orlando – Page 4 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

March 23, 2023

OpsLog – LM&O – 3/23/2023

kay, let’s break down the disasters into two primary events. The Dispatcher Panel: There is a bug somewhere (I think it comes from double-clicking someplace you shouldn’t). It crashes the program. I never see it. Bob Martin used to get it maybe once in every other session. Cub dispatcher Steve got it about five times tonight. That meant we had to reset the board and try to remember where the trains were. It also threw off Steve’s careful lineup of warrants (he’d figured the first four hours of issued warrants before the session started). But then again, no plan survives […]

April 27, 2023

OpsLog – LM&O – 4/26/2023

t was the end of a long month for me – nearly broke my neck and possibly ending up dead, paralyzed, or worse. Overall, it was as if I’d been bashed over the head with a slab of asphalt. While it’s getting better, it still hurts. And my dispatcher-in-training become an employee-in-awol, with the club placing second to Disney, of all things. I’d just wanted to maybe find a small local to curl up for the evening with, just bumping boxcars about. Instead, I had to run the main office, routing trains and keeping things right. To make matters worse, […]

June 29, 2023

OpsLog – LM&O – 6/29/2023

helfton Turn raddled into Martin Yard, having done its work in respectful time. Its engineer called yardmaster Perry White, asking where he could drop these outbounds and grab the Zanesville Turn. White, old beyond his years but oddly lacking seniority, directed the drop and grab move. He mused at the rapidity with which the engineer swapped out and accelerated out of the yard. It was like he was some sort of Superman. This engineer was not of this railroad or even of this Earth. The sole surviving member of a planet destroyed when its DC modules exploded, and who described […]

September 28, 2023

OpsLog – LM&O – 9/27/2023

‘m sitting in my dark, dingy writer’s loft, smoking my metaphorical cigarette as I prepare for my character assassination hit. On the chipped and stained table before me, my M102 Blamethrower. I check the fuel level. Topped off. Taking that final drag, I engage in the time-honored memory flashbacks of the session. The screams. The collisions. The confusion. The helplessness. So many trains doing so many things wrong. My hands tremble. I shake the nightmares clear like under-layout cobwebs. I cannot do this. I cannot torch egos. Yeah, there were layout problems. It’s N-scale and there always will be. But […]

October 26, 2023

OpsLog – LM&O – 10/25/2023

y the time the session was over, and then the hour debrief by the hard-core hoggers done, the lights off, alarm set, and the slow drive home, after all that, I sat on my sofa and watched something dumb on the tube and drank a beer. I mean, insert your expletive, but what a session. The club came together Wednesday night for a big monthly ops session. We were going to try the racks and stacks again after the chaos of last time (with trains going to the wrong way and one intermodal being attacked by the mole people in […]

October 30, 2023

AirLog – 10/29/2023

kay, model railroading has brought me a lot of things. It brought me together with my dad (which, besides reading and old movies, was pretty much all we had). It brought me Orlando N-Trak Club, to which I’ve been a member for thirty-five years. It’s brought me some close friends (and, well, some interesting people). And it’s gotten me into some interesting operational layouts, from La Mesa in San Diego to Steve King’s old Chicago layout to massive weekend sessions in St Paul, Asheville, and Atlanta. And it’s got me as a fixture in various railroads across the state: The […]

November 23, 2023

OpsLog – LM&O – 11/22/2023

t’s a sliver before midnight on a cold, rainy evening in Martin Yard. I’m huddling close to my idling GP-9s, trying to soak in their warmth and shield myself from the drizzle. All I can say is, “Hell of the thing, Shannon. Hell of a thing.” My trains is on track 2, six cars going over to Zanesville and Carbon Hill. Shannon has the shorter run to Mingo but the thing is he’s hauling something like forty cars tonight. I mean, the usual summit-topper drag freights are shorter than that. Forty cars? Did they tear down Mingo Junction and are […]

November 30, 2023

OpsLog – LM&O – 11/29/2023

t seemed like a good idea of the time. Look, the “official” session (usually on the fourth Wednesday of the month) was right before Thanksgiving. We did run (detailed HERE). However, some members left town for the holidays (possibly to elude creditors). Others had loved ones to get back home to (or whatever passed as such). Either way, while we did run every freight but one, and every passenger train but one, we missed a lot of the mineral trains and fast freight traffic. But hey, since we have a fifth Wednesday and nobody knew what to do with it, […]

December 28, 2023

OpsLog – LM&O – 12/27/2023

o this is a transcript (sort of) of a call between the dispatcher and 415, an empty hopper run out of Calypso for Carbon Hill. DS: Ready to copy? 415: Ready. DS: Okay, Warrant 281 to 414 at RedRock. Checkbox 1: Previous warrant is void. Checkbox 2: Proceed to Weirton. Checkbox 3: Proceed on Main Track #2. I have three checkboxes. 415: (Repeats orders verbatim) DS: (Pause). Okay, you know which track is track 2, right? 415: Yes, I know. DS: (Concerned) It’s the outer loop in Pittsburgh. 415: Yes, I understand. DS: (Nagging) There is a fake signal bridge […]

January 25, 2024

OpsLog – LM&O – 1/24/2024

riting this blog is a weird thing. Unlike a manifesto, a blackmail note or a letter to my new Nigerian pen-pal, I have to figure out a new angle each time. I can’t just say what happens: that would be “Tonight those goofballs really found a new way to screw up. Is this any way to run a railroad?”. Further, there is the problem that as one man, I simply can’t describe all the events that took place, any more than a soldier in a foxhole can fully explain World War Two. I see things, I hear things, I pay […]