I love going to Dick’s ops. Its been down for a while, but its a handy little railroad with a casual session. Best thing is that its a mile or so from my house, an easy bike ride.

Good group showed for the Grand Reopening. Took a job footplating in Cheyenne yard, cleaning up the paperwork and getting the crew rolling. But Don’s clever so I leave him to it, hooking a freight out of the yard, a flat run to Chicago. The layout’s live around me and I’m enjoying the nice scenery, passing trains and watching for open turnouts (these newbies are leaving every barn door open).

At Chicago, I hop another train back, this one with fun ‘n games at North Platte. I drop off the main, thread over to the industrial track, and only then find out that the Chicago yardmaster filled my consist with through loads. Nothing’s going off and since I’m at maximum tonnage I can’t pick anything up. Still, a new engineer following me up did have to work Platte and since I knew the place, I dropped onto a siding to clear following traffic and slipped onto his crew to help spot cars (God, I loooove switching). Rattled my freight into Cheyenne, last freight home. Dropped the cut and ran the units over to the house. Great fun with great friends.

Afterwards, I rode home on my bike on the quiet streets, pleased at the fun we’d had. But there was still one more pickup I had to make, this one a fuzzy highball, a nine-pound Unstoppable, as detailed HERE.