At the throttle

Train Blog

March 25, 2024

OpsLog – Tusk Hill – 3/24/2024

Dear Mother, I’m happy to relate that my employment on some nameless Midlands railroad, specifically in the area of Tusk Hill Tower, is going swimmingly. I started as a controller, and my progression since then has been been astounding. Controller (as I said) to passenger train driver, to goods driver, to shunter. I’ve put in for a wiper job now that I’ve confirmed it has nothing to do with the WC. My career has been meteoric, specifically when one considered where impact craters come from. It was quite astounding to see how seven operators could run an eight-square-foot layout, moving […]
March 22, 2024

On Sheet – A CTC Game

he whole thing about CTC (CentralizedTraffic Control) is pretty cool. It allows a dispatcher hundreds of miles away to set signals and turnouts, getting far more utility out of track than earlier methods. However, finding a layout that uses it is very difficult (in Florida, I know one full CTC layout and another that only sets turnouts (signals don’t do anything at this time)). So if you wish to experience it, either you find one of those layouts or you play a simulator. Which I”m including here: https://randallhook.com/railroad-dispatcher/play/ Now, keep in mind that this game was not quite completed – […]
March 19, 2024

OpsLog – TBL – 3/18/2024

hat? Didn’t I just have a session the other night? Yes I did, with friends, as reported HERE. But I had an urge to run (I was managing the tower all last session) and I wanted to run my SW-7 in a little more – it’s so sweet now with a Paragon 4 chip. So I set up the layout and ran after the work session was complete. Hey, I was out there anyway. Rather than the blow-by-blow I usually do, let me mention a new “scenario” for operations on my Pennsy line. Now, boomers on my line no the […]
March 18, 2024

OpsLog – TBL – 03/17/2024

ight on the heels of working the Virginia SouthWestern (as detailed HERE) I boomered a job up north, taking the night train up to drop off the very next day in Tuscarora, my favorite stomping grounds. Apparently the tower has been down for maintenance issues over the last few months. Finally the interlocking has reopened (or so the head maintainer told me) – it’s run only one day so far under limited operations (with the mines closed, as detailed HERE). With Tuscarora down, all trains have been picking up orders elsewhere – the tower temporarily lost its train order station […]
March 18, 2024

OpsLog – VSW – 3/16/2024

once read a book – Goshawk Squadron – about a maniacal squadron commander in World War One who is drilling his men to be killers. Even in a lazy afternoon aerial drill, his pilots try to get close and pop a couple of shots his way, only to dive clear when he swings towards them. Nobody knows if he’ll shoot back or what. It’s like kittens fighting when the claws come out. Today’s session on the Virginia South Western was like that. No matter what went wrong and what delays we faced, everyone tried to pop a couple of shots […]
March 15, 2024

On Sheet – Advice (Part 2)

n our last blog, I mentioned about getting advice from a kid in the middle of a brutal dispatching session. But sometimes advice can be useful. I was over at a great layout on the east coast of Florida. Nice line with CTC control and a lot of interesting switching. There is one job that runs down from the yard and works a very tight industrial area. One industry, a truss factory, sits across the main. Everything is is forward, and it’s all facing point, so it’s got that going for it. I’d just gotten down the hill when one […]
March 14, 2024

OpsLog – WVN – 3/9/2024

fter a good West Virginia Northern ops session with my friends Jeff and Kyle, we’re rolling home contentedly (from Tampa to Orlando by way of Atlanta, it seems). And while we’re all grinning like smug Buddhas, someone asks, “So, what are you going to blog about, Robert? Nothing really went wrong.” Well, there are moments. One of my favorites was when I was working Ashbury West End and Kyle was Hostler, lugging a massive steam Saturn V out of the roundhouse and onto the turntable, destined for an outbound train. The Keystone coal train had just come in, five hoppers […]
March 12, 2024

OpsLog – TBL – 3/11/2024

uick one tonight. Apparently Steve finally got a handle on the Tuscarora issue. He swapped out the chips under the tower and that seems to have fixed it. Big relief. To test this, I ran a full session by myself, going through the freight paces, working a basic session all the way through. The only thing that went wrong is that my BLI SW-7 (bought from Mike, weathered by Chris) suddenly lost throttle control. I’ve seen this before and just re-addressed. And now, for some reason, the rear headlight is always on. Kyle had hung around late and helped me […]
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 […]
March 8, 2024

On Sheet – Advice (Part 1)

kay, I’m a firm sixty-five years old. Been in the hobby since I was five. Been in the club for thirty-five years and running ops on the layout (the original dispatcher) for twenty-five years. Yeah, I’m a fixture. We just picked up a new kid, looks like mid-twenties. He knows it all and makes comments about the other members openly (pretty ballsy, given that he’s been in the club for three weeks). But the real ass-chapper came last week during ops. Was at the panel (as I usually am). This railroad now runs on high volume – in this evening, […]