Getting Real column - 11
13: An hour after the departure of the Log Train from
Merced Falls, the Merced Local arrived and made its
pickups and setouts. Here No. 29 carefully spots a
Great Northern box car along the planing mill shipping
dock. It will have plenty of time to complete this work
(and its other work) before leaving Merced Falls an
hour and 15 minutes after arrival (10 actual minutes).
13
at all water tanks or water plugs. Some of them are operational
so I demonstrate how those work. I also point out the need
to return all mainline switches to be lined for the mainline as
required by Rule 104, and remind them that all of the derails
on the layout are operational.
The goal
During the orientations, I also encourage operators to not
chat with each other about current day subjects, such as what
television show they watched the night before while waiting
for meets or a departure time. It is not a hard and fast rule,
but I like operators to get completely immersed in the time
and place being modeled. Ideally, by the end of the operat-
ing session they will have felt that, for a few hours, they were
MRH-Jul 2013
