vents and obligations resulted in us not having much of a crew, just Greg Wells and myself. Still, we broke out our Pennsy switchers, he took the local, I took the coal and dispatching and we ran the session.

This one was a lot of fun. We ran it slow, being very careful with our train handling. The bamboo skewers are still, in my opinion, the best uncoupling tool known to man. So we switched our industries and bargained for track rights, in easygoing operation fashion. It was a great deal of fun to work through the schedule – the coal was only delayed by over and hour once so we were running pretty tight.

The furthest spur from the camera is an electrical time bomb ticking away…

I really like the new “clock” that Steve Raiford made me – it’s a high stand with two flip-card rings, one for the hours and one for the minutes (in increments of ten). Now it’s quite easy to see when someone is getting a bit late. AND, for you stress-avoiders, it isn’t a fast clock. If you are switching, it will take you ten minutes, regardless of whether you clear your spurs in machine-like efficiency or you run around for every car. It’s easy-going railroading.

So overall we had a great time. The railroad runs smooth, we had maybe one derailment, and we ran it in just over two hours. In two weeks we’re thinking of another session. If you’d like to attend, let me know and we can include you on Saturday (but Sunday is open as well).

Thanks, Greg, for operating with me.

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