f course, if half of your crew is new and you are superintendent to a railroad with intense switching and interlocking control, what do you do? You go easy and drop the freight levels to the lowest possible settings, right?

No, I cranked them all the way up. The pre-session extra freight dropped two cars on the siding (doubling the work of Tuscarora Local 1) and two coal trains had drops (one load, one empty). Brian (as the switcher) and his son Tyler (as the towerman) had their hands literally full for the session.

And I’m happy to say they passed with flying colors.

Sure, Brian needed a bit of help with the PeeDee (the final freight which sweeps the industrial tracks clean) – normally he’s trying to get six cars sorted out but this time it was ten. And since this represented a number of extra moves, Tyler was throwing levers like mad. But the good thing was that by then he’d abandoned his manipulation sheet and was throwing levers with a firm understanding to their operations.

Me, I was rolling coal, which was fine until the Dispatcher put me into the penalty box and held the Tidewater an hour and a half late (yeah, I checked your dispatcher sheet, Greg) because I gave him a bit of lip. That’s a dispatcher for you. Like a petty little Greek god.

But no, we ran a fuller-than-full session and gave Brian and his son a taste of Tuscarora, the smallest yet most operatingest railroad anywhere. We made the rails hum.

Next time I’ll dispatch and we’ll put a throttle in Greg’s hand. And Brian and Tyler have seniority (and a standing invite) to future sessions.

>WHEN I’M NOT RAILROADING, I’M WRITING. CHECK OUT MY BOOKS HERE!<<<

And Yoli – thanks for letting your kids come play with us.