OpsLog – San Diego & Eastern Az – 12/05/2011

OpsLog – San Diego & Eastern Az – 12/05/2011

Usually it doesn’t go this well.

Doc had brought his secondary layout back into service, his tightly-spooled San Diego and Eastern Arizona. We’d run it a while ago, but not recently. And since it’s been slightly shortened and simplified, all to the better.

So the boys milled in the train room while I set up the dispatching computer. A little fumbling with the clock, a scattering of radio checks, and we went hot.

Timetables usually go out the window once the session starts. Sure, the railroad management might think a certain siding might be an ideal place for two trains to meet, but with all the switching, all the delays and minor fumbles, trains are usually playing catch-up. Of course, that’s the essence of dispatching, the on-the-fly updating of scheduled meets, moving the passing points so one late train doesn’t make two.

Tonight the schedule ran dead on. I’ve actually never seen it work like that before. Trains entered the division on time, Market Street yard ran top-notch, no major disasters. I found the timetable working for me, denoting a pace that kept the railroad flowing, kept me from fouling the staging yards or locking up the midpoint switching districts. Trains paced through, one after another, perfect.

It was fun to work a railroad with this sort of structure.

Great job, Doc!