railroad – Page 6 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

March 18, 2024

OpsLog – TBL – 03/17/2024

ight on the heels of working the Virginia SouthWestern (as detailed HERE) I boomered a job up north, taking the night train up to drop off the very next day in Tuscarora, my favorite stomping grounds. Apparently the tower has been down for maintenance issues over the last few months. Finally the interlocking has reopened (or so the head maintainer told me) – it’s run only one day so far under limited operations (with the mines closed, as detailed HERE). With Tuscarora down, all trains have been picking up orders elsewhere – the tower temporarily lost its train order station […]

May 6, 2024

OpsLog – WAZU – 5/5/2024

need you to run manifest 223,” the dispatcher told me. “It’s almost two hours late.” So fine. In minutes I was rattling through the Spokane throat, running at track speed, wheels sparking off the multiple frogs and points. I was reminded of the old flick Broadway Limited. These were the times you needed to lean out of the cab window, face into the wind, sliding your goggles over your eyes. Then I thought of something. “Dispatcher, 223. What’s my authority to?” “Pasco yard. And move it. I want you to make up time.” “Got it. Highball.” Hit Pasco and Klauck […]

June 9, 2024

OpsLog – WBRR – 6/8/2023

itting in my muggy dispatcher’s office in Denver, the windows open and a fan chattering on the desk, I can only imagine what it’s like in flat, faraway, hellish Navajo in June as the telegraph slowly confesses that 391 has puffed into town an hour the hot side of noon. Easy to imagine the dozen or so passengers stumbling out of their hellishly hot combine, to stagger over the mainline rails to the little cantina while the steamer uncouples off the front end and idles over to the tank to fill its empty boiler. The passengers drink their warm beer […]

June 23, 2024

OpsLog – FEC – 6/22/2024

read a lot of books. In fact, I’ve read all the Hornblower novels. Even read the Patrick O’Brian novels about a British expedition that rounds Cape Horn with its endless pounding storms. And I didn’t get the heaving and scurvy of that passage in the op session, but I got the damn rain! I was at the dispatcher’s desk in the “command” shed, along with the missus and the Farnhams. In the other shed, we had a full house and a heavy schedule. And we might as well have been ships in a storm-tossed formation, for all the chance of […]

July 12, 2024

On Sheet – Coventry

he term Coventry, besides being a town that Winston sacrificed, is also a place you send someone to. It refers to the practice of deliberately ostracizing someone who won’t follow rules. You don’t speak to them. You don’t look at them. You freeze them out. Recently it’s been a thought in my head. We have a member of our operations group who has a habit of berating dispatchers when he doesn’t see his “passenger” or “manifest” trains moving quickly enough. Yes, it’s nice to have all that railroady stuff when lines are under direct control (warrants and CTC) where “lessor” […]

July 14, 2024

Night on the Galactic Railroad (Review)

his is an interesting collection of the works of Kenji Miyazawa, the son of a Japanese pawnbroker who wrote in the early 1900s. His stories and interesting mixes of astronomy and whimsy, tales of troubled heroes under starry skies. My favorite, one of the oddest of the bunch, is the story of Signal and Signal-less, a tale of lovers separated by an insurmountable distance of a hundred yards. You see, “Signal” is a train signal on a modern main line, while “Signal-less” is a signal on a nearby branch line. They are both rooted in their spots but can only […]

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 […]

February 5, 2025

OpsLog – YVRR – 2/4/2025

he last time (a week or so ago) I was supposed to run on Jack Ferguson’s nifty little Yosemite Valley Railroad, I was at the dealership and found out that my car was a road-surface Hindenburg (fuel was leaking from a defective pump). So we called that one off. This was our reschedule. Now, Jack’s railroad is a nifty little runner, unitracked and smooth running. It’s got a full loop and ops are essentially a train coming onto the line (like my MT-1) and eventually leaving (like my EM-2 (the PeeDee)). There is some yard work, a pair of locals, […]

March 23, 2025

OpsLog – L&N – 3/22/2025

t was such a nice morning. Came out of the house as the sun broke over the trees, breath steaming in the cold as I made my way to the car. Swung by the coffee shop to pick up a cup. Dropped by Zach’s place to mailbag him for the ride out – an informal meeting of the ONT Operations Committee. Happy to say while we rode out, we might have cracked the steel mill output dilemma, as well as tidying up the freight flow across our club’s bridge route. Time for a quick meal in Wendy’s before heading over […]

August 8, 2025

On Sheet – Transition Era

was at a Volkswagen-sponsored driving event (this is before they cheated on their EPA numbers (incomprehensible if they were ISO9000-orientated) and before my Volkswagon neo-beetle (1) plastic-rotted and (b) caught fire). Anyway, it was all about helpful high performance driving hints. Yeah, I did learn how to corner much better, how to brake-first then turn, all that. But the most important moment for me was in an event where a row of us sat in front of a light. Simple deal – light goes red, slap the button in front of you. And I had this nailed. Even though I […]