Pacific – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

May 22, 2023

OpsLog – WAZU – 5/21/2023

o there were four levels of operational expertise in our long, busy and fun session at the Union Pacific WAZU (for whatever reason it’s called that, nobody knows. But it simulates the line between Spokane to Portland). First off, there is the remarkable effort by AJ to sit on the dispatcher’s panel and run this very busy line for four hours. I’ve done it, and while the dispatching is straight-forwards, the communications aren’t the best, the crews don’t OS as well as they could, and it’s a long session. But AJ wanted to try and he was on his own […]

September 3, 2025

OpsLog – Tusk Valley – 9/2/2025

??? So, maybe it was the OpsLog title that cued you, Tusk Valley? Or the picture of Espee power working East Tuscarora with one of those signature brown boxcars sitting at door 1 of the freight house? Are you honestly saying that one of the world’s smallest layouts has a new ops location – again? So first there was Tuscarora (officially Tuscarora Branch Line). That was all Pennsy stuff for the first year we ran it. Then it did a cameo as Tusk Hill (an English Midland’s railroad). And then a college kid brought in Tusk Coast (which is the ACL line running down […]