Train Blog
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 […]
August 18, 2024
ome of you are probably sitting up at this – where is Robert operating now? Tampa? Miami? Atlanta? Nome? Nope, right down at our own Orlando N-Trak Clubhouse. West Fork is the little switching layout Steve and I (mostly Steve) assembled. It runs on batteries (seemingly forever) and is interesting. Essentially you have a lead that can hold an engine and three cars. The main can hold five. The two sidings, three apiece. You’ve got eight cars to shuffle and need to get five (in the right order) on the main. Index switching? How long could this possibly take? Well, […]
July 28, 2024
kay, this one will be a tough one to write. Sure, the first train out got routed wrong out of the yard. There, are you happy? I admit it. To make it worse, the last train in also misrouted down the wrong track and hit a train on the departure tracks. So full disclosure. But while we’re spreading blame on toast, let’s not forget that every local, every local, worked long today. I had delays at Palm bay, at Pinetta, Buenaventura, Frontenac, Titusville and the whole Cocoa stretch. If locals worked clear of the main, they did fine. But work […]
July 25, 2024
a-ha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is “never get involved in a land war in Asia”, but only slightly less well-known is this: “Never dispatch a high-speed rail line using train sheets when death is on the line!” Or something like that. So I made the second blunder. You see, a train sheet (as shown below) is like a blank timetable. The dispatcher writes times as trains pass point, draws arrows to where they are cleared to. Also, and this is me, I’ll circle my meet points so I […]