knew this would happen.

Turns out that the station agents for Dulce, Placerville and Dolores decided to celebrate a birthday. They went to the bath house in Placerville and steamed in their tubs, drinking stump hole. Coming out, they encountered three loose women and retired to the Lemmon Hotel next door where they engaged in activities outlawed in the Western Bay employee handbook. Needless to say, they are all now suffering Cupid’s Measles. This left the railroad shorthanded during a change in operational methods, with the superintendent agenting all the stations and the dispatcher keeping an eye on Navajo and Placerville when he could.

We were trying a new method of dispatching TT&TO. Last time, we used separate train order forms (based on the form classifications) with checkboxes for the locations. There was also a separate clearance card. This led to a lot of paperwork, a great deal of stapling, and bruised elbows (the dispatcher cubby is just not that big). Since I dispatch three layouts using this method (The Western Bay, the Highland, and the Leigh, Monongahela & Ohio) this meant that eight railroad specific forms had to be copied and cut out for each railroad with a lot of money going to Staples. To change this around, I’ve experimented with a “Packet”, shown to the right. Essentially, it combines the orderly speed of warrants with the informational format of train orders. And it seemed to work. More on this will be appearing in a Journal Box article, once I get off my duff and write it.

I’m not sure the operators were well-versed in TT&TO. It’s pretty complicated and most of them weren’t at my clinic on said six months ago. That being the case, when conductors showed up, I’d dictate the packet, get a read-back, make it okay and the “advise” them on trains they’d have to hold or watch for. Seemed to work in a baby-step way.

Of course, not helping was Superintendent Al, who, not happy with being a station operator at ten stations, and doing an Obi Wan Kenobi for every switch-list-bearing conductor on the line, but twice he overruled orders I’d already given to the crews. So all involved conductors had received their hooped-up orders, had asked their question and understood their moves, and suddenly Al is changing it on us. This meant I had to set train order signals against them at the following stations and issue new orders that superseded their current orders, making me into a rodeo clown in the eyes of those getting more paper from me. So, yes, hopefully the absent station operators will return in December and Al will go back to bellowing at his switch crews and leave me to run the railroad.

I’ll mention that I did run the railroad, pretty much three hours in the hole. We had a crew that delayed getting their work done, which made an opposing job run even later (since he started late) and then another crew was now even later. The poor Navajo Turn (122/121 on the timetable) didn’t finish until 9 or 10 pm. And not only were they bollixed up by slow jobs hogging the line, they also had to hold clear for two extras, one running the entire first division one way, the other running back. And this was Sohl-ly not my fault, hint hint.

Special notice goes to John L who was a train-running demon that day, running a total of five trains across both divisions. That’s what it took for us to close down late but with all trains (and two extras) run.

Overall, it was a pretty fun outing on the WB. While we were late and there was some confusion, it seemed like the crews were okay with it (and no ambulances were called). Thanks, Al, for having us!

And no, you can’t re-write my blog for me.

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p.s. Sorry, but everyone was too busy for photos this time.