Guide – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

July 19, 2020

Coal Railroading (Review)

ven though I model the Southern Pacific in the Central California Valley, I’ve been thinking of making a smaller “fun” layout, one I can fire up casually and run without trouble. You can see more about that decision (and the plans) HERE. But in a nutshell, I’m moving my action to Western Pennsylvania (in the made-up town of Tuscarora). I’m going to be running a very short line with coal getting hauled to a powerplant, with local switching and even a tower operator (big plans for a small space). So we’ll see how this comes out. While picking up preliminary […]

July 25, 2021

Guide to Signals & Interlockings (Review)

‘ll admit that I was desperate for this book to come out. Locked down in the pandemic, without groups of model railroaders to converse with (possibly in the casual debrief after a session) I was building my own Tuscarora Branch Line and desperate to find out how Interlocking Towers worked (these are the towers you used to see all along railroad lines that would allow the operator to set signals and turnouts, often via very crazy series of push-pull rods along trackside). But how the logic of the system worked, how it would lock out and why, none of this […]

September 25, 2022

A Guide for Working Breeds (Review)

hort story this time (since I’m deep in a World War 2 fictionalization right now), located in The Year’s Best Science Fictions Volume 2 (and Volume 1 brought me so much enjoyment). First story in the set, A Guide for Working Breeds by Vina Jie-Min Prasad, was a crazy begining. This tale does a great job of unconventional storytelling – specifically email exchanges and purchases between a couple of robots. We have Kleekai Greyhound (K.g1- 09030) who has just come online and has been assigned a mentor bot – namely Constant Killer (C.k2-00425). The exchanges are funny and help define […]