First spot of the day – a covered hopper is spotted to be sucked at the brewery. Don’t ask.

nlike the last ops session I was at (which was, to no fault of the host, like a fight with cavalry lances in a shit house at midnight), the more compact, less attended session on the diminutive Tuscarora Branch Line was quite a success. I’d been planning on doing a test-run session since May (when we shut down the line to work on the river, almost done yet inexplicably not included in the accompanying photographs). Now that the river is mostly finished and looking somewhat better than plywood, we finally got a chance to use the layout in the way it was intended – not for casting and recasting rivers, but for operations.

Originally I was just going to run a solo shakedown on it, just a quick out-n-shunt session to make sure it was clean and operational. But two friends, Zach and John, showed up (Pete just sat and quietly belched throughout the session in a show of comradery). So we had one of those nice slow-paced, switch-n-circle session that the Tusk is famous for. John hasn’t done a lot of switching (at least until today) so it was a chance to cut his coupling teeth. And Zach, as leverman/station operator, just worked the interlocking and made Bitching Betty squeak maybe twice in the session. Like I said, it was easy running, lots of fun, and we finished up in a couple of hours. No coal was run, and if you are keeping score, I represented Railroad Management (meaning I added no value at all). I did work a little as west-end brakeman and also monitored the level crossing, making sure John blew for it as the rulebook states (he did. Well done, John).

My brilliant idea – use the wiggle-by track to run around a tank car filled with explosive vapors. What could go wrong?

Overall, a very enjoyable day with hardly a derailment, my engine running sweet, and even an SP car making an appearance on the line. Thanks, guys, for a great session.

And, with a silent prayer to those who lost their lives in the WAZU debrief, we just shut down and went home.

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All photos credit to Zach B

If that 50′ gondola, shoved against the stops and bending the chainlink fence, had been 51 feet long, we’d never had cleared the boxcar for the Brickyard spur. Tight squeeze.