operations – Page 11 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

July 24, 2023

OpsLog – WAZU – 7/23/2023

don’t think I’ve every run warrants so fast and so long. In three hours, I wrote ninety-three of them. Yes, it was a busy day on the WAZU railroad. Not without goofs, of course. Writing that fast, you can get in trouble. I did clear a train into Spokane when the Lumber Jack run was coming out – a bit of a headlight thing there. But then again, I did have some phenomenal meets. Twice I got five trains past each other at single sidings (by cramming two in tight on the siding while three ran past). Of course, even […]

July 27, 2023

OpsLog – LM&O – 7/26/2023

ormally Frank runs a passenger train with Conductor Greg, but Greg was out of town and Frank looked like a lost puppy for ops night. From the cab of my idling geeps in Martin Yard, I saw him standing in dejection, so I offered him a run on the Zanesville Turn (with work up to Carbon Hill). “It’s not going to be varnish work,” I warned him. “There’s more to switching work than trying not to spill the passengers’ soup.” But he was game. Since we already had a warrant, we were first out of the yard, pressing for Mingo […]

August 21, 2023

OpsLog – WAZU – 8/20/2023

kay, so I’m told if you can’t say anything good about someone’s dispatching, don’t say anything. … … <crickets> … … … … Is that long enough? What’s the statute of limitations on this? I will mention that my first train into Umatila (ordered to the siding, and precious to me, given the long wait to get that warrant) had me on approach to find a bank of headlights from two facing trains (it looked like an alien mothership, so bright) shining at me in the early morning hours. Only that checkbox 4 (watch for trains (plural) ahead) kept me […]

August 24, 2023

OpsLog – LM&O – 8/23/2023

eople say that when they run model trains, they go into their own little world. So true. Last night at the club, the LM&O was swamped by membership wanting to run trains. We filled the call sheet. And as we got ready, Frank (who usually acts as a porter on Greg’s passenger train, and who was unemployed under Greg’s absence) came and asked who he could run with. “I’ll make a man out of you,” I told him as I shoved him into the cab of the Shelfton Turn, tossed his bag in after, and settled down on the brakeman […]

August 25, 2023

On Sheet – Foul Play

omething I’ve noticed on our sectional railroad we take to shows – we let the kids run trains. They have a blast since the signalling system is standard easy-to-understand ABS (which means a train in a block protects itself with a red signal behind it, and a red signal is protected by a yellow signal behind it). But the funny thing is that kids drive their trains like mommy and daddy do their minivans, pulling right up to the base of a signal as if it was a traffic light. “Kids,” I scoffed, laughing to myself. That is, until the […]

September 1, 2023

On Sheet- Crowd Fumbling

o I used to play Sid Meier’s Railroad Typcoon . Loved it and stayed up too many nights playing it. It was great to have my own rail empire with little computer trains running through their assignments, flawlessly. So much order and control. And I’ve found that real world model train operations are anything but. To push the positive, model railroading operation on a club layout is one of the grandest games there is. In this crafted miniature world, we run our little trains along agreed-upon rules. It’s a massive cooperative effort, and unlike that lonely solo computer game, everyone […]

September 17, 2023

OpsLog – TBL – 9/16/2023

ll sessions have problems. My new SW-7 (after running a shakedown flawlessly around the layout) started to sputter and cough. And that turnout I dug out? Its replacement is repeating the same failures (the original now languishes in pieces in my new scrap yard). But still, goddam, but it was fun. Rather than trying to pack our attendance, we kept it at four and ran the session. Since we had two newbies (Chris in the tower, and Mike down in the coal lumps) I gave a points-to-stress speech before the clock went flip. Then, carefully and deliberately, we ran the […]

September 22, 2023

On Sheet – Battle Plans

o plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the main enemy forces. Only the layman believes that in the course of a campaign he sees the consistent implementation of an original thought that has been considered in advance in every detail and retained to the end. — Helmuth von Moltke I’m a member of the operations committee in our club. I’ve designed the freight forwarding system (all three versions). I’ve come up with the trains, the timetable (for passengers) and the crew start times for everything else. I’ve suggested changes to track alignments to improve […]

September 22, 2023

OpsLog – TBL – 9/21/2023

ey, I like running trains with the guys. Operations is about playing a multi-participant game bigger than yourself. I love it. But it also means that, since I’m one of the founding members of ops, I get called on a lot. People don’t understand their timetables. Or their warrants. Or their freight waybills. There are accidents out of reach, whole train derailments, dead engines, stupid questions (yes, those DO exist). One moment, I’m in the cab, pondering my switching moves. The next, someone is tapping me on the shoulder. I get pulled out of it a lot. So tonight I […]

October 16, 2023

OpsLog – La Mesa – 10/(12-13)/2023

ot the invite for an operations session over at La Mesa, one of the largest and more realistic operations sessions anywhere. For those who don’t know it, the La Mesa club sprawls across a significant amount of the Balboa Park Railroad Museum in San Diego (also filling two floors – yes, you climb 2% from one floor to the one above). The HO railroad is twenty-five scale miles long, modelling the run between Mojave to Bakersfield (including the famous Tehachapi Loop). The area is faithfully modelling the scenery from 1950s. And that is appropriate because the session simulates operations in […]