tuscarora – Page 6 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

September 3, 2025

OpsLog – Tusk Valley – 9/2/2025

??? So, maybe it was the OpsLog title that cued you, Tusk Valley? Or the picture of Espee power working East Tuscarora with one of those signature brown boxcars sitting at door 1 of the freight house? Are you honestly saying that one of the world’s smallest layouts has a new ops location – again? So first there was Tuscarora (officially Tuscarora Branch Line). That was all Pennsy stuff for the first year we ran it. Then it did a cameo as Tusk Hill (an English Midland’s railroad). And then a college kid brought in Tusk Coast (which is the ACL line running down […]

September 7, 2025

OpsLog – TBL – 9/6/2025

kay, this one is a tough one to write. This was quite possibly the worst session on record. This one ties that “fault 16” session from years ago. Okay, without naming names: What went wrong? It was pouring rain (in buckets) so everyone was wet and uncomfortable to start. The person we’d organized the session for didn’t make it. One person was a little lax in attention (sorry to call this out) and another faded near the end. The entire session seemed to crater. At the mid-afternoon point, I asked if they wanted to call it – the enthusiasm seemed […]

November 16, 2025

OpsLog – TBL – 11/15/2025

adn’t run Tuscarora (my microlayout) for some time so I announced I’d be at the clubhouse Saturday and figured I’d run the railroad on my own. That being the case, I got out all the cars I hadn’t fully tested (or struggled with in the past) set up and cleaned it, and got ready for action. Had an extra gondola car (dropped by the midnight eastbound) to spot over at the brewery and two coal hoppers deadheading about, so my session was going to be busy. The first two “scale” hours were pretty slow. Not only was I having to […]

January 1, 2026

OpsLog – TBL – 12/31/2025

es, so this is it, my last session for 2025 (unless someone calls in the next few minutes and I’m grabbing my throttle bag and running for the car). Anyway, I thought about going over to the clubhouse and running a quick session by myself. But I opened the invitation up – looks like everyone else was busy and I got one guy – Shemp. But that’s fine. This is the thing. This year, I ran in room-packer club sessions with 30+ people all working in tight harmony to get through the simulated day. I ran on structured layouts that […]

April 19, 2026

OpsLog – TBL – 4/18/2026

ince we had Deland behind us and a spare weekend, and Zeus was hammering me for a Tusk Coast session, we set up for a Saturday and made it a clubhouse open house for general members. Some did show up but my attention was locked on my Tuscarora. It was a busy summer day on our railroading epic. Of course, Zeus couldn’t be found the day before an I had no confirmation of what he’d bring for his ACL version of my railroad so I printed up Pennsy switchlists and set up with that in mind. We started with […]

June 21, 2026

OpsLog – TBL – 6/20/2026

o the Tuscarora Branch Lines was designed as a one-man show that eventually expanded to five positions (scheduled engineer, coal extra engineer, leverman, station operator and dispatcher) and even seven (two brakemen). It’s flexible. Was thinking of a run recently and Zeus (young man-about-town college guy) popped the thought of having a session this weekend. We set up for the title-mentioned-date, high noon. I also had one maybe and one suspected crew, so I prepped for four (even five) because sometimes people just show up. Turns out the maybes were maybe-nots and I got a call from Zeus at 12:05 […]