Florida – Page 2 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

November 6, 2022

OpsLog – FEC – 11/5/2022

uite a crazy day (and night) on the Florida East Coast. Worst bit – in mid-session in the yard shed, there was a turntable fire which filled the room with fumes and knocked out the table. The table itself, normally able to be lifted off, seems welded in place. That really sucks – I’ve run the hostler job and really like the table. Out in the main room, there were the usual issues, including a train getting stuck in the runnel and one operator determined to run through all our defect cards (and that would be Kyle, who scored three […]

June 25, 2023

OpsLog – FEC – 6/24/2023

moment of kick-ass history. The Luftwaffe was bombing the crap out of London. Things were getting tight for Hitler’s invasion schedule – they must break the Royal Air Force. On September 15th, 1940, the Germans threw everything they had into a full assault on the English Capital. From the bunkers below, Winston Churchill turned to Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park and asked about their active reserves. Park replied, simply, “There are none”. And that was the epic day on the FEC. I started working with my lovely yardlets to move trains, myself on Trim, JB as yardmaster and Bev […]

July 23, 2023

OpsLog – FEC – 7/22/2023

smell something burning.” I was working the out-n-back from Cocoa Yard to Frontenac, fussing over mismarked lading slips, trying to figure out what someone did and didn’t do a couple of weeks back in City Point (without a Rosetta Stone, either). And that’s when I smelled smoke. Engineer Chip was working the lower deck. When I asked him if his engine was on a switch, he told me no. But a car on his train was on a switch, one that had been set against him. And the truck of a wheel delicately placed with love between a rail and […]

October 22, 2023

OpsLog – FEC – 10/21/2023

ot home after a long late drive from the east coast to find, on the aptly-named “Discord”, that my friends who also attended the Farnhams’ FEC session were chortling about long waits. Really? I was on the big green panel that day and, in all honesty, I was playing it like a virtuoso on a grand piano (just saying). We started out late because of a pre-session chat. Once I took my seat and the clock started, I was looking at four trains on the layout and two holding in the wings of staging, waiting to come out. In short […]