trak

t was an interesting session at the club tonight. Since my goatee glue isn’t dry yet and excessive talking might make it fall into my lap (dire consistences abound), I turned the dispatcher job over to young Jason (I still worked the computer display and reviewed all outbound warrants for correctness and homicidal omissions).  But he did pretty good – once I get him checked out on the panel, I’ll cup him like a little bird and let him fly, fly, fly… …and I can imagine the other members loading birdshot. But overall, Jason did fine. We did have a […]

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 […]

ur group seems to form great teams of solid operators. A lot of layouts ask for us, even confirm that we can make it before announcing a session. Among other places that request us, there are the Virginia SouthWestern, the West Virginia Northern, the Florida East Coast and the Western Bay. It’s a shame that if we did not actually build and maintain the Leigh, Monongahela & Ohio we probably wouldn’t have been invited at all. I mean, look at last night’s session. First off, there was all the dramas before the clock even went hot. I actually approved of […]

t was the best of times, it was the worst of times. But doesn’t every OpsLog start like this? The important thing here is that we gradually get better. In prepping the photographs for this blog, I noticed a number of properly-done background things (such as cars off-spotted correctly). As simple as it seems, it means that our operators are learning. Every session is a bit better than the last. And so, in this blog, I’ll be listing the lessons we (or, at least, “I”) learned. You’ll see them in bold. Okay, from my point of view, I came on […]