club buddy of mine, Pete, mentioned he’d be out at the clubhouse on Saturday, just a casual hang-out deal. Figured I’d run Tuscarora solo – he just wanted to putter about the main line on the club layout. Fine – I’ve run solo before. But then a new member of the club – young Zach, named so as not to be confused with President Zach – asked if he could try it. He’s just starting out, has a small place, and wants to see how micro ops work. Sure, why not.

Of course, I always invite guests to run their engines if they wish – he had a big SP six-axle unit that just fit around my curve (that old train order signal on the closed depot is really at risk when we do this). But Pete had another bloody nose unit, four axle and with sound, too, so Zach took that one out.

Splitting hairs – I intend to someday run a full SP session on this thing. I’ll run PFE reefers in place of coal and plan it as Tusk Valley (Raher than the traditional Tuscarora Branch Line as I call it when it’s under traditional Pennsy units). I think we’ve run a TV session a time or two before. But anyway, so there I was, mounting the wooden steps up to the TUSK tower somewhere outside of Santa Barbara or Watsonville or Hollywood, wherever, giving Zach the quick brief on his job and switch list. I could see the guy taking mental notes for his own layouts, multiple trains through one station with a mix of run-throughs and local switching). And so we were off.

Zach showed great care in switching and respecting the signals (something more hasty crews might overlook). He blew at the crossings and did a good job switching (he did get a little fuddled sorting out his train for the run up the branch line, but once he saw the trick, it was okay). But really, it was just a pleasant afternoon running trains, an hour and a half easy session, no special cars. We had a great time together.

Spotting the freight house with an eye to the door numbers. Notice the newly added waybill box, just beyond the signal and to the right (Photo: Pete F)

Gotta say this – points for being impressed at the end. You see, Tuscarora is designed so at the end, the final train builds on the branch (essentially in backwards order) so that it can come out in the very next session. However, since 99.44% of my sessions end with me storing everything away and hiding it all back under the club layout, I usually let EM-2 just drive straight in. But Zach wanted to see how the “true” session ran so he went with the more difficult option. And kudos to him – he worked it out nice and neat.

And I gotta say, the new telephone poles along the branch line really move the era back. There’s even a call box on the pole where the heavy indexing takes place. And Zach took note of the local punks smoking outside the petroleum plant. Those hooligans!

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