At the throttle

Train Blog

January 22, 2023

OpsLog – TBL – 1/21/2023

fter a long weekend at a train convention (and two weeks of ensuing covid isolation) I was able to return to duty on the Tuscarora. The railroad surgeon cleared me for service. And back I went to the dispatcher’s desk. Also on duty was Kyle (on interlocking), his father Phil (on Scheduled trains) and Greg (on Coal). Yes, so we had a rusty lever-thrower, a rookie on the timetable and a coal guy who forgot how the tally sheet worked. I guess that’s why we ran four hours on the session. Still, Phil (even though he is a model railroader, […]
January 20, 2023

On Sheet – Broken Coupler

o we had a show. But I had covid. I’d have to miss it. Turns  out we suffered a crisis during the load and, even though I was thinking of early-to-bed, I had to call the membership and warn them. This turned into a problem solving effort. The details of what happened are outlined HERE. Read ’em and weep. The point of that sob story is the point of a train club. When it’s just you with a 4×8 in the basement, you just work on it when you feel like it. But when you join a club, a lot […]
January 19, 2023

ShowLog – Deland – 1/(14&15)/2023

et’s be up front about this. I’m one of those media guys who is reporting on something I did not attend. Two shows ago, I was recovering from surgery in the hospital. Last time (the fall show) we had a hurricane and got cancelled. And this time, I got Covid (likely from CovidRails the weekend before). And I wore a mask and everything. Even through I’m not showing symptoms anymore, I’m still hot and still staying clear. But it wasn’t like I wasn’t involved. Steve Raiford had set everything up. We had crews marked up and superintendents outlined. Even sidelined, […]
January 13, 2023

On Sheet – Call me!

ou might remember the cookie story from a few OpsLogs ago – about how a crew finished up and went off duty and my entire north end of my railroad was waiting for him to reappear (as the paperwork stated) – it’s right HERE. Yeah, two guys stood in sidings at either end of my missing wack-a-mole, waiting 15 real minutes until he sauntered past with a cookie – munch munch munch. Here’s the deal – in my many years (two decades) of dispatching, if there is one things crews do that drive me nuts – it’s not calling the […]
January 10, 2023

OpsLog – P&WV – 1/5/2023

o the second half of Ops Day (which started on the VSW) resumed one hour of driving later, following a large Italian dinner graciously provided by our hosts. And the thing is, after a two hour trip over from their east-coast accommodations, four-five hours of heavy ops on Wilke’s coal line, another hour and a good meal, the crews were a bit loggy. Our ops were not the best. Everyone was just tired. I was tucked in the back room on the dispatcher panel, working through my warrants (I wrote eighty-ninety warrants overall that day across nine hours of ops). […]
January 10, 2023

OpsLog – VSW – 1/5/2023

irst session of the new year, a double header that started at John Wilke’s Virginia & SouthWestern (this was an informal ops session linked indirectly to ProtoRails 2023 in Cocoa Beach). And as usual, I got an invitation to bring my dispatching mojo to the session, to keep things running and entertainment (and speeds) high. And in that, I was mostly successful. So I ran the heavy panel (the L&N) while a visitor named Paul ran the easier Southern Railroad. Fortunately the CTC board (used to control the shared trackage at Edison Jct and Goodbee) was working top-notch this time […]
December 31, 2022

OpsLog – TBL – 12/30/2022

nless someone passes out and a person waves a throttle around and shouts, “Is there a model train operator in the house?”, this was my last session for my busy 2022. We had a quiet Friday afternoon session over at the clubhouse, just a couple of good friends and myself running the Tuscarora. The standing rule was (since there is a bit of a demand for the newly reprogrammed tower) is that after eight hours, engineers can swap out with tower operators. And it worked out well; the coal guy switched out with the tower and positions stabilized for the […]
December 30, 2022

On Sheet- Gilding someone else’s parachute

or the last twenty years of my career, I worked for a transportation company that is colored purple. Yes, those guys. And I really loved it. I was a “meh” of a coder but when I got into management, I shined. I was a great team lead and process guy. We got the team running on all cylinders by the time I retired. I must have done well – I had about a hundred people at my retirement party and it went on all afternoon. One of the things our testing department did (which I couldn’t stand) was the “morning […]
December 29, 2022

OpsLog – LM&O – 12/28/2022

ot my last session of the old year, but damn close. And I’m happy to say I didn’t send out this year with a bang (of trains hitting each other – hard). But it was a rough night, rough enough that when I finally ran the last freight train myself and then ejected the carbon-dioxide club into the cold at 11pm, I went home, had a beer, binge-snacked and watched anime. No more trains for now. We got everything running okay but I made an honest-to-dispatcher mistake early – had a passenger train with orders to meet a local, but […]
December 23, 2022

On Sheet – Expedited TT&TO

mentioned that at our last special session on the LM&O, we ran TT&TO. Now, TT&TO (or Time Table & Train Order) operations requires that trains run according to the times printed on their timetables. Meets are specified. However, if the dispatcher needs to change a meet point for any reason, he issues a train order to the involved trains passing their stations, giving them rights over what is specified in their time table and rulebook. Generally, an order to change a meet might read TRAIN 98 MEET TRAIN 99 AT SAN LUIS OBISPO. However, there are two problems with TT&TO […]