As dawn breaks, an early morning coal train crosses Tenmile Creek (Photo: Zeus H)

‘d just had a massive operation session the night before and hadn’t left the wind-down barroom post-brief until 1am. So why did I put myself back into the DS desk the very next day for another ops session, this time on ACL-flavored Tuscarora?

Well, I’m easy. Far-away Student Zeus asked and I’m always willing to scrape up a session. So we had me on the DS panel, Greg on scheduled trains, Zeus on Coal, Zach as leverman and Mike on the station desk. So we were ready to go.

The first half the session went well enough (better than the last one – no “guests” (i.e. intruders) broke in). Time on the train sheet shows by-the-book orderly progression, on-the-dot railroading. There was a blemish at the very start, when TE-1, besides dropping two cars on the outer industrial trackage, also got to pick up two deadhead pennsy boxcars. This is not a big move – it simply lengthens the train and causes you to have to work around them. No big deal. A coal run to Bexley is worse. I don’t know why it caused so much commentary.

Also, I’d warned the crew that the Tuscarora is considering incorporating weather results into the mix. It’s been a thought in the back of my mind, especially since even when you state you are leaving outlying Westly or Easton, you don’t really move for ten scale minutes (simulating the travel time from those locations to the TUSK Tower distant signals. And for rain, we could expect delays from wet leaves on the track, loss of traction and doubled travel times.

Slow day down by the tracks in Tuscarora. And it’s about to get slower. (Photo: Zeus H)

And since operations is nothing more than a game, everyone knows you playtest games before release. In that, I arbitrarily picked the twelve hour block, noon to midnight, that would have heavy falling rain and increased travel time.

How engineers show their displeasure of railroad management – they break shit (Photo: Zeus H)

Oh, the complaints that we lodged over this. And I’ll counter them with this statement – trains DO NOT magically hold to their timetables. This is not a legal contract. It is simply the railroad’s best-guess for operating times. This meant that a typical twenty minute run between Easton and Westly now took forty. We were also hampered by an unlucky number of facing movements as dripping coal cuts met rain-slicked boxcars in the late evening downpour. All in all, we only managed six trainloads of coal east (well below the eleven from last session) because of train delays, delays which, as expected, hit these extra moves the hardest. The timetabled trains ran between an hour or two late all evening, unable to climb back to their schedules with the rain and the numerous meets.

And that, my dear, is rainy mountain railroading. But complaints fell like rain – I don’t know what that operator was expecting. The microlayout runs a very realistic session and this followed on the stated goals. I’m not Mussolini – my trains don’t always run on time.

I’ll grant that twelve hours of downpour might have been excessive – again, we’re playtesting. That’s the point of playtesting.

A coal drag held in East Tuscarora notes the heavy rain sweeping over the hills. A gully-washer is on the way (Photo: Zach B)

Of course, with the local crew steaming in their slickers over  the fact the the final run – EM-2 – got to Tuscarora seventy minutes late (tell me it ain’t so) and was clear of the station by 10:20, it’s like, what is all that beefing about?

And those two deadheaders. You’d think I asked for oral sex when he picked up a telegraphed order to shift those pennsy cars to the outer industrial area. The work got done – incorrectly.

The punchline of the evening was that a random event that was supposed to take place at 10pm (and I thought we’d be done by then – we usually are) actually occurred. Evidently the heavy rains brought down a tunnel between Bexley and Martin, with EM-2 getting held on the branch.We figure than he’d be about six hours late after all this. A fitting end of a rather trying session.

My takeaway (and only thing I’ll be officially taking away) is that weather events should only run four to six hours. I will point out that with all the rain and tunnel collapses, we still finished in just under four hours. So what was all this noise about, anyway?

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In heavy rain and oncoming night, a couple of deadheading Pennys cars sit on the siding while the local fuddles around. (Photo: Zach B)

An empty cut holds at signal 7 for the final push into the mines in the wet gloom, too late to be filled today. Soon the units will be making a light engine movement east to pick up the Tidewater runs (Photo: Zach B)