOK, LIKE ONE OF MINE. PASS THE TIME WITH “EARLY RETYREMENT”!<<<