Deland

t’s been said that this blog writes itself. So there I am in the dark outside our trainshow venue, the gate and building all locked up, a line of members (and our trailer) idling in a line while the fairgrounds tries to get the guy with the key to come back and let us in. And then we find out that another bunch of garden-potter railroaders have set up without regard to the tapelines, giving us no aisle space. I was ready to go home. But he had a good crew (thanks, guys, for that!). We talked it over with […]

his show had all the earmarks of a disaster. First off the club president was out of town and the tech officer was on an effing boat. I had a few old sweats and a buncha newbies. Day of load, we discovered that the trailer registration was out of date (I fixed that with a couple of quick calls). Day of show, I stopped over at Krispy Kreem to pick up donuts for the crew. Their donut machine was broken and all they had were three dozen donuts that nobody wanted (think about that for a minute – these were […]

was able to attend the second day of the two-day train show (given that the proceeding three days had involved three operations sessions with hundreds of miles of highway driving and physically being on trailer duty for build day warranted a day off on Saturday). Got in at nine in the morning and started cleaning track. Overall our second show day was a pretty good day. We had a lot of visitors and a lot of kids got to run. Me, I ran black widow F3s with a long freight lashup behind them. It was pretty good running – other […]

hunder is booming and rain is spattering me in the face. I’m standing just clear of the coupler, waving my operator back. Lightning flashes. Rain is starting to come down a little harder. I’m going to get wet. “Ten feet,” I call. “Five. One. Inches. Good!” Bill comes back and in the gathering rain and wind, we couple the truck to the club trailer and link all the safety hooks up. Rain is splashing against my back now. Finally we’re coupled. Bill decides he’s going to position. “I’m going in,” I tell him. It’s a long walk back to the […]

et’s be up front about this. I’m one of those media guys who is reporting on something I did not attend. Two shows ago, I was recovering from surgery in the hospital. Last time (the fall show) we had a hurricane and got cancelled. And this time, I got Covid (likely from CovidRails the weekend before). And I wore a mask and everything. Even through I’m not showing symptoms anymore, I’m still hot and still staying clear. But it wasn’t like I wasn’t involved. Steve Raiford had set everything up. We had crews marked up and superintendents outlined. Even sidelined, […]

e’ll start with wrist-slapping. Over twenty people were supposed to be at setup today. We got a handful. Fortunately the crew we had was top-notch and we had just enough people to get the basic assembly team in action. Others drifted in after the layout was up, siting various reasons (the coo-coo fell off Kyle’s European clock, it seems). We were still nowhere near the numbers we’d been promised. And here is my admonishment – you are only as good as your word. Done. The rest of the train show clicked out as if it had been timetabled. Trains surged […]

nteresting train show. For me, it started at 5am when I’m standing alone in the donut shop, that is alone but for the wizened old homeless guy standing right at my shoulder. “You into… trains?” he hiccuped.  I thought, “Yeah, except for the hobo part”. Placed my order quick (you’ll notice the lack of selection this time) and blew out of there. The lady behind the counter didn’t like like the sort to take this sort of shit (along Rt 50, she probably has practice). Anyway, following our flawless setup at the Volusia County Fairgrounds (thanks, guys. You earned your […]

‘m not sure how to write this show report up. I could start with a description of getting up at 5am Saturday, a quick shower, a drive to the donut shop to pick up treats for the setup crew, and then hissing through empty streets in moderate rains, hoping it would let up before it was time to unload the trailer I would shortly be rendezvousing with for setup. Or the host of problems we faced, from inexplicable radio problems to a dead section of track to some scenery problems here and there. We should have brought the “Robert” button. […]