t’s always good to see a layout progress from session to session. And today’s running of the WAZU railroad (a reference I’m not sure anyone gets) was no exception. Last session was good; this one was better.

We have to applaud the efforts of Doc and Sparky, who personally made operations improvement goal one. In this, they reworked the card system in the yards (including making sure everything was pre-staged and the yards carried reduced car loads (a mistake a lot of modelers make)). Also, the turnout controls were reconfigured with led to a lot less fumbling for switch throws.

That being said, we still had a lot of shorts – yelling aside, we need to better understand why we are having so many (please, if you have one, just let the doc know so we can see if there is a turnout placement or visibility issue we can work on). As it stands, we don’t know if the issues were in the yards, with locals on unfamiliar trackage, or crews rushing their work. Please, give us information on incidents!

Busy day at Cheney, with trains sharing sidings and riding each other’s markers. (Photo: John DV)

Me, I had a great session. I got to dispatch, always fun (even more fun is when the doc allows me to come out and run a train and everything goes to shit (validating my existence on this planet). Really, though, the crews ran pretty sharp and we moved lots of trains back and forth, always a good thing.

So next month, let’s see what Andy and Sparky come up with for our next session!

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