tuscarora

August 23, 2021

OpsLog – TBL – 8/21/2021

I’m slowly adding scenery to the Tuscarora – been busy with so many things. Anyway, had another session out at the club, a three-man job that was a lot of fun. We had John DV on the Coal and Greg running the local. Me, I took the tower/dispatcher post. It was fun but I realized how LONG it’s been since I ran it last. Man, I got the panel so tangled I had to just throw levers forward and reset. What a mess. Still, we got trains moving pretty good (though some situations arouse that had me running coal three […]
September 19, 2021

OpsLog – TBL – 9/18/2021

kay, ran a solo session of the Tuscarora (which I’ve done before) but only the coal side of things (which I’ve never done before). Since it was pointed out that it was a “spear-carrier” position on the railroad, I added a card game to give the operator some decision-making abilities in the session. Now there is a back story to every train. And here’s what I learned today. First off, it was a very busy session for me. I ran full switch-tower operations. And dispatcher. And the coal engineer. And the brakeman (on both sides of the layout) so yes, […]
September 21, 2021

OpsLog – TBL – 9/20/2021

ery busy night at the club. First there was the work session that went on until 8pm – we worked elements of Pittsburgh, fixed two turnouts, argued about signposts (bit one off in a dare – really), and then designed the steel mill trackage. After all that, everyone left and so I pulled out my Tuscarora Microlayout and had a coal session. Why? Well, we’re going to have a live session and I’m still working out the card method that drives the coal moves. As noted in earlier blogs, an engineer pointed out that coal felt meaningless – it was […]
September 26, 2021

OpsLog – TBL – 09/25/2021

ell, it was another run on the Tuscarora today. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to finally run the new coal job since my coal operator is out with medical issues. I posted to the club but got no takers. So it was just the hard-cores – Father and son Brian and Tyler, running with me for a nice and tidy session over two and a half hours. Gotta say this – since we weren’t running balls-to-the-wall like we usually do, Brian was able to study his timetable and actually learn the job. He began to understand why he was doing what […]
January 1, 2022

OpsLog – TBL – 12/31/2021

es, I was able to round out a wonderful year of operations (with all the covid concerns) on a high note, coming back to my personal favorite, my own Tuscarora Branch Line.           Now, before moving to what happened, a quick New Years Tally. Over the last year I was able to operate at the following places (ranked in order of attendance): TBL: 16 LM&O: 13 FEC: 4 WAZU: 2 WVN: 2 L&N: 2 TY&E: 1 P&WV: 1 WB: 1 So that totals out to forty-two ops sessions, pretty good all together. The Tuscarora I ran […]
January 23, 2022

OpsLog – TBL – 01/22/2022

nother running of the tiny but busy Tuscarora Branch Line, this time with my co-creator Greg and my friends Brian and Tyler. Not many improvements for it – the new ridge top is in and I’ve painstakingly painted up the Tuscarora downtown structures in Z-scale. Funny thing – Greg (as the coal engineer) is a little pissed that the ridge prevents him from seeing his operations around the Easton power plant. Of course, I point out that now he has to rely on the dispatcher to serve as his brakeman, calling his distances back – “Two cars. One car. Half. […]
April 23, 2022

OpsLog – TBL – 04/23/2022

irst thing: This will be the first of four ops sessions I’ll be attending this week. So get ready for my reports. I’ve not run my little crazy layout since January – three months. Just been busy with scenery on it, other things, life in general, you know. The big thing was my primary switcher, that Broadway Limited SW-7, had taken a dump. To reset it required something akin to a mix of safe-cracking and bomb-disposal: had to get the shell off (a major achievement) and then hold a button down while putting its trucks on a live layout. I […]
June 20, 2022

OpsLog – TBL – 06/19/2022

ather’s Day in Tuscarora, Pennsylvania, 1962. It’s a lazy weekend in the middle of summer. Somewhere in this idyllic town, boys are playing softball with their fathers. Being Sunday, the industries down by the tracks are closed. And with shippers being closed, the usual through traffic on the railroad is non-existent. But the mines are still working and eastern coal consumers, the powerplants and the export docks are in full swing. And for that, the rails are still humming from the passage of coal drags. Given the increasing length of the trains, the Pennsy has taken the RS units out […]
September 11, 2022

OpsLog – Tusk Hill (AKA TBL) – 09/10/2022

ell, this is one for the books. Train-buddy Kyle (who has English sympathies) chatted with me after our last Tuscarora Branch Line and proposed an interesting idea. He loves interlocking, especially English interlocking (to go with all his English trains). And while all I’ve got is Yankee interlocking, we decided to give a try to running my layout with English rolling stock and engines. So we set up a run with a four-person crew and gave it a whirl.     First off, Kyle’s equipment ran pretty flawless. We’re talking quality stuff. So those little steam engines, they could handle […]
September 27, 2022

OpsLog – TBL – 09/26/2022

ay what you will about model train ops being stressful, frustrating, and unfun. Whatever. I had to go to the club today to meet an AC repair guy and since Ian is going to blow away our Wednesday night club ops, I had nothing better to do. So I figured I’d run a Monday afternoon session on the Tuscarora Branch Line with just myself. My friend Greg wants to get better at the interlocking position so he agreed to come as well. So after the AC guy recharged our system and dumped a bill on us, we started the clock […]