train – Page 10 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

May 19, 2024

OpsLog – FEC – 05/18/2024

ell, this just shows the dangers of over-scheduling. In my defense, we’d agreed to have “night ops” at the club layout this Saturday, and then a few days later the FEC crew call came out. The club is a commitment I have to honor (and it’s fun) but the FEC hasn’t run in six months and I wanted to jump back aboard (it’s also fun). So that’s it – run to Palm Bay in the morning, operate until late afternoon, then burn across half the state to the LM&O for the evening session. And I had a sandwich with me […]

June 7, 2024

OpsLog – Mini LM&O – 6/6/2024

o being an officer, a member of several committees and the senior club member has its drawbacks. Last club night, I had to inspect erosion on our entry culvert, jimmy the lock of a car, take minutes for the monthly meeting, deal with an upset member, repair a turnout, replace tumble-barriers under the layout, pick up all the dead cockroaches I found under there, issue a new club key and go over the alarm system, crush cans, fix a broken phone, deal with an upset member again, help restore a locomotive address, replace paper towels in the bathroom, deal with […]

June 17, 2024

OpsLog – WAZU – 6/16/2024

kay, so I head-oned a train today. Yup, I admit it. I was trying to run the lumberjack and got a little distracted. I was trying to meet a train at Cheney, worried about getting out of his way since his engine had a camera taped on the nose and the operator was in the other room, doing a good job of looking like a misguided torpedo as he raced towards the fouling point I was still crossing. My entry was jarring, what with the short detector buzzing at crotch level, and the chorus of “Who’s on a switch!” rising […]

June 30, 2024

OpsLog – LM&O (Saturday Night Special) – 6/29/2024

man distinguished in his tweed jacket and ennobled by his bald spot puffs his pipe briefly before facing the camera. “Good evening. I’m your host and dispatcher Robert Raymond, club gopher and blogger for Orlando N-Trak club. And tonight, I bring you The Leigh, Monongahela and Ohio Review. This episode is titled A Study in Contrasts. “Moving westbound, imagine two sections of passenger 97. In First 97, we have plucky Pete F, an engineer new to Time Table and Train Order operations, enthusiastic to the point of running a bit ahead of his time, knowing he’s got a large five […]

July 14, 2024

ShowLog – Deland – 7/13/2024

o the show day started auspiciously. First, I got panhandled by a bum outside the donut shop at 5:30am : “Gimme a donut”. Then, in the pre-dawn darkness, I swung into the fairgrounds access road only to find a gate closed against me – I skidded and stopped in time, but if I’d hit that chainlink mesh I could have severely strained myself. Then it was touch and go, getting the trailer down the right road to the dock so we could get ready to set up. But Jeff handled it eighteen-foot show barge right onto the spot, we had […]

July 19, 2024

On Sheet – The Worst Sort

ith the withdraw of Covid and the resumption of the economy, our train club membership is booming. Our ops are packed now and there is a certain level of stress to be found in the tight aisle spaces and the large number of newbie operators unable to follow simple warranted instructions (and, of course, leaving turnouts open – it’s like sweeping for mines). But then there are the potential new members that are less than desirable. I’ll keep this purposefully vague. We had a couple tells us they were willing to join, along with their young child. That’s great – […]

July 22, 2024

OpsLog – WAZU – 7/21/2024

nother day on the Wazu. Came in and the host was a bit freaked – worried that we wouldn’t have enough people (it’s vacation season and a lot of people are traveling) (and Doc always freaks, anyway). But there was the discord network teletyping calls for crews and we got about two or three guys in that way. We weren’t at full staff but close enough to make it work. The session started off in the usual shit-show. I was manning the desk in the back, hunched over my train board and ignoring my monitors (I don’t want to see […]

August 25, 2024

OpsLog – FEC – 8/24/2024

ough day for me on the Florida East Coast. Evidently we simulated love-bug season. I could hardly see out of the cab and the wipers didn’t help. Squinting for half the session. But that comes in later. So Ken wanted to dispatch and in a surprise move, put Zach into the trim job (I’ve done it several times – it’s good casual fun). This, of course, meant we could all talk about Zach in the ops shed, so it was an amusing day. Delighted to find myself moving road units – been a long time. My first job was the […]

October 6, 2024

ShowLog – Deland – 10/5/2024

he night before the show. Getting a full eight is very important before the early morning setup, the all-day running, tear-down and take-home. Which is why I pulled a “Zach” and got about two hours of snooze. Actually, I hit the bed early enough but woke up in the middle of the might, my mind tumbling with club membership issues, show issues, and the upcoming convention next weekend (which I have to host operations for twenty hours AND give a clinic DURING a possible hurricane). So yes, a lot of my mind. The cats woke me up before the alarm […]

November 10, 2024

ShowLog – Lake Nona – 11/9/2024

o this is what an easy train show is like. Instead of getting up at 5am and running out to Deland to build our layout in the dark, then walk around it all day, with this show at Lake Nona Middle School we were able to go out on Friday and casually put things together. The next day, it was a leisurely local drive out. The layout was already up and ready – we just put trains on and ran. We had a lot of help this time around, with new members wearing their bright yellow bullseye shirts and really […]