club – Page 3 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

November 23, 2023

OpsLog – LM&O – 11/22/2023

t’s a sliver before midnight on a cold, rainy evening in Martin Yard. I’m huddling close to my idling GP-9s, trying to soak in their warmth and shield myself from the drizzle. All I can say is, “Hell of the thing, Shannon. Hell of a thing.” My trains is on track 2, six cars going over to Zanesville and Carbon Hill. Shannon has the shorter run to Mingo but the thing is he’s hauling something like forty cars tonight. I mean, the usual summit-topper drag freights are shorter than that. Forty cars? Did they tear down Mingo Junction and are […]

July 19, 2024

On Sheet – The Worst Sort

ith the withdraw of Covid and the resumption of the economy, our train club membership is booming. Our ops are packed now and there is a certain level of stress to be found in the tight aisle spaces and the large number of newbie operators unable to follow simple warranted instructions (and, of course, leaving turnouts open – it’s like sweeping for mines). But then there are the potential new members that are less than desirable. I’ll keep this purposefully vague. We had a couple tells us they were willing to join, along with their young child. That’s great – […]

June 26, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O – 6/25/2025

was in a pretty mellow mood when I got to the club Wednesday. It might have been because all morning I’d been moving boxes of books (just like cubes of wood, but with writing, not rings, inside their slices) until noon or so, in the hot Florida sun. I’d had a beer at dinner and settled in the back desk to set up the clocks and computer and run the railroad. I don’t know if that explains my easy-going nature that night, and I have no explanation why the rest of you were all so… tetchy. We have that phrase, […]

October 24, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O – 10/22/2025

ast night was Night of the living Utes* And I gotta say, our young members really shined. I was back in the office, running Western Subdivision to Luke’s Eastern Subdivision. And how refreshing it was. After my last session on the P&WV (with the operator’s inability to run dependable warrant-operations (no reflection on the host. This was really his crew’s inattentiveness)), it was great to run with a club that’s been doing warrants for years and know how to do it. Everyone was quick with the read-backs, almost everyone called in at yards and clearing off the division, and nobody […]

February 22, 2026

OpsLog – LM&O (TT&TO) – 2-21-2026

n high craggy mountains lost in the mists of the grim Borderlands, old wizards practice the dark arts of Time Table & Train Order operations, demanding times of 1:1 (and perhaps slower), of steadfast observance of their Book of Lore (The Condensed Code of Operating Rules) and archaic rites to deny access of acolytes not established in their order. Their membership is secret, excursive and, frankly, dying. At a beat-up cinder block building in the rundown edge of Stupidville, a youngish group assembles to try TT&TO our way, with the clock buzzing at 8:1, with a lot of guys who aren’t quite […]