Virgina – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

October 17, 2021

OpsLog – P&WV – 10/16/2021

y second session of the Plant City Convention took place over at the Pittsburgh & West Virginia. Like the L&N, I got in under boomer law – I was “assisting”. But unlike the other layout, this time there were no Meddling Cody’s to take my seat. This time I was dispatching. So the session went well. Tom’s layout is great to run (even with the East and West confusion that still lingers in the train names). We ran under warrants (I think Tom called this right – under TT&TO, we’d have been sunk by the newbies). As it came out, […]

November 7, 2021

OpsLog – WVN – 11/06/2021

harlie might be ecstatic over his golden ticket to the chocolate factory. But it’s nothing compared to getting a slot on the the Komar’s West Virginia Northern. I mean, crap’s stake, I gotta get up at 6am, leave by 6:30 and drive for over two hours (in the rain) to get there. Yeah, it’s that good! Don’t believe me? How about this? Since I was first in the door, I got first dibs on job and I took my new favorite, the Ashbury Hostler. My post was way down in the back of this photo (you can just make out […]

March 27, 2022

OpsLog – VSW – 03/26/2022

he third ops session in a week (starting with Night Ops last Saturday and Club Ops Wednesday), a great run of John Wilke’s massive and amazing Virginia SouthWestern. So this was an effort to get Orlando N-Trak to get out of its tiny clubhouse and into the larger world of Central Florida layouts. John was nice enough to open his layout for us; still, all sorts of problems, scheduling conflicts, people dropping out, a truck with three of us nearly breaking down on the side of the highway, everything going wrong. But once we got there, what a session! We […]

September 5, 2022

OpsLog – WVN – 9/3/2022

‘m in my hard wooden chair in a West Virginia Northern caboose, my coffee sloshing about my green company cup as I ride the rough rails down from Clifton Forge to Harris, a line of WVN green boxes banging along. I hear the head-end throw an uneasy four-note whistle as we reach the engine house grade crossing just outside of town. The engineer in the iron seat up front is a newbie. But it’s not what you would expect, not some gnarled tobacco-spitting local boy made good, no. It’s my wife. JB came along with me to run on the […]

October 9, 2022

OpsLog – P&WV – 10/7/2022

‘m going to tread carefully on this blog post. So, like, What the fug? Tom Wilson opened up his layout for guests of the 2022 National Model Railroad Association Convention. He’d even contacted me a month before and asked if I could dispatch (don’t toss me in the briar patch, right?). With advanced signup and money on the barrel head (I forget how much I paid) we filled up the roster, a crew of nine. It was going to be a great time. I got there early, had a look at some of his new scenery, then went into the […]

April 16, 2023

OpsLog – VSW – 4/15/2023

here are a thousand (well, maybe a hundred) stories that happen in the usual ops session. Since I’m sealed away in the dispatcher’s office, I only see a handful of them. I do know about the Post Switcher leaving Norton Yard and working for a half hour on my mainline (that from the superintendent). And there is that train out of Erlanger that came up the super collider helix at a high rate of speed, blowing out of the topside tunnel portal like a bullet from a rifle, overrunning his authority limits and nearly torpedoing an L&N train crossing the […]

January 5, 2024

OpsLog – VSW – 1/4/2024

om Wilson could easily play the role of Father Christmas with his warm grin and twinkling eyes. So that is why we find him in an huge stuffed easy chair before a roaring fire. In his lap is a large book. “Tonight, Children,” he says with an smile so infectious, it could be an STD in The Villages, “I shall read you a story. It is called, The Tale of the Two Dispatchers.” So there once was a land with two dispatchers, the Virginia Southwestern. The Southern dispatcher ran a line staffed with merry country people who ran their trains […]

October 12, 2026

OpsLog – WVN – 10/10/2026

nother day railroading in the hectic month of October, packed between a Deland show and an NMRA convention. I mean, hell, do guys who fish have months like this? Or do I have a problem and need help? So anyway, Kyle and I toodled over early and met up with the crew, most of us sitting around and talking about old-people ailments we suffer (Kyle was, of course, silent). I thought I had a pretty exciting month but got beat by everyone. I guess if you’re going to lose a competition like this, well, that’s fine. Anyway, we survivors (the […]