Stuff happens ... deal with it!

Operating sessions are the times when we are rewarded by seeing our carefully constructed, well-thought out model railroads come to life in a thrilling display of realism.

Sometimes though, things don't go exactly as planned.

Take for example my latest operating session which, taking everything into consideration, was actually a very good session.  The crew members had a good time, I had a good time, and we did move a decent amount of traffic.  The railroad ran quite well from a mechanical standpoint.  We accomplished the goal that we all have by bringing this N Scale world to life.

We weren't, however, rewarded with a perfect session.  Yep, stuff happened.

First up was some failed communication between the dispatcher and the trainmaster/superintendent (ok, that would be me)  when a heavy loaded coal train's engineer made a valiant effort to walk his black diamonds up the mountain east of Glace, WV, without the pusher crew that was standing by at Glace ready to push him.  For some reason, the information didn't get to the dispatcher that the train needed a pusher, and neither the head end crew nor the pusher crew said a word about it.  "A" for effort though, because the engineer darn near made it up the grade until he stalled between Anderson and Ridge on the steepest part of the grade.  After some discussion between all involved, the pusher crew eased up behind the stalled coal train and pushed it all the way to Catawba, VA, as would have been originally required.

The result was significant delay to a westbound merchandise train that was in the siding between Ridge and Coleman waiting on what would have been a routine meet.  The ripple effect continued when another coal train suffered excessive delay in the siding between Glace and Cove Mountain waiting for the pusher to come all the way back from Catawba, VA.

That second coal train became a thorn in the dispatcher's side when he had a relatively important eastbound time freight calling that they were ready to depart Lewisburg, WV, after doing their work.  The dispatcher's plan was a good one, get the coal train started up the hill into the siding between Ridge and Cove Mountain, where the lighter and higher priority time freight could pass it.

Except....

That coal train, operating with a two-unit pusher and caboose and therefore being just a little bit longer than expected, was about a half of a caboose length longer than the siding between Ridge and Cove Mountain.   It wasn't looking good for time freight 136, as they'd have to follow this slow-moving coal train all the way up to the top of the hill at Paint Bank, VA.

No worries though, because 136's engineer eventually called from Coleman saying that their lead unit, a Conrail SD60M, wasn't loading and they had stalled on the hill.  The eventual solution to that problem was to have the pusher cut off the coal train upon arrival at Paint Bank and drift back down the hill to tie onto the ailing 136.  With that accomplished, 136 finally got to Paint Bank just in time for the first shift dispatcher to take his last Tylenol and turn it over to another victim.

Things went pretty well for awhile from there, oh, except for the yard at Roanoke being full and unable to take 136.  After discussions between the trainmaster and second shift dispatcher, it was agreed to tie that ill-fated 136 down between Red Sulphur and Catawba where a yard crew would take it over when there was a track available.

You might think that all of these complications would have led to a "bad time" at an operating session.  However, everyone seemed to be enjoying the added operational interest.  In fact, it was the idea of several of the crew members to actually handle their problems in a prototypical manner instead of using the giant hand from the sky to push their trains up the mountain or make other unrealistic moves. 

We have to look no further than the railroads we are trying to replicate to find examples of days when whatever can go wrong will go wrong.  It's all in the business of railroading.  Sure, if things like this happened every single operating session, it would get old.  But I was happy with the reaction of the crews when they decided to do it the "right way" and err on the side of realism.



Marcus