bay – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

June 16, 2019

OpsLog – WBRR – 6/15/2019

n my real job, nobody listens to any suggestions I have to offer. And it’s a cock up there. But on the Western Bay Railroad, at least some of the things I say get put into practice. Like today – I’m sitting in the small office (more like an outhouse with the hole boarded up) in Placerville Jct. I can see train 315 toiling up the long grade from Ute Jct, a steam engine on the head end, another behind the tail end passenger car*, shoving. The last times we did this we met with various levels of success. Usually […]

February 28, 2021

OpsLog – WBRR – 2/27/2021

his kinda came up from my editing of The Journal Box. Got to looking at Al Sohl’s pictures and missed seeing his layout after a year of quarantining. Wanted to show the wife the Room ‘o Rockies and wrangled a visit for me and my wife. We showed up and the next thing I knew, Al was starting up a mini-session. Disclaimer: I knew he was going to do this but didn’t tell the wife, lest she chicken out. And so this is how I ended up rolling out of Denver with a full head of steam on 124, heading […]

December 5, 2022

OpsLog – WBRR – 12/3/2022

hings on the Western Bay railroad get better and better. We had a new dispatcher today – he wasn’t all that versed in TT&TO (but who is – I’m giving a clinic at a convention next month on the topic). But he rolled with the punches and did very well. Three of us operated seven stations – I gotta get Al to let us start issuing train orders someday (I’ve got some ideas – also mentioned in my clinic). But otherwise the crews made their meets and switched their cars. The superintendent doesn’t trust them one bit but they are […]

June 4, 2023

OpsLog – WBRR – 06/03/2023

he teletype was idly clicking a slow message, a new dispatcher getting an OS report from Navajo down the line about a train coming east. Since I’m at Dulce, I shouldn’t even see that train – he’ll swing off my line at Ute Junction and head to the other division, through Placerville and Dolores. But really, it’s not my problem. I’m checking over the paperwork of a westbound peddler train standing in my station, ready to depart. Yes, it looked good. I don’t remember what pulled me away from my Dulce job. With long arms and a sneaky manner, I […]

December 3, 2023

OpsLog – WBRR – 12/2/2023

kay, now that I got your attention with this beautiful shot by Jim Mathis of D&RGW #475 steaming through the miniature (but not as miniature as I’m used to) world of his Western Bay Railroad, let’s get into the details. Four members of the club got invites to head down to Port St. Lucie to run on his O-scale narrow gauge layout that captures railroad action in the Rockies in 1932. As usual, I was station agent at Dulce, Dolores and that shack of a place, Placerville Jct (located way outside of Placerville proper – it’s a long cold walk […]

June 9, 2024

OpsLog – WBRR – 6/8/2023

itting in my muggy dispatcher’s office in Denver, the windows open and a fan chattering on the desk, I can only imagine what it’s like in flat, faraway, hellish Navajo in June as the telegraph slowly confesses that 391 has puffed into town an hour the hot side of noon. Easy to imagine the dozen or so passengers stumbling out of their hellishly hot combine, to stagger over the mainline rails to the little cantina while the steamer uncouples off the front end and idles over to the tank to fill its empty boiler. The passengers drink their warm beer […]

December 9, 2024

OpsLog – WB -12/7/2024

nother biannual jaunt down to Port Saint Lucie to run on Al Sohl’s magnificent Western Bay (a DRGW narrow gauge line that will make your eyeballs hurt, the scenery so vast and, well, western). We had a contingent foursome of operators: myself, studious John L, personable Jim M (the padre), and Terry B (a newbie who seems interested in operations, has survived two club beatings and is game to try other lines). Terry and I had ridden east to the Holiday Inn marshaling yard, and I was gratified to learn that he was aware of Time Table & Train Order […]

March 2, 2025

OpsLog – WBRR – 3/1/2025

hat I’m going to tell you can save your life!” This was my attention-getting opener for my clinic on Time Table & Train Order and, as hoped, really got attention and jacked everyone up in their seats. Al Sohl held this clinic/open house at his place – it wasn’t really an NMRA “official” event, just his club hosting clinics and an op session for people to have fun. I was third up; Eric M and Chip P had already gone (very good clinics on how the Western Bay scenery and how to present to judges for your show-pieces in working towards […]

June 8, 2025

OpsLog – WBRR – 6/7/2025

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 […]

December 8, 2025

OpsLog – WBRR – 12/6/2025

o the usual way this works is that I come to a layout, the owner surrenders it to me, and I dispatch. Yeah, he might have paid for it and built it, but I’m the guy who runs it. With Al, with his literal and archaic perception of ‘ownership’, that can cause issues. But this time, I would not be dispatching. He had a visitor who, I believe, was working on AP hours. Since Reverend Jim was off with grandkids (which I view as a character flaw), I was bumped down to station operator in charge of Navajo, Dulce, Placerville […]