orlando

April 28, 2022

OpsLog – LM&O – 4/27/2022

here are two types of people who want to see a massive head-on between two trains. One is a deranged psychopath. The other is a rival dispatcher. I’ll admit that I take great pleasure in being a good dispatcher. I developed the control systems (the computer to track trains and the warrants to command them). I developed the position, sitting in the middle of the layout with my Atari 520 ST and my crude program thirty years ago, controlling trains on N-Trak modules. I’m a boomer, having walked in and dispatched layouts I’ve never seen before, cold, in cities a […]
June 23, 2022

OpsLog – LM&O – 6/22/2022

y original plan was to run a through freight with my new Pennsy F’s, but it turned out I was the only dispatcher on deck so back into the office I went. Smooth night with a good turnout. Crews were meeting their on-call times (if not a little before). The layout is running better (though the metal wheels continue to cause cursing and might result is us switching the worst offenders back unless a better alternative is found). Once I reminded people to call clear of the main, they generally did. In this, I got to focus on my panel. […]
July 28, 2022

OpsLog – LM&O – 7/27/2022

o of course my medical zoom meeting went long. I blew out of the house with 40 minutes til train time, traffic was a bitch, but I came into the lot with ten minutes to spare. And the parking lot was full. Came in lugging my computer and called out hello and everyone gave me rousing hellos back. Given my last few weeks, this was a very nice glow to get. And the guys knew how to set up – the track was all clean, the jobs were signed up, and everyone was ready to go. I set the clocks […]
August 25, 2022

OpsLog – LM&O – 08/24/2022

n the bad side, there were a number of near collisions, several (that I knew of/experienced) LAP orders, some running without paper, a lot of phones clutched to numb ears, a big boo-boo in the yard, and a passenger train that ran a half-day late. Okay. But on the good side, we did run all the freights, all the locals, all the coal and ore, and got to experiment with delivering cars to the Nazareth turn (well, now we know what doesn’t work). We started a little earlier and had a lot more people working throttles at the end. Everyone […]
October 27, 2022

OpsLog – LM&O – 10/26/2022

ou’ve heard of the famous “Day of Infamy”, right? Well, at Orlando N-Trak’s October session, we had our “Night of Irony”. There was that moment when a heavy freight, overloaded with motive power, told the helper crew who offered assistance to bug off, only to flounder on the hill. Had to chuckle as I wrote the warrant to get the extra units up to shove him over the summit. And then there was the member who runs locomotives as one of his many livings, who made a dying out of misreading his issued warrant and pulling out in front of […]
November 17, 2022

OpsLog – LM&O – 11/16/2022

his photo pretty much says it all about the session. This is one of those chilling photos where you are able to see a lot of people right before they die. In this, 223 was coming downgrade, going into a siding that was both counter to his warrant and the rulebook, and detonated against Silver Bullet 2. Oh, the humanity. So many dead. Of course, I just pointed to the warrant that specifically told 223 to take the main. Regrettable about all those dead women and children, but we all know who was driving that train. And at fault. Seriously, […]
November 24, 2022

OpsLog – LM&O – 11/23/2022

ven though we had ops last week (look it up – it’s still on the sidebar) we decided to have a pre-Thanksgiving session, the Turkey Trot. Generally, attendance is light so we run something simple – in this case, Time Table and Train Order (the old fashion way). And even with limited staff, we ran (1) four scheduled freights, (2) four scheduled passenger trains, (3) two ore trains, (4) two limestone hauls and (5) SEVEN coal trains! So yes, we probably ran more trains in this session then we do in a normal session. It was great fun, and since […]
December 29, 2022

OpsLog – LM&O – 12/28/2022

ot my last session of the old year, but damn close. And I’m happy to say I didn’t send out this year with a bang (of trains hitting each other – hard). But it was a rough night, rough enough that when I finally ran the last freight train myself and then ejected the carbon-dioxide club into the cold at 11pm, I went home, had a beer, binge-snacked and watched anime. No more trains for now. We got everything running okay but I made an honest-to-dispatcher mistake early – had a passenger train with orders to meet a local, but […]
March 9, 2023

OpsLog – LM&O – 3/8/2023

t was an interesting session at the club tonight. Since my goatee glue isn’t dry yet and excessive talking might make it fall into my lap (dire consistences abound), I turned the dispatcher job over to young Jason (I still worked the computer display and reviewed all outbound warrants for correctness and homicidal omissions).  But he did pretty good – once I get him checked out on the panel, I’ll cup him like a little bird and let him fly, fly, fly… …and I can imagine the other members loading birdshot. But overall, Jason did fine. We did have a […]
March 18, 2023

OpsLog – CSX Taft – 03/17/2023

y order of the dispatcher, I’d dismounted from my CSX switch engine and walked down the industrial siding. A flat car was being worked by a crew off a remote loading dock. Then an off-spot box car. And then the center of the crisis, an industrial loading dock. At it sat a boxcar and a reefer, the latter’s refrigerator engine running with nobody home to unload it. The Brotherhood of Knuckledraggers 107 had walked off the job. And worried about the time this car could run off it’s internal tanks, the railroad had set me down to check it out. […]