train – Page 4 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

January 10, 2022

ShowLog – Deland – 1/9/2022

was able to attend the second day of the two-day train show (given that the proceeding three days had involved three operations sessions with hundreds of miles of highway driving and physically being on trailer duty for build day warranted a day off on Saturday). Got in at nine in the morning and started cleaning track. Overall our second show day was a pretty good day. We had a lot of visitors and a lot of kids got to run. Me, I ran black widow F3s with a long freight lashup behind them. It was pretty good running – other […]

January 27, 2022

OpsLog – LM&O – 1/26/2022

t was touch and go whether we’d get enough crew for a session but right before 7:30, the roster filled out. Some us took early trains, some of us had to wait for later trains, and some of us sat and chatted. And from the central table, many an amusing story was recounted. I picked one right off the bat – I’d given a buddy my Zanesville Turn but did the next best, a shakedown run of an express parts train from Mingo Interchange to the LeVasseur Plant. Brought over the cars, pushed them (racks and then long boxes) in […]

February 28, 2022

OpsLog – WAZU – 02/27/2022

o, if we thought we were running a lot of trains in tight confines for the LM&O the other night, we were sadly mistaken. The WAZU (running from Spokane to Portland) was the place to be in Oburg on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Great Guns, but was it a brisk day on the highline! So, since our last shaky session, we saw a number of improvements. First off, Bill’s card system was in full force this time around. This meant that the yards were busy and there were actually a couple of real life locals in place (maybe Bob K […]

March 20, 2022

OpsLog – LM&0 – 3/19/2022

t’s said that no plan survives the first contact with the enemy. It is also true for timetables surviving the first day’s operations. So Orlando N-Trak attempted something few clubs have ever tried – we ran a Saturday Night Special session under Time Table & Train Order. This (as you know) is the method used by most lines from 1840 until 1960 (or later). Essentially trains proceed by rights established by class and direction, making meets at established locations when they can, and earlier (if facing superior trains) when they can’t. And extras? They need to swim upstream keeping an […]

March 24, 2022

OpsLog – LM&O – 3/23/2022

o, the dispatchers report: not much for on-the-ground action, but you get the birds-eye view of the session, high above the muddy-cinder-level viewpoint of the engineers. I can tell you I kicked out 83 warrants, a good amount (which comes out to about one every two minutes or so – counting readback time (and calling overhead for information – more on that bitch-point later), that’s air-traffic-control-level busy. We ran five freights (I’m going to take 271 out next time I run – he’s been annulled twice now). We ran three of the four passenger trains. Two locals went out (Shelfton […]

April 3, 2022

ShowLog – Deland – 4/2/2022

hunder is booming and rain is spattering me in the face. I’m standing just clear of the coupler, waving my operator back. Lightning flashes. Rain is starting to come down a little harder. I’m going to get wet. “Ten feet,” I call. “Five. One. Inches. Good!” Bill comes back and in the gathering rain and wind, we couple the truck to the club trailer and link all the safety hooks up. Rain is splashing against my back now. Finally we’re coupled. Bill decides he’s going to position. “I’m going in,” I tell him. It’s a long walk back to the […]

May 1, 2022

OpsLog – WVN – 4/30/2022

here has to be a reason I crawl out of bed at 6 AM, hitting the road by twenty-after, running west for Tampa to operate on the West Virginia Northern. The sunrise in my rearview was breathtaking – the haze turned it into a giant molten ball imperfect with bands of clouds. Two cars pulled over on the side of I-4 to watch it. The rearview mirror gave me enough of a treat and a couple of miles more distance. And the fast food joint I always stop at, I had a quiet coffee over a book, eating an egg-McSomething. […]

May 30, 2022

OpsLog – TBL/WAZU – 5/29/2022

t all started because I wanted to introduce my friend Doc to micro layout switching and operations. I figured that he, Greg, myself and some undetermined person would give it a go. And that’s why I got to drive out to the club to drop my layout back off on Memorial Day morning, early, to clear out my wife’s car so she could use it. So what started as a quiet session for four turned into an all-day event, the Tuscarora Branch Line in the morning, the WAZU in the afternoon. And since my pal Greg went to dinner and […]

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. […]

June 24, 2022

On Sheet – A certain Point of View

o said Obi Wan Kenobi in one of the early StarWars movies: “A certain point of view”. But this isn’t about hedging your uncomfortable backstory, this blog is about ops. So last week, I mentioned how you could pick up a six-sided die and essentially run a loop or two on your layout, then roll the die to determine which car of your string was going to be cut on and placed on a siding. And if you did that, you might have looked at it in one of two way as you visualized your operation. Train-Centric :You might have […]