operations – Page 17 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

December 17, 2024

OpsLog – WVN – 12/13/2024

‘m down in a dark low place, a plywood and benchwork cavern under the hills between Darby and Elkview, looking for reefer cars off my Pacific Fruit Express run which was turned into tossed salad by a miss-thrown turnout. Several cars were derailed in the tunnel and one had hit the floor. On my knees in the dusty dark, it was then that I saw it. Tucked in the corner opposite me, under the town of Harris, the dull ivory of ancient bones amid a scattering of Indian war bonnets, rusting tomahawks and flint arrowheads. It was an Indian burial […]

December 20, 2024

OpsLog – LM&O – 12/18/2024

really wanted to run trains on this eighteenth of December session. At our Just Run Trains session, I’d run the MT ores over the hill. Having heard so many sad epics of problems, I wanted to see if they were as troublesome of trucks as I’d been told. Also, since Leonard and Zeus were splitting the dispatching, I finally could be out on the road. And since I was recovering from a flu, I would wear a mask. There are too many crews who would be looking for the “Dispatcher in the Roundhouse” and administer a beat down if given […]

December 23, 2024

OpsLog – WAZU – 12/22/2024

o last week I had RSV (now everyone who knows me and was around me is giving me the stink eye). Felt pretty bad at the high water mark (lung water, that is). So now I’m in the recovery mode but the doctor who saw me in the ER said if I don’t get better in a day or so, I gotta come back to avoid it turning into Pneumonia. Well, shit. But I think I developed a sure-fire cure. First, go to a doctors clinic (well, Doc Andy is a veterinarian, but a damn good one). Makes sure […]

January 23, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O – 1/22/2025

o I was lucky to make it at all to the session tonight. After attending to “family issues” (the same way the Titanic’s sinking was noted as “shipping concerns”) I got there windblown and frozen with a half-hour to spare. I’d signed up for ore loads east and ore loads east it was going to be. On the dispatcher desks were Phil and Pete, Phil for a return visit to bedlam and Pete as a newbie DS. Okay, since I didn’t have time to think this out, giving Phil a five minute clinic on how my dispatcher panel works was […]

February 2, 2025

OpsLog – TBL – 2/1/2025

ecided on this nice open weekend to head over to the club for a quiet solo run of the Tuscarora Branch Line. The wife came along to read in the back (that’s what she said, anyway) and Pete came out, and later, Mike. So that became a bit distracting. We were either talking or putting run-through, time-jump units on the line. I was trying to run the tower and the scheduled jobs (and didn’t do very well with either). JB and Pete took a mess of pictures. So yes, some blunders on my part. The worst goof was setting out […]

February 16, 2025

OpsLog – Tusk Coast – 2/14/2025

t was a quiet night at the club, one of our Friday Night “Just Run Trains” events. I usually go to them to be the troubleshooter/babysitter (you gotta have a senior member present, if only to unlock the gates and door, and to plunger the toilet, right?). Since Zeus was up from Miami and not much was going on, we tugged Tuscarora out, quickly set it up and ran a fast session, just tower and local. Zeus took first shift running while I did leverman. There wasn’t much to say about it, which (like an airplane flight) is really how […]

February 27, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O – 2/26/2025

f the club has a motto for operations, it’s “Work it out on the ground”. Last night, it was more like “Wring it out of the Clown” with West-Side Dispatcher as the clown. Another “Have a beer when I get home” night at the old clubhouse. So the session started out well enough. We were running an LV Interchange train, a run that we’ll see if we can keep up with it. It’s a bit time-challenged but yes, it might work. But I’d talked things out with the locals (Mingo and Zanesville) and made a pinky promise with 927 (ZV) […]

March 9, 2025

OpsLog – FEC – 3/8/2025

ait, wait, wait. That’s all railroading was sometimes. The engineer for 101 South yawned through his bushy beard, the setting sun painting the right side of his lead unit, reflecting off the shiny refrigerated cars behind him, turning their white and orange flanks almost toyish in its light. Already the track-side buildings were silhouetted, their long shadows hiding the grubby weeds and litter along the Florida East Coast main. Fortunately he was running south with empty reefers; while he wouldn’t have time-critical oranges losing value, there were still schedule commitments to keep. It was the height of harvest and they […]

March 24, 2025

OpsLog – WAZU – 3/23/2025

came into this session with determination. The day before we’d operated over at the Virginia Southwestern. Some of the operators were new, some timid, and some.. well, “some”. At one point we had four L&N trains in the CTC-controlled shared trackage, and two more snippy Southern trains trying to get through. Since I controlled the turnouts from the panel, I set up a pretty neat lap siding pass for two long coal trains to get around Kyle’s mine shifter. But the two crews were timid – even with warrants all the way to Atlanta staging, even with all turnouts set, […]

March 27, 2025

OpsLog – LM&O – 3/26/2025

t was the best of times, it was the worst of times. But doesn’t every OpsLog start like this? The important thing here is that we gradually get better. In prepping the photographs for this blog, I noticed a number of properly-done background things (such as cars off-spotted correctly). As simple as it seems, it means that our operators are learning. Every session is a bit better than the last. And so, in this blog, I’ll be listing the lessons we (or, at least, “I”) learned. You’ll see them in bold. Okay, from my point of view, I came on […]