WAZU – Page 2 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

August 21, 2023

OpsLog – WAZU – 8/20/2023

kay, so I’m told if you can’t say anything good about someone’s dispatching, don’t say anything. … … <crickets> … … … … Is that long enough? What’s the statute of limitations on this? I will mention that my first train into Umatila (ordered to the siding, and precious to me, given the long wait to get that warrant) had me on approach to find a bank of headlights from two facing trains (it looked like an alien mothership, so bright) shining at me in the early morning hours. Only that checkbox 4 (watch for trains (plural) ahead) kept me […]

January 29, 2024

OpsLog – WAZU -1/28/2024

‘m kind of guessing that seconds before the WAZU railroad started, our host Doc Andy was dreaming that all his operators might somehow spontaneously combust. If that did happen, he could have used the dust buster to sweep us up. Then he’d turn out the lights and lock the door. And that would be that. At go time, the layout clocks were totally messed up (I am very familiar with the brand he uses yet I had no idea why I couldn’t slave/master them correctly). And his dispatching computer software lasted all of five minutes before crashing. He was already […]

March 11, 2024

OpsLog – WAZU – 3/10/2024

guess operations can be like getting an old violin in tune. You turn the tuning peg one way and it sounds like a goose being choked (nothing out of you, JW). The other way, and it’s a fart in a wet suit. But if you get it juuuuuust right, the music is beautiful. That’s what happened on the WAZU today. For months we’ve been tinkering with this line, trying to get it to work right. See, the WAZU (simulating high speed rail traffic between Seattle and Portland) never quite hit that right note. The dispatching was too slow, the staging […]

April 22, 2024

OpsLog – WAZU – 4/21/2024

guess it comes from bumming around the Netherlands for two weeks. Everywhere you go, you see trains zip past. And Central Station in Amsterdam has more rail traffic in and out that a Christmas tree layout. Every five minutes, a sleek blue train from the Dutch Railways bursts into the sunset, flying across fields and vaulting canals. And here, we just crashed a couple of trains at Folkston, GA, in what sounds like a complete stooges act of train safety. But those Dutch trains – poetry in motion. Look, for American railroading, Doc Andy likes creating fast lines. It’s Union […]

May 6, 2024

OpsLog – WAZU – 5/5/2024

need you to run manifest 223,” the dispatcher told me. “It’s almost two hours late.” So fine. In minutes I was rattling through the Spokane throat, running at track speed, wheels sparking off the multiple frogs and points. I was reminded of the old flick Broadway Limited. These were the times you needed to lean out of the cab window, face into the wind, sliding your goggles over your eyes. Then I thought of something. “Dispatcher, 223. What’s my authority to?” “Pasco yard. And move it. I want you to make up time.” “Got it. Highball.” Hit Pasco and Klauck […]