Train Blog
October 24, 2024
t seems like the trope of railroad fiction; a moment where the high railroad summit is packed with trains and the grizzled dispatcher has to ask a young cub engineer to pull off a move that, if it fails, will lock up the railroad for hours. And that is exactly how it went down. At the 2/3rds point, I had traffic building in Red Rock and Lehigh, the summit approaches. They were pretty plugged. To get trains out, I needed to run a bunch over the hill. To clear Red Rock for westbound moves, I needed to get Jude’s long […]
October 20, 2024
nice summer day on the Tuscarora – an aspect we’ll mention a bit later. Greg and I were thinking of a two-man run but got enough interest to bump it up to six. Of course, I got there two hours early and set up in thirty minutes (why do I do this (because I’m usually freaking before ops, I’d wager)). But the guys all came out and were ready to run. I spent some of the down time explaining to the new guys how it worked (yes, this isn’t simply a tiny 2×4 foot train layout). But of course, they’d […]
October 6, 2024
he night before the show. Getting a full eight is very important before the early morning setup, the all-day running, tear-down and take-home. Which is why I pulled a “Zach” and got about two hours of snooze. Actually, I hit the bed early enough but woke up in the middle of the might, my mind tumbling with club membership issues, show issues, and the upcoming convention next weekend (which I have to host operations for twenty hours AND give a clinic DURING a possible hurricane). So yes, a lot of my mind. The cats woke me up before the alarm […]
September 26, 2024
wake up in a sunny room. Surprising, It’s not the train crew flophouse I’m used to. A woman in white comes in to put a vase of flowers on the sill. Is this Heaven? No, wait – she’s a nurse! Is this a hospital? Was my train in a wreck? Then I see the embroidered lettering on her apron. Zanesville Sanitarium. I’m in the nut house! Yes, you guys put me there. What a frustrating session. I think I must have answered about thirty questions and found at least two drifting engines that had shorted the layout. It’s a little […]
September 16, 2024
‘d just had a massive operation session the night before and hadn’t left the wind-down barroom post-brief until 1am. So why did I put myself back into the DS desk the very next day for another ops session, this time on ACL-flavored Tuscarora? Well, I’m easy. Far-away Student Zeus asked and I’m always willing to scrape up a session. So we had me on the DS panel, Greg on scheduled trains, Zeus on Coal, Zach as leverman and Mike on the station desk. So we were ready to go. The first half the session went well enough (better than the […]
September 16, 2024
n one sense, our Saturday Night Special club ops was a shambles. Stuff broke. Trains did all sorts of unapproved maneuvers. The clock ran hyper at 15:1 and reset with each reprogramming. I had to go dump a Guinness afterwards. On the other hand, it was glorious. See, this was a training session, a chance for everyone who has wallflowered or wanted to try newer, more difficult jobs to give them a chance. We went over the warrants so all the operators would be knowledgeable [sic]. And we told everyone that everyone around them was just as inexperienced, meaning goofs […]
September 9, 2024
he first perimeter defense, the outer gate, was wide open. It was almost like a trap. Cautious ingress. The second defense, the savanna out front, was similarly trespassed. While it was rumored to be the killing fields of several apex predators, the grass had been foolishly mown back, allowing perfect visibility. The final obstacle was the steel door. Even clearly marked – Members Only – the knob was loose, unlocked. There had to be a trap – ninja blades, kill lasers. It had been too easy. So, taking hold of her ten-year-old decoy, she shaved it through the door to […]
August 29, 2024
hese great, dumb beasts, moving as one, plodding through dust and adversity in their drive towards their distant goal. Small stupid eyes peer from beneath their shaggy manes, nosing their fellows, driving on and on, clutching their trains under their arms… What? Yeah, I’m not talking buffaloes here. I’m talking about the general rush for the door, the one-and-done deal where half the club is out the door and heading home to their nightcaps and their Tonight Shows. Those who stick to their throttles were looking around about 9:20pm (real time AND train time), wondering if the rapture had happened […]
August 25, 2024
ough day for me on the Florida East Coast. Evidently we simulated love-bug season. I could hardly see out of the cab and the wipers didn’t help. Squinting for half the session. But that comes in later. So Ken wanted to dispatch and in a surprise move, put Zach into the trim job (I’ve done it several times – it’s good casual fun). This, of course, meant we could all talk about Zach in the ops shed, so it was an amusing day. Delighted to find myself moving road units – been a long time. My first job was the […]
August 19, 2024
ub leverman Zeus H had a dream job for a young man about to enroll in Miami Dade College; midnight shift working the levers on Atlantic Coast Line’s Tusk Coast Interlocking Tower. But then a miscommunication between him and Station Operator Kyle put the West Drill out on the main, with rights over all trains, moments before Extra 5001 – the first section of three lugging pea-grade down from the scattered Westly tipples – rang the inbound announciator. The Drill’s cars were scattered over the Tenmile Creek trestle in mid-classificaiton, under rights of seniority granted by his office. Zeus looked […]